The CRAP Report

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

“Sales can’t close anything we send over to them!”

“Marketing just throws anything with a name over the wall and expects us to close it!”

We’ve all heard the same story, time and again.  Marketing and sales can’t get along and become unified like they should because they’re constantly playing the blame game.  Marketing blames sales because they don’t close the leads they generate, and Sales blames marketing for sending them nothing worth closing.  The gap that exists between marketing and sales can be bridged, and it can be done so by teleprospecting.  Read more… »

Yesterday, Rebel Brown, Strategist for People Who Know, had a great blog entry in her blog Phoenix Rising.  She makes the point that “Three adjectives and a noun are not a value proposition.”  In other words, “create compelling value propositions.”  I completely agree with her.  I think she’s spot on and I think it speaks to teleprospecting. Read more… »

You know, one of my all time favorite movies is “Sixteen Candles.”  And easily, one of my favorite all time movie characters is the Long Duk Dong, played by Gedde Watanabe.  Long Duk Dong (seriously, his real name in the movie), is a foreign exchange student who comes to the U.S. and stays with the main character’s (Samantha, played by Molly Ringwald) grandparents.  The grandparents are in town for the wedding of their oldest daughter.  Throughout the movie, Long gets himself acquainted with American culture, including high school parties.  Long story short, Jake, Samantha’s crush, comes to the door looking for Samantha.  Long answers the door, nursing quite a hangover.  Jake tries asking Long where Samantha is, and although his English isn’t that great, Long tells Jake that Samantha is getting married.  The truth is that Samantha is at her sister’s wedding, not getting married.  You see, sometimes people can speak the same language, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they understand each other.  That is true in sales prospecting, too. Read more… »