Every now and then I like to go check my own view of the world by talking to smart people who are out there actually selling. This week is one of those weeks. I interviewed sales manager, sales person, sales trainer and all around smart guy Jorge Soto. I asked Jorge about how he uses [...]
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What do you Know about your Prospect?
Here’s another case where sales people need to take a concept further than their marketing colleagues (last time as we going on about using Sales 2.0 tools in general). This post is about knowing your prospect. Marketing types have actually formalized a methodology around knowing your prospect and call it “persona marketing”. This methodology stemmed [...]
Sales 2.0 fact that can Kill your Sales Funnel
I keep reading this one: “buyers complete 75% of their sales cycle on the web before ever talking to a sales person”. But just over the last few weeks of selling for our Internet start up I’ve found several examples where taking this data is best ignored. I’ve been on a wide-ranging mission to get [...]
What does Do Nothing Really Look like for your Prospect?
What’s your biggest competitor? If you’re in IT sales is it IBM. Apple, Google, Wipro, some dudes in Bulgaria? Probably not. You’re biggest competitor is Status Quo Inc. Boy those guys are tough to beat! The thing is a lot of the time our prospect will choose the status quo, aka do nothing vs. any [...]
Prospecting the Hard Way
I’m not that keen on banging my head off walls. But some sales people are. Mostly sales people that have been trained in “old school selling techniques”. The ”old school” maintains that “sales is a numbers game” and the numbers that matter are all about effort. All about volume. One of the key indicators of [...]
Prospect Lists a Social Selling Way
From my research and analysis of thousands of prospecting calls, I’ve found the three biggest factors that super-charge your chances of getting into a busy prospect’s office are:
ThisWeekIn Sales Interview – Video
Just interviewed by Kevin Gaither on his ThisWeekIn Sales web TV show. I talk about my definition of Sales 2.0, where I created it and why I came up with it. Then I drill down into the three key components of Social Calling that can boost your prospecting results eight times.
Cold Calling Tip. You’re Now on a Two-Way Street.
Marketers are shifting their dollars to inbound techniques like being found by search engines and being popular on social media. But sales people are still dialing-for-dollars. Who’s right? Both. I’ve approached this particular problem from both ends. I’ve placed plenty of cold calls over the years and amped up my effort by having an inside [...]
4 Ways to Make a Cold Call Warmer with Social Media
Guest post by Gaurang Tanna [editor’s note: Gaurang is a real inside sales “Ninja” out on the front lines of technology sales. He prospects every day for a living in a very competitive environment. You can follow him on Twitter at @GaurangTanna and add him on LinkedIn at GaurangTanna] Over the last five years of [...]
Sales People Sharpen Your Pencils!
Future sales pros are going to need to write – and decently. Think about your day-to-day already. You send a lot of emails — to prospects. Over the years I’ve seen lots of sales people that almost couldn’t write English at all (I’m going with English as the language of choice for today please apply [...]
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