Sales Prospecting Perspectives

This blog post is part three of a series of video blogs about the impact of technology on sales. See part one here and part two here. 

A few weeks ago I was putting together an email campaign to send out as a follow up to my client’s sales initiative, but I was having some difficulty setting up an integration tool on my computer. However, I knew that a sales rep on my client’s team was fairly tech savvy and had done some troubleshooting before, so I reached out to him asking for help. As I sat on the web conference using a program I had downloaded for free, I wasn’t dazed in the least when my colleague took control of my screen and walked me through each step. Within 5 minutes he had shown me how to set up everything perfectly!

After our conversation, I realized how much  of the technology we were using I had taken for granted. Not only was I about to greatly improve the amount of activity I could produce within a day, but I was working with a colleague who was half way across the country as if he were sitting next to me in my cube. That got me wondering: What other changes in technology have had the biggest impact on how we communicate and operate in sales? I’ve interviewed a few of our sales veterans to see what changes in sales technology they feel have made the biggest impact within the past decade.

This blog post is part two of a series of video blogs about the impact of technology on sales. See part one here. 

A few weeks ago I was putting together an email campaign to send out as a follow up to my client’s sales initiative, but I was having some difficulty setting up an integration tool on my computer. However, I knew that a sales rep on my client’s team was fairly tech savvy and had done some troubleshooting before, so I reached out to him asking for help. As I sat on the web conference using a program I had downloaded for free, I wasn’t dazed in the least when my colleague took control of my screen and walked me through each step. Within 5 minutes he had shown me how to set up everything perfectly!

After our conversation, I realized how much  of the technology we were using I had taken for granted. Not only was I about to greatly improve the amount of activity I could produce within a day, but I was working with a colleague who was half way across the country as if he were sitting next to me in my cube. That got me wondering: What other changes in technology have had the biggest impact on how we communicate and operate in sales? I’ve interviewed a few of our sales veterans to see what changes in sales technology they feel have made the biggest impact within the past decade.

One of the first things we train new hires on is how to navigate a list in Salesforce. The reasoning behind doing this in the beginning of training is because Salesforce is something inside sales reps use every day. Knowing how to work a list will help you pass qualified leads easier than calling straight down a list of hundreds of names.

A few weeks ago I was putting together an email campaign to send out as a follow up to my client’s sales initiative, but I was having some difficulty setting up an integration tool on my computer. However, I knew that a sales rep on my client’s team was fairly tech savvy and had done some troubleshooting before, so I reached out to him asking for help. As I sat on the web conference using a program I had downloaded for free, I wasn’t dazed in the least when my colleague took control of my screen and walked me through each step. Within 5 minutes he had shown me how to set up everything perfectly!

Happy Thanksgiving Sales Prospecting Perspectives readers! We thought it would be fitting to highlight what inside sales reps here are thankful for:

Happy Friday, blog readers! Here at AG, we’ve been hard at work having meaningful conversations with clients and continuously calling new prospects. With two new hires on board, we’re poised to reach out to even more businesses. With a busy week behind us, we’re ready to celebrate Friday with some of our favorite articles shared on Twitter this week:   

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Lisa Fugere, Content Marketing Strategist at Radius Intelligence a company that offers sales prospecting software powered by big data. You can find her on Google +!

I cut my teeth in the B2B marketing world at a company that generates leads entirely through events and inbound marketing. With the naiveté of an English major who could recite every scene from Jane Eyre quicker than she could describe a lead list, I believed that inbound marketing was going to completely eclipse outbound marketing in a matter of years. Who would ever buy a list of leads when they could just wait for their customers to come to them? I thought.

Halloween! Thanksgiving! Christmas and Hanukkah! All of these events are great in Q4… but in sales and teleprospecting, it seems like Q4 is everyone’s least favorite time of year. Everyone is focused on closing business rather than building new business. But once the holidays are over and it’s back to work in 2014… Uh oh! Where’s the pipeline?

We know how you feel. You’re an executive of an inside sales team, busy closing sales and leading your team. It’s unwise (if not impossible) for you chase down the latest and greatest tools and ideas to improve your crew’s performance.

No worries. Our new eBook, Top of the Funnel Field Guide to Sales Prospecting Success, a collaboration with the team at SalesLoft, is here to make that process simple for you.

The team at AG Salesworks has been hands-on, in the trenches, with over 350 sales teams over the last 10 years. We’ve seen the outcomes of sales conversations and have a great grasp on what you need to empower your team with the tools and processes they need to get ahead.

Going through a slump? Feeling like this fat cat?

Whether it's that time of the year, or your pipeline is looking depressing, or your personal motivation is lacking, there are endless reasons why you might be having a difficult period for passing leads. But this is not a bad thing. Since there are many reasons for a “sales slump,” this means that there are endless ways to escape it!

Here are some tips for getting out of a sales slump and back into doing what you do best: