Sales Prospecting Perspectives

Who's excited for this month's #ProspectingChat? Over at AG Saleswork's Twitter account, we'll be sharing inside sales messaging do's and don'ts for your team. We'll also be welcoming special guest John Golden, CSO of Pipeliner CRM, to discuss his experiences and tips Here are some details about today's Twitter Chat:

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a post from Mike Lipka, an Inside Sales Representative at AG Salesworks.

What could Michelangelo’s sculpting techniques teach you about reaching quota? The answer may surprise you.

Michelango’s mastery of sculpture was without rival, and his philosophy on his craft was equally brilliant. Believing that the figure he was sculpting lay “trapped” inside the block of quarried stone, Michelangelo slowly carved until a perfectly refined image began to reveal itself.

Have you been struggling to get traction with your prospects lately? When was the last time you changed up your email templates or updated your voicemails? Maybe it’s time to take a look at your messaging strategy.

Let’s face it: Not every cold call campaign is created equal. Data integrity and relevance vary with each purchased list, and these new lists are far from free. In a sales world that’s becoming more social, it’s more important to target and personalize your messages to prospects, setting yourself apart from the rest and refusing to provide "another sales pitch." Below are 4 ways to quickly find and engage more relevant contacts, building a warmer pipeline for prospecting. 

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.

So many sites and thought leaders are speaking abound inbound sales and marketing tactics and the importance of social media. It's been proven that the methodology works and increases your company's bottom line value. Yay, we can all go home now... Just kidding! Inbound methodology works, but let's face it - at some point you need to pick up the phone and have a quality conversation regarding a prospect's challenges and how your solution can help. Everyone talks about inbound sales and marketing and social selling, but please tell me how you can close sales and increase revenue by doing just inbound without effectively communicating on the phone?

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.

You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows…
Well, You Might in Marketing and Sales
 

One of the famous Bob Dylan lyrics from "Subterranean Homesick Blues" implies that we should be reliant on our instincts, that we are capable of knowing which way the wind is blowing.  In theory, we are capable of determining which way the wind blows, but can we know when it’s going to rain, and furthermore be prepared for when it does?  Let’s not write off the weatherman just yet.

I don't know about you, but I know my life revolves around technology: my laptops, my iPhone, my iPad, my GPS...  I could sit here for an hour and type about how much I rely on technology, but you get the point.  Most people use technology as a means of communication, using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, email, text messaging, FaceTime, you name it. We all rely on technology for communication because it's so convenient.  As a marketer, communication is very important, so I always try to stay on top of the advancing trends, learning how to grab prospects' attention, and overall how to make the best impression and delight both prospects and clients.  

In efforts to keep on trend, my boss and I attended Inbound 2013, a marketing conference that is held in Boston every year, to learn new marketing methods, hear from the best marketing and sales professionals and figure out how to ramp up our marketing efforts and take our company to the next level.  While there I met a handful of great new contacts and when I wasn't networking, my head was buried in my iPad jotting down notes and ideas.