Sales Prospecting Perspectives Weekly Recap - Week of November 15, 2023
Good afternoon Sales Prospecting Perspectives Readers! We hope you had a great Friday. With the holidays just around the corner, sales reps are calling prospects left and right hoping to reserve a place in their prospect's 2014 budget. We’re excited about Thanksgiving and Christmas, as evident by this Instagram picture. Starbucks holidays cups are here! It’s been a festive few days in the office, and we even celebrated the Red Sox win, a little late, with some cupcakes via Liberty Mutual Insurance. Today we’re rearing for another successful call day!
Here are some articles to peruse from marketing and sales experts:
- It’s time for some truth. Heinz Marketing says: If you suck at sales, you’ll suck at social selling too. Fundamental sales strategies should spur social selling.
- Want to overcome that rival company? Learn 5 ways to outshine your competition from Rachel Clapp Miller of Force Management. Focus on the positive, leverage your testimonials and help prospects articulate their pains and needs. Great article!
- With prospects bombarded by content every day, it’s important to learn how to get your content caught by the B2B buyer’s filter Use a pass-along strategy, where relevant information is passed between colleagues, or present webinars through associations they belong to. There are some great discussions here about many, many ways to catch your buyer’s attention!
- How would you answer: “Why does most marketing stink?” Michael Brenner provides us with some facts, such as 90% of emails are never opened and 99.9% of banner ads receive no clicks. Why is that? He offers a theory that it’s because brands are advertising, not publishing. The breakdown is interesting, a must read!
- Our regular blogger Sam Goldman wrote a guest post for Tinderbox this week about how to save time in the prospecting cycle. Learn how to be concise and quick so more qualified leads are passed but prospects aren't feeling rushed.
And here are this week’s articles from AG Salesworks:
Monday: Inside sales rep Samantha Goldman offered advice for how to stay focused throughout the day. This was especially relative to Mondays, when many people are just recovering from a weekend. While the article was geared towards inside sales reps, her advice can apply to anyone: Have a routine, give your brain small breaks, clean your desk, and remember water and snacks. See how she uses these tips to focus on her daily activities, and if you have any of your own recommendations, comment below!
Tuesday: On Tuesday, Mike Riccardelli shared a motivational post about learning to lose and learning to fail. Many people in fact learn more from their failures than from their proudest accomplishments. They grow. Mike says, “I want you to fail because how you react afterwards will truly depict your character.” In terms of inside sales, callers are failing all the time; but it’s their humbleness, their positivity and their character that makes them continue calling. Mike offered a great post for staying positive through failure and accepting pitfalls as possible pick-me-ups.
Wednesday: Guest blogger Adam Becker from Tinderbox wrote about how to survive Dreamforce, the “customer company revolution” conference in San Francisco. If you’re going to Dreamforce, or if you ever plan on attending a sales conference, this article is a must-read! Some of his tips are: Follow up, book everything early, and be smart when coordinating meetings. A funny yet informative article, Adam provides some great tips that’ll certainly save you at Dreamforce this year!
Thursday: On Thursday, IT Support Assistant and Business Development Representative at AG Tom Diamond debuted his first blog post. He wrote about why IT and Sales need to be beset friends. Both departments should learn how to better communicate with each other and work alongside each other as a unit. Tom dispels rumors about tech employees as geeky, and establishes IT as a very important department. With both sales and IT departments communicating efficiently, they’ll be a well-oiled machine.
That’s all for this week! What were some of your favorite articles?