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

HubSpot’s blog featured a guest entry yesterday from Sales 2.0 CEO Nigel Edelshain, entitled “What the Heck is Sales 2.0 (& Why Should I Care)?”  Nigel, as I found out in the article, is the man who coined the term “Sales 2.0:”

Sales 2.0 is about sales people using Web 2.0 tools and social media to sell more effectively

In the entry, Nigel goes on to make the analogy that inbound marketing and Sales 2.0 are like children who size each other up before playing together; slow to get along at first, but when playtime is over, nobody wants to leave one another.  The article is great, but of particular interest to me was this, when talking about businesses that sell something very expensive and have a small prospecting pool from which to generate leads from:

“I always imagine a sales rep in this scenario whose boss comes to him and says ‘how are we getting on penetrating GE’ and the rep who loves inbound marketing too much says ‘we’re waiting for them to hit our website and download a white paper.’”

Inbound marketing certainly makes it easier for an organization to be found, but I believe there is still a need for teleprospecting teams to find qualified sales opportunities.  As marketing and sales teams become more synchronous, I think that teleprospecting can play a great part in helping to bridge the current gap, and then be a part of the grease that makes the unified team run smoother.  Go and check it out, then let me know what you think!

*Photo Credit:  ralphbijker via Flickr

I read a great blog article today from Ardath Albee, B2B marketer and strategist.  The post, entitled What’s the Cost When Sales Tries to Do it All?, was found on the Customer Collective website, and in it, Ardath shared some of her thoughts on CSO Insights’ new 2010 Sales Effectiveness Study.  There were a few facts from the research study that Ardath had some issues with, and I think she makes some great points:

“Relationships are the name of the game. For marketing, for sales and for customer retention. How is it possible that so many companies still fail to “get” this? How is it possible that companies still haven’t woken up to the fact that selling is really all about BUYERS and providing whatever they need to make the purchase decision in your favor?”

You should check it out, too.  Seriously.  Go.  Go read it.

I read a blog today from the inside sales consulting firm The Bridge Group’s Patrice Murray.  Patrice highlighted a post from Dave Kurlan’s blog, where basically Dave shared a story of a time where he was giving a presentation on a Sales Hiring Webinar.  Dave was asked why, if his process worked so well, were more people not using it.  Dave’s answer was broken down into three points – ego, money, and fear.  Patrice did a great job breaking down the post, and you should read it here.

Additionally, my colleague, Craig Ferrara, hosted a webcast about best practices for hiring teleprospectors.  In it, Craig shares his thoughts on setting up a teleprospecting profile, implementing an interview process that focuses on the phone role play, and his evaluation process.  Check out the Perspectives on Teleprospecting – Best Practices for Hiring Teleprospectors webcast here.

*Photo courtesy of LisaDeeRN via Flickr

On Tuesday I shared with you a link to lead generation expert The Funnelholic’s The Marketing Hipster Dictionary, Part I.  Today, he posted part two with some help of folks like The Lord of The Leads Tom Scearce (on Twitter @TLOTL) and Chris Jablonski (on Twitter @cjablonski).  The Funnelholic certainly more than gets by with a little help from his friends, adding words like “Return on Contribution” and “Buyer Engagement.” 

My favorite: 

49.  Trapping the chicken in the courtyard:  A semi-obscure “Rocky II” reference/metaphor describing the relentless and often frustrating pursuit of repeatable marketing and sales success. “I feel like a Kentucky Fried idiot.” — Rocky Balboa (@TLOTL)

You can check out The Marketing Hipster Dictionary, Part II here.

Nice work guys!

Hey everybody!

Been real busy today, so unfortunately I have nothing original to share with you. 

Do not fret, though! 

Craig Rosenberg, marketing and lead generation expert also known as the Funnelholic, has come to the rescue!  Today, Craig posted a great blog article over at his site, where he is creating The Marketing Hipster Dictionary.  What a great idea!  Basically, what he’s doing over the course of a couple of different entries (today and next Thursday), is compiling a list of terms that are used not only on his site, but throughout the sales and marketing space.  From defining the term “Marketing Hipster” to “Maven Marketing,” Craig covers it all and offers up some great examples of folks to follow (on Twitter) in appropriate categories.  If you’re not, you can follow Craig on Twitter at @funnelholic.

You can check out The Marketing Hipster Dictionary here.  One thing is for sure:  someday, when I grow up, I want to make it on the list and be a Marketing Hipster myself.

Great job, Craig!

