Sales Prospecting Perspectives

I just wrapped up my first fall Sunday Funday. We watched the Pats, had some friends over, cooked some fall-inspired food, and may have had one or two pumpkin beers. This is my absolute favorite time of year. It's a fresh new start as we close out the summer and get ready to start the last quarter of the year. An influx of new customers goes hand in hand with that, and it’s always exciting to kick off new client engagements.

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest blog from Sharmin Kent, Marketing Content Specialist at TinderBox. 

Now that the average B2B buyer is more than halfway through her purchase decision before engaging with a sales rep, it's critical that the content propelling a prospect through the pipeline is informative and relevant. An organization's marketing team is usually responsible for creating sales content, and communication and collaboration between the two departments can be rare.

Editor's Note: This blog post is an excerpt from the eBook Marketers Making a Difference: Volume 3 about creating a comprehensive B2B marketing strategy. It was written by AG Salesworks' Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales Richard April. 

Having a detailed understanding of your ideal customer is a key starting point for a truly comprehensive marketing strategy. To gain this insight, initiate a buyer persona exercise with all the key stakeholders from sales, marketing, support, product management, operations, development, etc. Broader input will yield more detailed insight into these personas. It is important to the success of this exercise to have senior executive buy in and participation.

AG Salesworks is pleased to bring you a guest post from Anum Hussain, Inbound Marketing Manager for HubSpot. 

When I see a post on Facebook with an incredibly long, UTM riddled link ... I cringe. It only takes an extra minute to turn that into a shortened bit.ly link!

I get it. Updating and maintaining your business’ various social media accounts is a time suck. The fact that you’re even using Facebook is a blessing. But if you just invested a mere extra two minutes per update to optimize that post for success, over time you’ll see your Facebook metrics improve.

Editor's Note: This blog post is an excerpt from the eBook Marketers Making a Difference: Volume 3 about creating a comprehensive B2B marketing strategy. It was written by AG Salesworks' Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales Richard April. 

It's time to dive into developing a comprehensive marketing strategy. I stress “comprehensive” because I think it is important to consider every avenue that may be relevant to and most importantly get you in front of your target audience. Determine the ideal mix of every element that will yield the best results and tie as many aspects as possible together to compound the impact of each campaign or element. To achieve this you will need to not only test, measure and repeat, but pay close attention to what you learned from buyer persona exercises and how they go about making purchasing decisions.

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a post from Tamara Graves, Senior Director of Demand Generation at NetProspex. 

The holidays have passed and marketers are focusing on what will make them more effective and successful in 2014. Through conversations around the office between sales and marketing, we created a list of the top five topics we believe will be on every marketer's priority list for this year.

You've read the quotes: 

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“If you don't know where you are going,

you'll end up someplace else.”

― Yogi Berra  

“Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”

― Warren Buffett

Yet so few of us plan adequately.  And of those of us that do, many don’t execute effectively.  Over the years, I have witnessed the power of a well-executed plan many times.  Unfortunately, I have also seen the results of either a poorly executed plan or no plan at all.  Not pretty.  There is always a detailed explanation as to what went wrong.  The marketplace, competition, not enough marketing support.  The list goes on and on.  

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Chris Snell, Inside Sales Manager at Care.com

Wow – I can’t believe I just typed those title words. 

So, I’m at home the other night and perusing Facebook, and I see a few people that I’m connected with posting videos about Ashton Kutcher and this great speech that he gave at the Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Awards. First of all, the fact that the Nick Kid’s Choice Awards is catching my attention is because I have a kid, so don’t judge. Second, though, was the fact that people were talking about Ashton Kutcher. “Kelso” from That '70s Show, you know? Mr. Demi Moore? I guess he’s been more in the public eye lately because of his portrayal of Steve Jobs in the aptly named Jobs (which is getting horrible reviews on Rotten Tomatoes). So, I’m game, I’ll check out what this video is all about.

I am so lucky when it comes to clients. I am fortunate enough to work with individuals who truly value what we do and trust our processes. They trust that we are the experts, and that’s the key to every successful customer engagement we run as a company.

This week was a busy one at AG Salesworks. During the first half of the week, our inside sales reps were passing leads like crazy. Their leads were so hot that a small electrical fire started in the office on Tuesday! No worries, though; we’re all safe, and there was just a bit of smoke in AG Central. After that, there was more excitement: The Summer AG Olympics. I’m happy to announce that Team USA won! Find pictures and more about this event on our Facebook.