Sales Prospecting Perspectives Weekly Recap - Week of January 10, 2024
Happy Friday, Sales Prospecting Perspectives readers! We've had a busy week, with clients arriving and inside sales reps ramping up for a successful Q1. Without further ado, here are our favorite articles from the sales and marketing world this week!
- At AG Salesworks, we often hold contests for inside sales reps. This post from Level Eleven gives advice about sales contest timing. With terms like gamification and sales enablement gaining more traction in 2014, this post may help you hold a successful contest for your inside sales team.
- Have you ever heard of TL;DR? It means too long; didn't read and is often used on Reddit. However, good content shouldn't be shortened for those lazy to read. In fact, good content can be as long as you like, according to Steve Kemish. When writing, focus not on compartmentalizing content, but on relevance and value and quality. Length doesn't matter as much as you think.
- At VanillaSoft, Kevin Thornton asks a big question: Are internal conflicts stifling your sales productivity? Disagreements between sales and marketing, sales and IT, and sales and customer service should be dissolved through alignment and integration of departments so everone can do their job to the best of their ability.
- Have you ever considered looking at your B2B brand from the perspective of the buyer? Ardath Albee advocates for B2B companies to reflect on how their brand is represented on multiple channels, thinking about the buyer's process through them and asking questions along the way. Take a look at your brand from the outside in to understand the buyer's experience.
- Matt Bertuzzi from The Bridge Group Inc. shared Craig's post, 7 Things I Want My Sales Team to Know in 2014, and compared his leadership advice to reviews in Glassdoor, which allows employees to evaluate their company. Apparently, Craig was spot on about what employees expect to hear from their leaders! Check out his comparison here.
And here are some articles you may have missed from the Sales Prospecting Perspectives blog this week.
Monday: On Monday, Sam Goldman wrote How to Write an Effective Sales Prospecting Email. Sales executives are using email more and more than the telephone, especially with mobile devices. Sam gives advice for optimizing emails for mobile, creating strong subject lines, and keeping emails short and to the point while still including an element of personalization. Crafting the perfect sales prospecting email is essential to success, so keep these tips in mind when you sit down to write another email.
Tuesday: Mike Ricciardelli wrote Top 7 Reasons Why Inside Sales Reps Fail on Tuesday. Some inside sales reps can earn more than their superiors, while some can barely earn the base salary. Mike says that failure does not have to do with an inside sales rep having earned a degree, but instead to do with effort and technique. Follow these points to learn what not to do and how to improve your inside sales efforts.
Wednesday: On Wednesday, guest blogger Matt Heinz of Heinz Marketing wrote 12 Tips for Building and Managing a Bigger Sales Pipeline. As your company grows, so will your sales pipeline. You need a pipeline to organize your sales efforts. Matt Heinz gives advice for approaching prospects in your sales pipeline. His advice - add value and educate, differentiate from competitors, make it easy for prospects to move forward and more - is especially relevant as companies look to expand their pipeline in Q1. This is essential reading for anyone looking to build and manage a sales pipeline.
Thursday: Megan Toohey on Thursday wrote Inside Sales Reps: First Impressions are the Most Important. We've all heard the saying, "You never get a second chance to make a first impression." In sales as well as networking, that is true. Megan offers an anecdote about a company's bad first impression. B2B inside sales reps should have proper coaching to avoid this experience. They should do their research beforehand and not overtly sell but instead just have a conversation and offer value and consultation. According to Megan, your employees represent your brand as well, and a bad first impression can go a long way to canceling what might have been a sale.
Have a great weekend, Sales Prospecting Perspectives readers. What were your favorite articles this week?
