The CRAP Report

Maybe you’re asking yourself, “Self, who should I follow on Twitter?”  Maybe you’ve asked yourself that and have made your way here, to The CRAP Report.  If so, you can check out two posts below to see who I suggested you follow two months ago.  Maybe you’ve followed all of those folks and are looking for more.

I still think the Follow Friday blog post is a good idea.

Here’s my list of B2B all-stars that I think you’ll find yourself glad to follow:

• @mvolpe – Mike Volpe, HubSpot’s VP of Inbound Marketing.  Mike’s also the co-host of HubSpot TV, and the majority of Mike’s tweets are about, what else?  Inbound marketing.  You’ll also get some good SEO knowledge, great blogging tips, marketing data, and some lead gen stuff, too.  Check out Mike’s blog Marketing with Mike for blog articles.
• @keenan – Jim Keenan, VP of Sales Strategy at 2Wire.  Jim always offers great sales advice, and does so with a personal touch through his blog, A Sales Guy.  Jim tweets about sales issues, sales management issues, and sales processes.
• @paulcastain – Paul Castain is the VP of Sales Development for Consolidated Graphics.  Paul’s whole M.O. is to make people better, whether it’s a better sales rock star or a better sales Jedi.  Regardless of what you want to become, Paul wants to help, and one way he does so is through his blog Paul Castain’s Sales Playbook.
• @MackCollier – Mack Collier is a social media consultant, trainer, and speaker.  His tweets are going to be full of these, except on Sunday nights, when he runs a blog chat through Twitter.  Mack knows about building a community and it’s evident if you read through a blog chat transcript.  Mack’s blog, The Viral Garden, is one to read for thoughts on any of the topics above.
• @HolgerSchulze – Holger Schulze is a technology marketing guy from Washington, D.C.  Holger tweets really relevant articles regarding B2B Sales and Marketing, and you should read his blog, Everything Technology Marketing. Holger’s articles are typically about trends and issues surrounding, yup – you guessed it, technology marketing.
• @justinlevy – Justin Levy is the Director of Business Development, Corporate Strategy, and Client Services at New Marketing Labs.  Justin is a prolific tweeter and his tweets are often a mix between the personal and business, but they’re always good.  Justin has a blog, Justin Levy, which explores social media and its impact in the business world.  Justin is also a partner at Caminito Argentinean Steakhouse.
• @iannarino – S. Anthony Iannarino is a B2B Sales coach, and his tweets reflect that.  The majority of his tweets are ways to improve B2B sales reps/teams.  His blog, The Sales Blog, is chock full of articles on becoming a better sales person.  Check it out.

Hopefully I’ve been able to share someone new with you.  If you want, feel free to leave some more recommendations in the comments below!

Photo Credit:  Rosaura Ochoa via Flickr

In response to Chris Brogan’s tweet and subsequent blog post about turning Twitter’s Follow Friday into a more expanded blog entry, detailing why you think people should follow your recommendations, here’s my entry – The CRAP Report’s #FollowFriday list: 

• @dmscott – C’mon, you knew that David Meerman Scott was going to be on this list, didn’t you?  I mean, the guy is a marketing genius, and if you’re not following him, I’d be really curious as to why.

 

• @funnelholic – Craig Rosenberg, the Funnelholic, offers great demand generation information, and presents it in a way that I find really enjoyable to read.  Plus, he’s got GREAT taste in music.

 

• @abneedles – Adam Needles, from SilverPop, offers fantastic data and stats on B2B marketing.  The guy is all over the US running SilverPop’s B2B Marketing University.  He’s like the hardest working guy in marketing.

 

• @gerhard20 – Gerhard Gschwandtner shares great info on Sales topics, from his recent posts about using his iPad for business to Sales 2.0 discussions.

 

• @FearlessSelling – Kelley Robertson, Sales trainer, is always offering ways to be a better sales rep.

 

• @B2Bbloggers – Jeremy Victor’s fantastic website where readers can find tons of different information on marketing insights.

 

• @StephanieTilton – B2B content marketing wiz.  ‘Nuff said.

 

• @bridgegroupinc – Trish Bertuzzi, shares tons of inside sales tips and tactics, straight from The Bridge Group’s blog, Inside Sales Experts.

 

• @damphoux – Mike Damphousse, appointment setting braniac.  You want to know about Unified Demand Gen, follow Mike.

 

• @paul_mccord – Paul McCord, Business Development Strategist and all around nice guy.  For the last couple of weeks, Paul has been on a mission to raise the value of quality sales and marketing content by suggesting people for his Twitter followers to follow, one at a time.

 

• @ardath421 – Ardath Albee, B2B marketing strategist and author of the book eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale.  You can learn TONS from Ardath. 
• @rapril – This is my boss, Richard April.  He told me that he has to go on this list.