Think about your prospects for a minute.  You’ve probably got a list or a database chock full of folks that you really want to do business with.  Sure you want to do business with them because that means money for you and your organization, but I’m sure there are those that you want to do business because of the weight that their name carries in their respective industries.  Now take a minute and think about how you reach out to those folks, from a teleprospecting perspective.  Maybe you’re not doing that right now but you want to.  Do you prospect your prospects the way YOU want to or the way THEY want to be?  This question came to me today after reading a blog entry in the Marketing Mélange by Mike Frichol.

Frichol’s article, Are You Selling or Facilitating Buying for Customers?, purports that if prospective buyers, Marketing, and Sales were all aligned, the sales cycle might not take so long.  He’s right.  So, while I’ll leave it to the Marketing and Sales experts to help you align those departments with your future customers, I do see three ways that your teleprospecting teams can do all they can to quicken their aspect of the buying process.  The way I see it, there are three things you should do to make sure that your BDR’s are aligning themselves with how your prospects buy: 

1. Make sure they understand your current clients’ pains and how your solutions/services alleviated them.
2. Make sure they spend more time listening to your prospects, rather than talking.
3. Make sure they touch base with their prospects throughout the lead nurturing process with relevant collateral.

First, if you’re BDR’s are going to prospect the way your future customers want to be prospected to, you need to make sure they understand your current clients’ pains and how your solutions/services alleviated them.  This is simple, sure, but how many of your teleprospectors have taken the time to do that.  Better yet, how many of their mangers have spent time with them talking about this specifically?  I’m guessing not many.  The point here is that if your BDR’s have a good understanding of WHY people have bought from you in the past (see, they’re on the front end of the process, so they usually aren’t there when the decision maker signs the contract), they’re going to have greater likelihood of being able to empathize with your prospects.  People don’t care how much your BDR’s know until they know how much your BDR’s care.  When your teleprospectors can share with your prospects how your organization has alleviated real pains for folks in the same situation as them, turning them into a sales qualified lead is not far behind.

Second, make sure your BDR’s spend more time listening to your prospects, rather than talking.  I’ve said this before, but your teleprospectors need to focus on not just hearing your prospects, but actually listening to them.  Nobody wants to be prospected to by an order taker.  You feel this pain?  Do you have money?  Who makes the decision?  When do you want to buy?  The amount of time your teleprospectors are actually talking should be about a quarter of the time versus the amount of time your prospects should be talking with them.  The take-away here is that if you’re the one building qualification scripts for your BDR’s, make sure that the scripts are flush with open ended questions.  For the most part, folks love to talk about themselves, and if they’ve got problems and are mad enough about those problems, they’ll talk a lot.  Help your prospects talk by crafting better qualification questions so your BDR’s can spend more time listening.

Lastly, to ensure that your BDR’s are prospecting the way your future clients want to be prospected to, make sure they touch base with their prospects throughout the lead nurturing process with relevant collateral.  Unfortunately, you don’t pass a sales qualified lead every time you talk with a prospect.  If you do, let me know how you do it.  That being said, your teleprospectors are going to have a group of folks in their pipeline who are interested in your services, but who are not in need just yet.  I’m sure they follow up every now and then with a call here, a voicemail or maybe an email there, and that is great.  I think if you want to really make an impact on your prospective clients, your BDR’s should start sending relevant collateral with no other motive behind it besides being helpful.  Maybe they came across a blog article, or came across a webcast that would be pertinent to your prospect.  They should be sending those along, building credibility with those interested prospects.  That way, when it does come time to buy, your prospects will remember who reached out to them in a more consultative way and will likely call back to set up time to speak with a product specialist.

At the very least, this is certainly something to think about, and I’m glad that Frichol planted this seed in my brain – it’s a reminder that teleprospecting can always move the sales process along faster by being more efficient.  What do you think?  Can you add to my list?

Okay, if you’ve got a stick of gum, a paper clip, three pennies, a ball made of rubber bands, and an acorn who are you?  A lot of folks may say that you’re the contents of the front pocket of a seven year old boy, but they would be wrong.  Actually, the real answer is a flame thrower if you’re in the hands of one Angus MacGyver – yes, THE MacGyver.  You remember him, right?  They guy with a penchant for getting out of inescapable situations by creating some contraption out of things he’d find on the ground or in his or a partner’s pockets.  MacGyver was awesome (besides the mullet) and one of the cooler aspects of that show was actually trying to figure out how he was going to do what he needed to do, and with what.  Like I said, the guy could make a tank out of a broken baby-stroller and a coat rack.  More than anything, MacGyver was inventive, and without a doubt, one of the top 100 qualities of a great teleprospecting rep is being inventive.

