Sales Prospecting Perspectives

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Sean Jones of SalesFusion, business writer with a primary focus on the marketing sector.

In the age of the tweeting refrigerator, salespeople are transitioning. The process of a sale no longer unfolds over just one platform; however in many cases it does involve multiple buyers. Bar the anomaly that is the Girl Scout Cookie, the face of the company is no longer the salesperson. As a result, marketing analytics have taken the front seat in driving sales, opening up a whole new industry of firms offering to find niches for their customer’s product or service, to build and develop online content, and to manage existing consumer bases.

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Matt Heinz, President of Heinz Marketing.

We’re such an impatient lot.  The more we can measure, the more (irrationally) we expect what we're measuring to work immediately. 

This applies to many facets of life these days, but particularly for B2B sales and marketing professionals.

Despite a clearer understanding of the buyer’s journey and timeline, we still expect our leads to convert immediately.  We expect new/cold lists to generate results right away.  We expect social selling to drive warm pipeline quickly (apparently just because it’s social).

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a post from Taylor Lacey, a Business Development Representative at AG Salesworks.

What do you picture when you hear the word "nurture?"

Many people may think of a plant "nurtured" to full health. In inside sales, potential customers can also be nurtured. If they aren't a good fit now, does that mean they will always be unqualified for your product or service? Or can they slowly become a lead by means of a strong lead nurturing campaign? 

We’ve all seen the contact who doesn’t quite fit the qualifying criteria and is automatically added to the nurture bucket. These are three important tips to remember when nurturing prospects.

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Max Altschuler, Founder and CEO of Sales Hacker Media. 

AG Salesworks is pleased to bring you a guest post from Jeff Shore, an in-demand sales expert, author, speaker and executive coach. 

“Most people do no listen with the intent to understand, they listen with the intent to reply.”

~Stephen R. Covey

Perhaps when you were a child, someone in your life tried to emphasize the importance of listening by reminding you that we each have two ears and one mouth. According to the well-known saying, we have two ears and one mouth in order that we might listen twice as much as we speak. There’s a lot of truth to that idea, and never more so than when a buyer raises objections during the sales process.

Today, we will be hosting our third #ProspectingChat on AG Saleswork's Twitter account. Time has flown by, and we are excited to continue offering insights and learning from other #ProspectingChat participants. Here are some details about today's Twitter Chat:

At AG Salesworks, we talk about aligning sales and marketing departments quite a bit. By now, most people know that in a successful business, B2B sales and marketing need to work together.

However, many people still harbor a misguided notion about what sales and marketing alignment really is. It's not just a mindset. It's a merging of actionable business processes.

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Amanda Maksymiw, Content Marketing Manager at Lattice Engines. 

Back in 2011, the Harvard Business Review educated us on exactly what timely manner meant. One hour. In fact, when companies reached out to prospects within an hour, they were seven times more like to qualify the lead. The Lead Management Study from InsideSales.com cites even more startling stats: “The odds of contacting a lead if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drop 100 times. The odds of qualifying a lead if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drop 21 times.”

Simply put, whether prospecting a lead from an inbound program or from your website, sales needs to be proactive and follow up in a timely manner. Here are a few ideas to help sales reps get ahead of the clock.

Father’s Day is coming up this Sunday, June 15th. If you haven’t already planned something for your father or bought a card yet, the stores are still open. My dad and I haven’t always seen eye to eye on everything, especially during the dreaded angst-filled teenage years. But he managed to put a roof over my head, food on the table and helped support me to get a degree.