Sales Prospecting Perspective Weekly Recap - Week of March 11, 2024
We are halfway through the month of March and hopefully you or most of your sales team is on pace for quota. If not, then you may find some advice or tools that could help in getting over that hump to finish the month strong right here. I'll recap this week's posts shortly, but first I wanted to share a great new tool from our friends over at NetProspex. In the past, I blogged about their State of Marketing Data 2013 benchmark report and this week they announced a new tool for marketers. Yesterday, NetProspex announced the release of their new Workbench, an instant, online data managment platform for B2B Marketers. Workbench is a cloud based service that puts marketers in direct control to help improve data quality used in their marketing and sales outreach. Some of the features include: a free Data HealthScan, the ability to assess hundreds of thousands of contacts, view the results of your HealthScan online or in a PDF format, organize and store files and assessments within Workbench and take actions to clean, enrich and grow your B2B marketing database. It is a great tool for marketers and the first of its kind available online. 
Now, on to this week's recap.
Monday, March 11, 2024
Laney Pilpel led off our week of blog posts discussing branding and she identified three ways ways to use teleprospecting in your organizations branding efforts. Producing and utilizing content in your branding campaigns are typically the starting point for organizations, as well as networking digitally and in person. Teleprospecting shouldn't be forgotten about when identifying what are the best ways to get your organization's message to your potential prospects. The three points Laney mentioned in regards to teleprospecting are activities your sales team perform daily. Voicemail messaging should be extremely vital to your branding efforts as most inside sales teams are leaving hundreds of voicemails per day; which makes reviewing your voicemail messaging extremely important. Most inside sales rep follow up their voicemails with an email, which is another area that can increase brand awareness and catch your prospect's attention. Once your teleprospecting team does connect with a prospect, that live conversation is another way your team can introduce or bring attention to your organization.
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
Our second post was one of my favorite posts from the week and it was brought to us by Mike Ricciardelli, Manager of Client Operations. Mike discussed teleprospecting introductions and offers some advice on the best ways to engage your prospects early in the conversation so you don't lose your prospect's interest within the first 30-60 seconds. For many, the introduction is going to determine whether or not you will have a meaningful conversation with your prospects. If you can't get past the first minute of a conversation because you sound tired, disinterested, or you are stumbling through your opening, then you have no chance of uncovering a sales opportunity. Mike raises another great point, your teleprospecting team should be developing three good questions around three specific pain points your technology solves to pique your prospect's interest into engaging in a conversation. Personalizing your introductions (just like your emails and voicemails) is another great way to get through the first few minutes of a conversation with a prospect.
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
Ryan Corey, Co-founder of Sales Rep Marketing (specializing in online marketing and personal branding for sales professionals), provided our guest post for the week when he discussed personal branding opportunities within your professional organizations. Most sales professionals belong to at least one professional organization or networking group, but are you maximizing all of the benefits? Most realize the value of networking and building your contact lists within these organizations, but there are also branding possibilities that exist and sales professionals need to take advantage of these opportunities. Most groups have a website that lists events and posts general announcements. When building your online brand, list an extended professional profile/bio on as many business related websites as possible. If no such listing exists, approach the person who manages the website and inquire about creating one. Email other group members asking for a profile or bio so that you can pass along the information to the website administrator. Another opportunity that exists within these groups and is often overlooked is the ability to guest blog with your co-members. The main idea is that sales professionals should always be identifying new ways to grow their professional self and networking groups offer plenty of opportunity to increase their personal brand.
Thursday, March 14, 2024
We closed our week with a post from Samantha Goldman, senior Business Development Representative, who discussed how teleprospecting can be used to maximize the ROI of marketing campaigns. Samantha highlights three marketing campaigns in which telequalification can be used to increase the ROI of the campaign: inbound leads, webinars and conferences/trade shows. Inbound leads are great, and most teleprospector's eyes widen anytime an inbound lead gets transferred into their name. Something to keep in mind when looking at the inbound opportunity; if your organization is using a lead scoring system, it can be extremely misleading. Webinar follow up provides the inside team an easy talking point and allows teleprospectors the ability to easily engage in conversation with the prospect. Along with conference/trade show leads, webinar leads are usually great opportunities, but need to be nurtured properly to maximize the amount of qualified opportunities the campaign produces.
As always, thanks for reading this week's recap and we look forward to doing it again seven days from now!
Happy Prospecting!