MacGyver, played by Richard Dean Anderson, had a great number of skills that really do not pertain to sales prospecting and B2B lead generation; most notably, the guy was a physicist and chemist.  Not necessarily skill sets that make one a fantastic qualifier of potential sales opportunities.  Now, the fact that the guy was inventive?  That is a skill that BDR’s need.  I can see three ways that being inventive is a great quality for your teleprospecting reps to have: 

1. They invent new ways to shape messages.
2. They invent new ways to get in front of prospects.
3. They invent new ways of streamlining their job.

First of all, being inventive comes in handy for your BDR’s because they are always going to need new ways to shape their teleprospecting messages.  If you’ve got an in-house teleprospecting team or maybe you’ve partnered with a vendor to supply you with sales qualified leads, you’ve got to remember that at some point, “new messaging” becomes “old messaging.”  Who better to help you tweak and reshape their call scripts than a great BDR.  The really good ones are already doing this, anyways!  They’re taking what works and what doesn’t and amalgamating them into one really successful teleprospecting script.

Second, being inventive is necessary because getting in front of prospects gets harder everyday.  Administrative Assistants get colder to the cold call, and decision makers are picking up their phones less and less.  Great teleprospectors invent new ways to get time with their (or their client’s) targeted prospects.  Take for example, one of my colleague’s BDR’s.  Now, although someone else may have come up with this idea, this particular BDR was the first to do it in his group.  He had gotten tired of never hearing back from prospects that he was emailing, so he decided to take a bold step and send out an Outlook invitation for five minutes to talk about his product.  It worked.  He got more prospects to respond than he ever had.  Now granted, more of them were declinations, but he got a lot of prospects to give him five minutes, which is all he needed to get his foot in the door.  Again, maybe someone else did this before, but never in my buddy’s organization.  They standardized sending Outlook invites, and while some prospects get offended, more often than not their praised for their inventiveness.

Lastly, being inventive is important because you want a BDR who is looking for ways to streamline their job.  A teleprospector spends their day making phone calls, and the good ones always make more.  The great ones invent new ways to get more done with the hours they have.  Now, I’m not talking about inventing new software or telephony products (though that would be awesome), I’m really talking more about processes.  Whether it’s inventing a new system to get more calls made in an hour or a new way to write up the sales qualified leads that they’ve found, they’re doing something.  It may be as simple as the way they set up their CRM and their web browsers, but to them, they’ve invented a new way of doing things that makes them more effective.

There you have it, my reasons why a great teleprospector is an inventive one.  What did I miss, or what can you add to this topic on inventiveness?

So you’re thinking about building an in-house teleprospecting team, huh? I mean, someone has to follow up on all of those inbound leads you’re getting, right? Maybe you’re hosting webinars and need those attendees followed up on, right? The most logical thing to do would be to build some sort of qualification machine to follow up on all the contacts you’ve got from all of the marketing programs/events/campaigns you’ve run (and more than likely never got around to getting in touch with). You could give them to your sales guys, no doubt. Trish Bertuzzi, President and Chief Strategist over at the inside sales consulting firm, The Bridge Group, blogged about this with some help from Kirko Papjanis over at her blog, Inside Sales Experts Blog, where Kirko urges folks to put their sales reps in front of prospects sooner. While I agree with him, it’s been my experience that not all sales reps are willing to be put in front of prospects without having them fully qualified, nor are they as effective. So, if you’re thinking about building an in-house teleprospecting team to generate sales qualified leads, there are some things you need to think of.

Running a B2B lead generation team may or may not be as easy/difficult as you may think it to be. It all depends on what your background is. Sales prospecting may be a passion of yours, it may not. Regardless, if you’re in the position where you’re determining whether or not you should build one, I think that there are three things you need to seriously consider before taking the leap to have your own inside teleprospecting team:

1. Do you know how to qualify a lead over the phone? Have you done it before?
2. Do you know the type of candidate who makes the best teleprospecting rep?
3. Do you know how to measure a teleprospecting team’s success?

Do you know how to qualify a lead over the phone? Have you done it before? These are important questions that you need to ask yourself, and I believe that if the answer is no, you need to rethink this idea altogether. If you’ve never spent time qualifying a prospect and expect to lead people who are going to do that for you, you really have your work cut out for you. I’m not saying that you need to be some sort of a cold calling guru, but you need to have actually done the job you’re putting a team together to do. You can’t lead people to places you’ve never been, and on top of that, if your own qualification skills are at a 3 (on a scale of 1 – 10, with 10 being tops), you’re never going to be able to train your team to be better than a 3.  John Maxwell calls it the Law of the Lid in his book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership – “…your organization or business will not rise beyond the level your leadership allows.” I’m not saying you can’t do it, I’m saying that if you’re going to, you’ve got a lot to learn.

