Sales Prospecting Perspectives

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Katie Kelly, Associate Inbound Marketing Specialist at HubSpot.

Traditionally, we think of BDRs as energetic, hungry, cold-calling machines. How can we get a prospect into taking a meeting? How can we get creative with our voicemails or sales pitches?

This worked well for decades - that was until our little friend, The Internet, arrived.

I have always been a firm believer that there are two types of people in this world: those who have children and those who don’t. The reason I differentiate between them is that those who don’t have children tend to think they are the best parents in the world, and some insist on telling you how to raise your kids.

Now, a bit about me: I am a father of three with a boy and two girls.  I have had my share of experiences with people saying things like, “I would never do that with my kids,” or, “You’re doing that?”  I have to admit, there was a time, before I had children, that I remember saying, “Oh my, I would never feed my kids french fries.”  Friends and family fall into one of these two groups. But when or if they have children, their opinions about parenting usually change, and they start to understand how difficult a task it is and stop judging others for their choices. The same can be said regarding outsourcing lead generation for sales and marketing.

It’s new hire season (at least over here at AG)! We’ve seen several new faces this week, and with college graduations just around the corner, we’ll be seeing even more! Jumping into a new lead generation or inside sales career can be intimidating, but everyone has to start somewhere. I really enjoy working with AG’s new hires, and I’ve come up with the following pieces of advice to help new inside sales reps start off on the right foot.

Over the summer, the AG team created a list of 50 traits an inside sales rep should have.  Number 43  was that an inside sales rep should be invested. Being invested has always been something that I relate to as a Senior Business Development Representative here at AG.  The main traits and skills that I feel an inside sales rep should have to be invested are: Devotion, Persistence, Active Listening.

One of the things I enjoy most about working for AG Salesworks is that we're a people-first company. I know it sounds hokey, but it's true. If we didn't take care of the things that make us go, then we would have folded up shop long ago.  

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a post fromTiffany Fenore, a Business Development Representative at AG Salesworks.

Something that everyone in the sales profession can relate to is rejection! Most of us in business development roles experience rejection early, on a day-to-day basis, and it often starts as an objection. Objections can be viewed as a roadblock to the untrained rep and even some seasoned prospectors forget to view the response as a gateway to further the conversation. Objections are the perfect “in” to engage and challenge prospects. They have opened up the discussion and have unknowingly allowed you to cater your message to their pains and needs to see if they are a fit for your product and/or service.

There are 4 common objections we typically see:

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a post from Tiffany Fenore, a Business Development Representative at AG Salesworks. This is her blogging debut. 

There is more to being a great inside sales rep than just passing leads. In my experience, I have found that one of the most important aspects of my job is having a strong relationship with my clients. The success of each campaign hinges on our ability to effectively manage our client relationships, and in order to do so a inside sales rep needs to demonstrate three key attributes: Confidence, Communication, and Expertise.

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Christine Rochelle, Integrated Marketing Manager at lotus823.

Each and every work week at lotus823 is kicked off by a roundtable staff meeting and of course plenty of Diet Coke to go around.

Once our co-founder David Hernandez is able to bring the buzz of the room down, he walks us through each of our current business development opportunities for the agency.

Instead of jumping to discussing brand strategy or services, David always gears the conversation into a discussion about our personal relationship with the potential client contacts and what they would like to accomplish for their team and for the brand.