Sales Prospecting Perspectives

I've always responded best to people who lead by example in the workplace. I find it harder to relate to individuals who are always willing to offer advice on strategies (often unsolicited) when it seems that they rarely, if ever, follow their own words.  

I often think back to my experiences back in my high school days playing sports. The coaches that took the approach of yelling and kicking objects over to get a point across never made an impact on me. When the crap hit the fan, I found that those coaching personalities rarely knew what to do to solve the problem… other than yelling more. I always felt that I was demonstrating the desire and motivation to be part of the team by showing up and doing the best I could. I didn’t need someone yelling in my ear to get me motivated; instead I needed guidance to hone my skills and make me understand what needs to improve.

Every night when I was growing up, my family sat down to a home-cooked meal by my mom (aside from Tuesdays: those days dad was in charge of making spaghetti). Anyway, every night my mom managed to make a delicious meal after a long day at work. She juggled a career, three kids, laundry, grocery shopping, and more. She did it all, and she did it well, and continues to do so today. Now that I recently became a working mom, I truly understand how much effort it takes and while I didn’t think it was possible, I value and appreciate my mom even more now.

These last few weeks it seems the amount of people posting statuses about vacationing has skyrocketed. Good for them – I'm jealous. Throughout the year, we all look forward to our vacations because we want a break from the daily grind. Day in and day out we work hard Monday through Friday, and get burnt out from the repetitiveness and stressors of work.  Vacations allow us to change up our routines and result in us feeling refreshed and ready to get back to work when we return. 

The day in the life of an inside sales rep is very active. It’s understandable that a representative would be put under a lot of stress. There is a lot of pressure to hit your monthly goals, stay on top of tasks and activity, update reports, and follow up with lead appointments. If you don’t stay organized, it's easy to fall behind and lose momentum. Here are a few tips to help you stay on task and manage your stress.

Employee retention seemed to be a taboo subject at my old sales jobs. If sales managers didn’t speak about it, the problem would simply not be a problem. Unfortunately, they seemed to be conditioned to accept that attrition was inevitable with a team of people making cold calls all day. It wasn't uncommon to see about 50% of new hires exit the organization after 6 months. Why? You've taken the time to interview, hire and train a rep, but once they're at altitude, they leave. No one should be OK with that.

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a post from Patrice Morrison, a Business Development Representative at AG Salesworks. 

I’ve seen inside sales described using many analogies. But my favorite analogy by far is the comparison to the popular series, The Hunger Games. These books and movies focus on a woman who has to fight to the death in order to survive The Hunger Games, a twisted competition in which children ages 12 - 18 are forced to particpate, created by central officials to deter rebellion. Now you may be thinking: “How in the world could you see any similarities between the sales world and the dystopian world described by Suzanne Collins?” Even though they’re not shooting bows and arrows at jabberjays like Katniss Everdeen, inside sales reps actually share many qualities with Hunger Games tributes. Here are four:

Some would argue that cold calling is more difficult than closing a deal. When you think about it, you get rejected a heck of a lot more than you typically do when trying to bring in that new deal, right? Plus when you're closing at least you have a captive audience willing to listen to what you have to offer. When you cold call, there is no guarantee what you're offering is even of remote interest to the prospects you're trying to get live. 

There’s an old adage in sales about sales encounters. It goes something like this:  

You should always go into a sales situation prepared for a no but hoping for a yes.

It’s important to remember that each new opportunity you come across will have its own unique challenges and advantages. Though it’s hard to stay optimistic when objections crop up, bringing baggage from one sales call to another will not help you close. The longer you work with a product or solution, the the more confident you feel in your abilities to sell it, and the more assumptions you may make in regards to the outcome of each business engagement.

Working in a sales-oriented job, inside sales reps have numerous goals to hit on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. But there are other goals to set besides the money-based ones. What personal goals can you set as an inside sales rep? One of the many things I love about AG is that we have various people with whom to discuss how to improve our prospecting skills in order to achieve our targets.

A word I have seen pop all over the business blogsphere these days is “gamification.” Gamification in the workplace in the simplest of definitions is making a game out of employees' day-to-day activities. In the various articles I have read on the topic, the opinions seem to be split on the overall effectiveness of gamification.  Farhad Manjoo of The Wall Street Journal feels that it has the “potential for stifling creativity and flexibility in the workplace, and the growing sensation of being watched, and measured, in everything we do.”  Others believe that creating a game out of an everyday work task increases competition and therefore productivity.  Now I can’t speak for the larger companies (the AMEXes, IBMs and Googles of the world) who leverage a gamification strategy to increase productivity, but I can say that at AG we like to keep it simple and effective.  I’ll share with you an example.