Sales Prospecting Perspective Weekly Recap - Week of October 8, 2023
Isn't technology grand? I woke up this morning to that annoying alarm sound that makes us all cringe when we hear it. But once I turn off the alarm, I hear a nice soothing voice that tells me the temperature outside, the forecast for the day and any traffic concerns with my morning commute. It's amazing what we can do with the amount of data that is streaming across our networks and the applications we have for this information is becoming more readily available. That bodes well for the sales industry, where having real-time access to customer information can be the difference between a closed or lost deal.
Social selling, or Sales 2.0, has become a major hot topic, with this year's Dreamfoce Conference devoting a lot of time to the concept. It makes sense, if your customer's are on Social Networks, then organizations should be monitoring and listening to what is being said. In my recap of last week's blogs I shared some prospecting tools that one of our sales reps learned about at a local B2B Camp. Kyle Porter, CEO of Salesloft, discussed the four tools I had mentioned, giving examples of their applications and some great success stories. Kyle's organization has a solution that integrates with Salesforce to provide the real-time access to data your sales team will need to increase productivity and get more closed deals. I wanted to share a post from their site that discusses one of Salesforce.com's latest releases, Social Key. In their post, What is Social Key? Salesforce.com’s New Social Selling Platform, Jon Birdsong, Sales and Marketing Executive for Salesloft, gives a great breakdown of some the key's (bad pun intended) and benefits this new application will provide for sales reps. There is more of a focus being put on developing secondary information on prospect's and integrating that with the primary information you have already collected in your CRM. This data will provide sales reps the ability to nurture their relationships socially, and interact with customers when the customer has a need, not when sales reps have a want. It is a great review and I highly recommend taking a minute to read and share the post.
This week was a shorter week, with Monday being the Columbus Day holiday, so we have only three posts to recap for you (Monday we shared the recap for last week).
Tuesday, October 9, 2023
We started off the shortened week with a great post from Laney in which she discusses our recent change in what is an expected activity level of our BDR's each day. In her post Stop Being Scared Of Change When Managing Your Inside Sales Team she talks about her initial concerns over removing the daily activity number the BDR's are expected to acheive. The goal of eliminating call numbers was to increase the awareness and focus on quality activities and quality conversations being had with every targeted organization. The emphasis was put on each organization, not the individual prospects, because the goal is to discover all the relevant information about an organization as a whole; to better target that organization at the appropriate time. The reps have been able to focus on their prospects more, taking the time to know their prospects before dialing in to speak with them. The change has been a success as number of qualified opportunities has increased significantly while activity numbers have dropped. Laney is now a believer in the program and we look forward to tracking the success of this change.
Wednesday, October 10, 2023
Michael Ricciardelli, Manager of Client Operations, provided our next post, In Sales, Optimism Sells, in which he discusses the importance of voice and tone for an inside sales reps success. In most sales cycle, a phone call is the initial interaction between a sales rep and the prospect. Exuding confidence, enthusiasm, and an upbeat nature can be the difference between a passed opportunity or a blow off. Humans are naturally drawn to happy and optimistic people; the same can be applied to the sales community. So ask yourself, or have your inside team ask themselves: Do I sound tired or lackadaisical when I’m having my conversations? Am I monotone, or should come off a little livelier? Do I need to smile more while I am having a conversation? The answers to these questions could reveal where some of your struggles may lie. Staying optimistic in sales will lead to future success as your sales glass will always be half full and not half empty.
Thursday, October 11, 2023
Our last post of the week came from Director of Client Operations, Matt Fitts. Recently, we sent our upper level management staff to attend a leadership workshop hosted by the Oz Principle. The workshop focused on accountability from a personal and organizational level. Matt's post, Your Sales Team's Beliefs About Their Job Effect Their Actions And Results discussess the Oz Principle's use of their "Results Pyramid" and a person's actions are based on their experiences and beliefs. Actions lead to results, so to obtain the best results from your staff, you first need to know how their experiences have gone and if their beliefs are aligned with the organization's. Though this concept is not new, sometimes there is great value in taking a step back, relearning what we may already know and applying some forgotten principles to today's workforce.
Thanks for reading this week's recap of some great posts and I hope you enjoy the article I shared from Salesloft.