The CRAP Report

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

Now, I’m not really much of a racing fan, car, horse or otherwise.  What I do know about the sport of racing, however, is that whatever method you choose to use to race, you’d better make sure that it’s in top shape.  It always amazes me, whenever I do catch an auto racing event on TV, is how fast the pit crews are when a car comes in.  Even for a flat tire, they’re so fast at changing them!  They have to be though, right?  I mean, there’s a ton of money riding on those races.  You can see where this analogy is going, right?  Your sales machine is typically the money maker of your organization, and the “pit-crew” of your sales machine are the folks who are fully qualifying leads for them.  If you want to keep that crew at a level of high performance, how do you go about doing that? Read more… »

Last week I blogged about things that you need to think about before you decide to build your own in-house teleprospecting team,  where I tried to get folks thinking about some of the questions that they may not have considered, and hopefully offer some insight into the difficulty of creating their own teleprospecting team.  Today I was thinking – what if someone had all of those things covered?  What if someone decided to build their own team and had been an experienced, successful teleprospector?  What if they knew exactly what their ideal BDR looked like and what if they really knew how to measure their team’s success?  It certainly isn’t beyond the scope of possibilities that if you’ve decided to build your own team that you already know how to answer these questions.  As a follow up, then, I’d like to offer some additional questions that you should think about. Read more… »

Man, the summer of 1987 when I discovered Guns N’ Roses’ first release, Appetite for Destruction, was a good one.  I think I listened to their first album (cassette tape actually) so much that I probably needed to buy a second one.  My sister hated them, and would get mad at me every time I wanted to watch their videos on MTV (when they actually played videos).  In my opinion, there wasn’t a bad song on the whole album.  Do you have any like that in your music collection?  You know, one that you can just listen to over and over without feeling like you need to fast forward past a song.  I think I have a few, but the first one I ever encountered, where I liked EVERY song was Appetite for Destruction.  I thought I’d try and do something a little different today, so I’m going to relate some teleprospecting lessons through the titles of each of the songs on the Appetite for Destruction album. Read more… »

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. Read more… »

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. Read more… »

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. Read more… »

With today being December 31st, the last day of the calendar year in 2009, I wanted to continue (but not finish) my countdown, or my top five “wants,” for your teleprospectors in 2010.  If you were here on Monday, you read that my first desire for your BDR’s in the coming year was more confidence.  I’ve shared with you many times over the last four months about the importance of confidence for your BDR’s.  Confidence makes them better teleprospectors – you can’t argue that.  What else, though, should you want your BDR’s to have, though?  Well, good thing you stopped by!  Here are my numbers two and three top “wants” for your B2B lead generators in 2010. Read more… »

As 2009 comes to a close, I’m thinking about the fact that I love lists – you know, countdown lists.  The “top ten” this or the “top five” that.  Whether I really agree with the person making the list or not, I still like reading someone else’s opinion.  Over the course of the next week, I want to share with you a few thoughts on what I want for your teleprospectors in 2010.  You can call it my top five “wants” for your teleprospectors in 2010.

If your BDR’s are like mine, chances are they spend most of their day trying to get in touch with people who don’t want to be spoken to.  If and when they get those folks on the phone, they are, at times, subjected to some of the most “not so nice” attitudes that prospects can conjure up.  I don’t care how tough you are, teleprospecting can take a lot out of you; and it can drain your confidence if you’re left hearing a lot of “no’s” all day. Read more… »

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is one of my favorite Christmas stories.  I love the idea of someone getting visited by four ghosts to show him how the errors of his ways can determine his future.  It’s a story about second chances, too.  Ebenezer Scrooge is a terribly wicked man at the beginning of the tale, and by the end, he’s barely recognizable because his outlook on life is a complete turn from what people had been used to.  How can anyone not enjoy a story like that!?  You know, the ending of one year and the beginning of another brings that same feel of a second chance with it.  When it comes to your B2B lead generation efforts and your sales prospecting campaigns, what are you going to do differently to make 2010 better than 2009? Read more… »