Do you know the type of candidate who makes the best teleprospecting rep? You need to think about this question, too. You can’t hire just anybody to qualify sales opportunities for you. Like Charlie Bowdre said in Young Guns, “..you can’t be any geek off the street. Gotta be handy with the steel, if you know what I mean? Earn your keep.” Sure, in this case I’m substituting qualification skills for a gun, but the sentence is no less true. Hire someone who’s done it before and they may bring in poor habits from someone else who trained them. Hire someone who’s too green, and they’re going to get eaten alive by rude or obnoxious prospects (not that they exist, right?). If you’re going to build a team in-house, you’ve got to know who the best candidate is before you can start.

Do you know how to measure a teleprospecting team’s success?  Teleprospecting is more than just making phone calls and qualifying leads. Those are the two most important aspects of it, yes, but a team’s success is more than just the number of dials made and the number of leads passed. You’ve got to think of other things like connect rates, lead rates, feedback percentages, leads to forecast percentage, etc. If you’ve never worked IN business development from a teleprospecting perspective, then how do you know what metrics are the most important? You’ve got a lot of research to do there. Again, I’m not saying that you can’t do it, you just need to prepare. A lot. You also don’t want someone else in your organization telling you what they’re going to be measuring your team’s success on – you need to set the tone for that. If sales prospecting falls under marketing’s direction, you don’t want poor sales follow up to be a detriment to your success, and if you fall under sales’ direction, you don’t want poor marketing efforts to do the same.

Have I missed anything? What do you think? Also, please feel free to contact me directly if you have questions about building a team yourself.

Wow, so the first “official” work day of 2010 is over, and I can’t believe I’m just sitting down to blog at 10:30pm at night.  So sorry for the delay on this!  If you recall, last week I started talking to you about what I want for your teleprospectors this year.  I shared with you that I would want them to have more courage, because courageous BDR’s are more likely to pass fully qualified sales opportunities.  They’re not afraid to ask tough questions and they’re certainly not flustered when presented with difficult objections.  I also talked with you about how I want your BDR’s to have a better source of data from which to prospect from and a compensation plan that pays them out on the quality of their work.  Tonight, want to finish up this little series with numbers four and five of my “wants” for your teleprospectors in 2010.

The fourth desire I have for your teleprospectors in 2010 is a plan to be better BDR’s.  Chances are, if you’re managing a team of teleprospectors or if you’re partnering with a vendor to provide you with sales qualified leads, not every one of the folks on the phone for you are what you would call “A” players (and that’s okay).  Not everyone is going to be an “A,” and chances are also good that when the “A’s” realize they’re at that level, they move on to do something else.  You may have a lot of “B” and “C” level BDR’s, and that’s okay, too.  Okay for a while.  How are you going to bring those folks up?  How are you going to raise their skill levels?  What are you going to do when your “A’s” leave for more money or a different opportunity?  These are questions that if you haven’t yet, you need to start asking yourselves now.

You see, if there’s one thing that you take away from any of the “wants” that I have for your BDR’s, it’s this one.  Help them to better their skills.  Help them to prospect better.  Help them to mine for opportunities better.  Help them understand your solutions or services better.  Saying that you want to do that is one thing, but it is a whole different story to take this seriously and plan something for them.  They need skills enrichment programs if you’re expecting them to pass more and more qualified opportunities.  The money you invest in the training of your BDR’s is only going to serve to bring better sales qualified leads to your sales team.  Better leads mean better forecasts, and better forecasts means more closed business, which is what we’re all looking for.  I want your teleprospectors to have a plan to be better BDR’s in 2010.

Lastly, my fifth “want” for your BDR’s in 2010 is for them to have managers who have “been there” before.  I understand this cannot always be the case, but if it is at all possible, you should have someone managing your BDR’s who have made teleprospecting calls in the past.  The job of a BDR is not the easiest.  They typically talk with people who do not want to talk with them, and when they need a pep talk or a sounding board, a manager who has made those same calls before goes a long way.  I know that when I made teleprospecting calls, it meant a lot to me that my manager had made calls right by my side months ago.

If you are in the position to place someone in charge of your teleprospecting team who’s actually MADE B2B lead generation calls before, do it.  Your reps will see the authenticity in their leadership abilities (at least when it comes to teleprospecting) and chances are their production will increase.  It’s been my experience that BDR’s respond better to someone who has been in their shoes before.  In 2010, I want your teleprospectors to have managers that have “been there” before.

There you have it – my top five “wants” for your BDR’s in 2010.  What did I miss?  What else belongs on this list?