If you read The CRAP Report, I really don’t think I’m sharing anything new with you here.  If you’re not following these folks, you should be.  This list is by no means exhaustive; there are a ton of other folks that you should follow as well.  If you have questions about others, let me know!

Ah yes – you know where that line comes from, don’t you?  While country music is not necessarily my go-to choice of music genres, I really love the song The Gambler by Kenny Rogers.  I love it for a couple of reasons, really.  Growing up, I can remember listening to it in my parents’ living room, on their 8-track player no less!  There’s a nostalgic factor to that song that can take me right back to that living room some 30 years ago.  I also like that song because I enjoy playing poker; Texas Hold ‘Em for me, thanks.  It doesn’t get any more cliché than listening to that song while playing, but it means more to me because I do play (not well at all, in fact).  How does this relate to teleprospecting, though?  Well, I’ve got to tell that when you’re dealing with business development reps, sometimes you really do need to know when to fold ‘em. Read more… »

As a new feature here on The CRAP Report, I’m going to start posting interviews every so often.  I had the fantastic opportunity to interview marketing expert David Meerman Scott back in February, and although most interviews include short snippets of what the interviewee’s answers are, I thought it was really important that I present to you the full transcript of the interview.  I couldn’t find anything that I thought I should leave on the editing floor, so to speak.  It’s a bit long-ish, but trust me when I tell you, it’s worth the read. 

I was very honored that David was willing to spend an hour with me and answer some questions about his the second edition of his book, The New Rules of PR and Marketing, as well as some questions about marketing and blogging.  The guy is fantastic – he’s really cool and down to earth and says what he thinks.  I like that. 

So, without further adieu, here’s my interview with David Meerman Scott: Read more… »

So I feel like there’s been a lot of blogs lately stating that cold calling is or is not dead, and today I read another one.  Matt Gethins, from B2B telemarketing firm Professional Prospecting Systems, wrote an article yesterday entitled Cold Calling Dead?  Not For B2B Appointment Setting.  Matt makes the common observation that all that is heard today is that all a company needs to do is focus on their inbound marketing and social media efforts, and they’ll be all set in regards to lead generation.  Matt’s response, “This is, in many cases, ridiculously bad advice and completely untrue.”  I totally agree with him.

Matt goes on to share seven reasons why cold calling is not dead, and I certainly think that you should read them.  Of particular interest to me, though, was number six on his list: Read more… »

So as I was perusing my TweetDeck the other day, I saw that my buddy, appointment setting guru Mike Damphousse wrote a blog entry last week that I missed (sorry about that pal!)  However, I did want to use this opportunity to spring board into another Point – Counterpoint on The CRAP Report.  Mike’s article, entitled Appointment Setting: Was I Duped? really struck a chord with me.  Mike shared with readers that he “fell victim” to an appointment setting technique, and one that had his own organization, Green Leads, used, would give them a tainted reputation.  He had me hooked right away.  I wanted to know what happened to him that made him feel like someone pulled the wool over his eyes.  I was surprised to read what happened. Read more… »

Did you ever have a Magic 8-Ball?  You remember that, right?  You ask it questions, shake it up, and then look at the bottom of the ball to see which side of the twenty-sided die inside floated to the top.  There were answers like, “It is certain,” “Ask again later,” and “Very doubtful.”  I had one as a kid and always thought they were pretty cool.  If the Magic 8Ball said that I was going to win a basketball game, then of course it was going to happen, right?  If only predicting the future was as easy as shaking one of those things.  Of course, with some of the answers you’d receive, I’m not so sure I want to leave the future up to fate.  So what does this all have to do with teleprospecting?  Well, it got me thinking about self-fulfilling prophecies and a conversation I had today.  Read more… »

Where do you get inspiration from?  Better yet, how do you inspire your teams to bigger and better things?  To pass more leads of higher quality?  To make more calls today than they did yesterday?  To make more calls tomorrow than they’re going to make today?  To talk with more people who will probably hang up on them?  To initiate interest in a product that the prospect knows nothing about but after a ten to fifteen minute phone call now has to have?  How do you get them to do that if you’re feeling burned out yourself?  If you’re a manager of BDR’s, you can’t afford to burn out.  You can’t afford to do anything BUT burn bright.  You’ve got to keep yourself ablaze if you expect your reps to even glow, so how do you do that?  Read more… »

As I perused my TweetDeck this morning, I noticed Garth Moulton’s (the world’s biggest rolodex Jigsaw’s VP of Community and co-founder) blog entry from yesterday, “Cold Calling is not even on the Endangered List.”  Great blog entry where Garth concludes with the following:

“So the truly efficient organization (I’m talking B2B here) has to have at least a couple people (researching first!) braving the last matrix of hell known as cold calling to start the conversation that will eventually lead to a deal.” Read more… »