Sales Prospecting Perspective Weekly Recap - Week of August 20, 2023
Another week has passed and we are one week closer to the end of summer and the beginning of the school year. I can hear all the parents out there breathing a huge sigh of relief as I type.
We had some really good posts I would like to recap for you, but first I wanted to share another post I ran across this week and felt it was worth sharing. Ron Karr, author and sales speaker, had a great post this week, 7 Mistakes One Should Avoid in Sales. His first suggestion was my favorite, "Don't forget to Qualify", something too many people in sales seem to lose sight of. It is funny how sales reps or account reps always assume that there must be an opportunity if a prospect is providing time on their calendar. There are several great ideas to check off your list, to ensure you are not making these mistakes. A few other's that I thought were more common, "don't oversell" and "don't offer too much information". A great read from Ron and an article that should be shared with all your sales teams.
Now on to the recap.
Monday, August 20, 2023
Lauren followed up on our two part piece describing what five things sales reps and managers need in order to have a successful month. Laney provided the management perspective the previous Friday, and Lauren provided the inside sales rep's perspective in her post Inside Sales Monthly Success Tips: Two Perspectives (A Rep's View). Lauren discusses the same five points in depth and how they should be followed each month to ensure success: meet one on one to receive monthly goals from management the first day of the new month, and close the loop on the previous month, engage and be prepared for weekly meetings with your management as check-in points, have an open door policy with management and leverage them as a resource, aid with marketing automation, and training should never stop after your training period.
Tuesday, August 21, 2023
Kim provided a great post recapping our recent Facebook contest in which we asked for fans to share their most entertaining objection. We had a lot of great submissions, and in her post, Kim provides the top three responses (voting was based on number of likes each submission received). We had a couple submissions regarding bodily injury or death. The first, which finished fourth in the voting, was "I'm sorry, I've got your voicemails and emails but I'm currently being read my last rights. I'll call you next week if I'm alive." Third place in the voting continued along the same lines with " ”(Prospect's Name) is the best contact. He would potentially be interested in chatting with you, but he was recently hit by a city bus and won't be in for a couple weeks.” Our second place finisher was one of my favorites, " Hi Colleen, We have thus far avoided clown computing. We don’t think giving out data to clowns is a responsible thing to do. We like to keep all of our data safe and sound on our own servers behind a wall of fire and not expose it to the possibility of a seltzer spritz to the face from some chucklehead with face paint and big shoes. But thanks for the interest!”. And our winner involved a cartoon sent from the prospect to our rep, but you'll have to read the post to see.
Wednesday, August 22, 2023
Our CEO and Co-Founder, Paul Alves, provided our next post Nothing Good Comes From Complaining in which he discusses what kind of negative impact these types of employees can have on an organization and its employee morale. Paul referenced and article he had recently read by Minda Zetlin entitled "Listening to Complainers is Bad for Your Brain" which provided some great insight into why Paul feels they way he does when he is stuck listening to complainers, and also Paul learned what he can do about it.
Thursday, August 23, 2023
Recently, Hollis Thomases wrote a very controversial post regarding social media and what the age should be for those responsible for managing these networks. Hollis' post released on Inc.com “11 Reasons a 23-Year-Old Shouldn’t Run Your Social Media” caused some minor controversy and received a lot of attention, especially from those in the industry that are younger. Liz provides us with her great rebuttal to the article in her post I'm 25 And I'm Offended. In the post, Liz offers three suggestions to support younger aged professionals in the social media industry: Social Media comes naturally, Our networks are bigger, and Trend spotting. It was a great post and I recommend clicking on the link should you have an extra minute.
Friday, August 24, 2023
Our final post of the week is a great post from one of our Business Development Representatives discussing the value of hiring smart employees. Elizabeth had reecently read an article on chron.com that argues "hiring smart people is essential to a successful business, especially in the fast-paced, rapidly-changing world we all live and work in today." Companies that take advantage by allowing their "highly intelligent" employees to contribute to the organizational operations, or let the employees voice be heard, have a higher chance of succeeding. Elizabeth offers a couple of ideas to get your employees involved, drawing on her own recent experiences.
Thanks for reading this weeks recap, looking forward to a great week of posts and enjoy your week!