Sales Prospecting Perspectives

With a family background in sales, it’s no wonder I love competition, organization, and numbers. I like that every month your slate is wiped clean and you have another 30 days to crush your numbers. But not only is sales a month-to-month game; it's also quarterly and yearly. The cycle in which we work in inside sales is organized and allows you to plan your time accordingly.

AG Salesworks is pleased to bring you a guest post from Janelle Johnson, Director of Demand Generation at Act-On Software. 

For sales and marketing teams, reaching across the aisle can be a foreign concept. In some cases, that’s putting it mildly.

To be sure, there are salespeople and marketers who comfortably co-exist. Sometimes they even eat lunch together.

But the prevailing opinion is firmly entrenched: Sales and marketing just don’t get along. Don’t understand each other. Don’t cooperate. Aren’t aligned. And, as a consequence, campaign ROI often suffers.

It’s the middle of the shortest month of the year, and between calls I hear the familiar orchestra of different off-putting sounds from other cubes: wheezing, coughing, sniffling, sneezing, and zombie-like groans of inside sales reps plagued with cold and flu symptoms.

Our job is to find highly qualified sales leads for our customers that will lead to qualified opportunities. Our clients come to us with a need to fill their pipeline and want us to do so as quickly and effectively as possible. One of the first questions usually asked when speaking with potential or brand new customers is what we ­recommend for a call strategy for the campaign. To be more clear, customers who are either outsourcing or supplementing their teleprospecting efforts to us want to know if calling efforts should be focused on cold calls, follow ups on warm leads from marketing events, or target accounts identified by their own outside sales reps.

In my opinion, the answer to this question is fairly straightforward: calling efforts should be focused on all three areas because the potential of uncovering great leads can come from any of these sources. Sure, there are caveats, like the amount of resources and time you are able to allocate to each, but in general, I think the best route is to mix things up and call into a few different sources at any given time.

Let’s get excited. Why is hitting sales goals important now and in the future?

• You can make the most amount of money possible at this time.

• You set yourself up for future career success by building a strong resume with which to sell yourself.

• Hitting your goal increases motivation for future successes.