Sales Prospecting Perspectives

A Few Keys To A Successful Inside Sales Program

There are a number of items that an inside sales team needs to be successful, from the daily operations and employees to management.  A good manager puts their employees in a position to succeed, which requires the right tools and best practices in place to do so.  Below is a list of things to start with.

• A strong CRM (like sf.com) with clean information (historical account data, etc)
• Comprehensive Sales Training for the team (including initial and ongoing development and training)
• A clear value proposition for them to relay.
• A motivated, hardworking employee, that is a good listener and quick thinker

This list is only a starting point; having them in place is not going to be enough. Inside sales managers need to make sure your team is exploiting these tools/skills on every call.  As a colleague of mine says, “Execution is the key to every call!”

As a manager, your team needs to be confident on every call that they are aware of the organization they are dialing into; utilizing the historical data within your CRM, taking a look at the organization’s website, etc.  Every time your employees have a live conversation, they should be using the training and skillset you’ve taught them to uncover a qualified opportunity or leverage the conversation to pull as much information out of the prospect as possible.

I explain to my team that this idea is not just relevant to conversations with decision makers, but also, and maybe more importantly, to conversations you are having with the inappropriate contacts as you navigate the organization looking for the appropriate person.

For example - I make a phone call into an organization where I have one contact on my list and it turns out that contact is no longer with the organization, leaving me with a couple of options:

• I could hang-up and do research to find another contact (this is as a last resort)
• I could ask the operator who replaced the contact that left (if the organization is small enough)
• I could explain to the operator the reason for my call in the hopes I am directed to the appropriate contact (dependent on organizational policies on referrals)
• I could ask for the appropriate department and leverage them as an avenue to the decision maker 

Although these are just a few tools and one scenario, I think you get the idea.  So the question I ask my team members is why not use every trick when navigating an organization?  If you are having a live conversation, wouldn’t you pull every arrow in your quiver?