Sales Prospecting Perspectives

It's that time again - time for this month's #ProspectingChat! Over at AG Saleswork's Twitter account, we'll be discussing how to align sales and content marketing, with strategies for encouraging your reps to share content and strategies for creating content that will actually further the sale. We're excited to announce that this month's guest is Brian Hansford, who will share a lot of wisdom on this topic as the Director of Client Services and Marketing Automation Practice Leader at HeinzMarketing. Here are some details about today's Twitter Chat:

This past weekend, a certain sports team challenged me to be optimistic.

You guessed it: The Patriots.

While I’m not a fervent football fan by any means, I grew up in the New England area and have an avid sports fanatic of a father. After many years questioning what this or that meant, I’ve finally reached a point where I not only understand the rules of the game (well, most of them), but where I also can get worked up and over-excited by certain plays.

You know the plays I’m talking about. This Superbowl, there were plenty: interceptions on both teams, crazy catches that seem more luck than skill, and insane rushes that are simply unbelievable. This year, I wasn’t scrolling through my iPhone throughout the game (I wasn’t even tweeting), I was paying attention. And that cost me some energy.

If you’re selling something, you need to be persuasive. But you don’t need to be annoying.

Case in point: I was at the gym the other day, in the middle of a sweaty elliptical workout, when a trainer came over and asked if my name was Christine. Apparently he was asking every woman in the gym because Christine did not show up on time for her appointment. I told him that my name was Allie, and expected him to mosey along, but instead he struck up a conversation with me. While I was out of breath. And - it bears repeating - extremely sweaty. He wanted to know how often I came to the gym, when I’d be coming in next, whether I was making any fitness goals in the New Year, and then he had the audacity to ask if he could make an appointment with me for next week. Even though I made it clear that I “like to do my own thing,” he insisted, so I told him I’d be back next week and I’d find him then.

After a long hiatus, #ProspectingChat on AG Saleswork's Twitter account is back this week! We'll be discussing how to perfect your response rate, replete with with Donato Diorio, CEO of RingLead.  

Today we'll be discussing best practices for perfecting your response rate over email, voicemail and social platforms. We'll share creative sales prospecting techniques, ways to make the "follow-up" more effective, some bad habits and good habits to follow, and more. 

Happy December 31, everyone! Before we count down the ball drop, we want to share with you our top 10 blog posts on Sales Prospecting Perspectives in 2014. What drives our company culture at AG Salesworks is transparency - with employees, customers, and readers - so we want to show you what’s been performing well this year on our blog. It’s been a busy year, with many bloggers moving on, many new bloggers joining the team, and many guest blogging partnerships formed. This list will help you understand what our readers found most important and effective in the sales and marketing world this year, as well as our audience’s preference for receiving information as lists, how to’s, inforgraphics and more!

In a world… where sales stars are born… Four have risen above the rest and become… Superheroes!

Are you Inside Sales Iron Man, confident and persistent, well-armored against objections and always researching new techniques?

Are you B2B Batman, resourceful in the way you maintain your sales toolbelt, whether with new strategies or new technologies?

With social selling gaining momentum for sales professionals, inside sales reps are making their presence known in the digital sphere, specifically on LinkedIn and Twitter. Unfortunately, that presence isn’t always positive. Many social selling guides tout real tips and strategies for sales reps to stand out in their prospects’ busy social feeds, but unfortunately often don’t give away social selling templates which sales reps can customize for their own needs.

The result? Sales reps appear to overly curate content, never share their personal opinions, and if they ever reach out to someone one-to-one, they lead with their pitch and immediately turn off potential prospects.

I follow a few key topics on Quora, and I try to answer a question over there at least once a week. My inclination is to answer B2B inside sales and sales topics, since AG Salesworks has such an arsenal of resources for everyone. But every so often, I also foray into the B2B marketing topics, such as content marketing, SEO, and blogging. This question piqued my interest, and I thought I’d share with our readers my response:

What are blogging best practices for a B2B SaaS start-up wishing to generate industry visibility?

As the coordinator for Sales Prospecting Perspectives, a B2B blog that also strives for industry visibility, I thought I’d share a few pieces of advice I’ve learned after a year of doing this.

It's the start of a new month. Who knows what that means? Just in time to get ramped up in Q4, we're sharing our best sales best practices for prospecting inbound leads, or leads generated from marketing efforts. We've invited a very special guest, CEO of RingDNA Howard Brown, to share his insights at this month's #ProspectingChat. Join us at AG Saleswork's Twitter account today to participate in the discussion. Here are some details about today's Twitter Chat: