The CRAP Report

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… »

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… »

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… »

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… »

We’ve all got friends in our lives that say that they’re going to do something and then they don’t do it, right?  It’s not just me, is it?  Hell, I know I’ve BEEN that person before.  I’m not proud of that, but it’s the truth.  For the most part though, hopefully we can forgive our friends if the gaffe wasn’t too great, and hopefully they’re able to do the same thing for us.  But when it comes to work, it’s a little different, isn’t it?  If you’re counting on someone to do something for you and they just never get it done, that isn’t as easily forgivable, especially if you’ve got deadlines to keep.  How do you keep people accountable to doing what they’re supposed to be doing?  And speaking about teleprospecting in particular, how do you keep BDR’s accountable? Read more… »

Oh man – we’ve all made them right?  Mistakes?  I can think of some mistakes I’ve made in my life and am glad I’ve learned from them.  No mistake, though, will be greater than what I call 2002’s Worst Job Move Ever.  I needed a job and took the first one that was offered to me from the- medical-technology-company-that-shall-remain-nameless.  This was a bad move all around for me.  For starters, it was business casual all the time.  Oh, except for Fridays when I could wear black jeans.  Yes, you read that right, black jeans.  Who wore black jeans in 2002?  My ex-boss, that’s who.  He made the determination as to what “casual Fridays” would be like, and black jeans were the only option.  Next, there was the travel.  I’m not a fan of flying – I’m not all John Madden about it, but I don’t like it.  I was told, at most, I’d travel 4 times a year.  Well, after 3 trips in 2 months, I realized I’d been duped.  We all make mistakes, but not all of us learn from them.  I’d like to talk with you about some teleprospecting mistakes and how your BDR’s can learn from them. Read more… »

I’ve blogged before about my love for the Cobra Kai from The Karate Kid, but today I want to share with you my admiration for Mr. Miyagi.  You remember him, right, Daniel LaRusso’s pseudo father/mentor/karate teacher?  What I love most about Mr. Miyagi was his dedication to not only teaching Daniel Okinawan style karate, but it was his dedication to Daniel as a person.  Yes, he was willing to teach him karate, but he was going to do so all while making Daniel a better person.  As the movie goes on, you can see Daniel’s transformation from a fearful victim of bullying to a very confident young man.  You know, when you think about teleprospecting and lead generation, it’s our jobs as people who manage BDR’s to make them better, too, and one of the key things we need to teach our BDR’s is confidence. Read more… »

One of my all time favorite cartoons from childhood was the Laff-A-Lympics.  Do you remember this one?  There were three teams of Hanna-Barbera characters who participated in various sporting competitions.  You had The Scooby Doobies, The Yogi Yahooeys, and The Really Rottens.  One of the reasons that I liked this show so much was because it was chock-full of characters from all different cartoons.  You like Scooby Doo?  He’s there.  You like The Blue Falcon and Dynomutt?  They’re in there.  You like Grape Ape?  He’s there, too.  How about The Creeply’s from The Flintstones?  Yup, they’re in it, too.  You get my point.  The other cool thing about the cartoon was not only getting to see all of those characters interact together, but they were all competing against each other, which of course, always leads to hilarity.  I think competition is one of the things I like best about being in a sales environment, too. Read more… »

I’m not old enough to have had the chance to watch the original Mission: Impossible TV series from the late 1960’s – early 1970’s.  Although I had heard the theme song (which we all have – dun dun-dun-dun-dundun-dun-dun-dun), I never had the chance to watch the show.  I have, however, been a fan of the Mission: Impossible movies.  I love movies like that, you know, ones where different people with different specialties come together to accomplish a task?  Hell, I just wrote a four part series on The A-Team and how their specialties relate to the management of teleprospecting teams.  What I loved about Mission: Impossible the movie was how, after Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) was framed for being a mole, Hunt assembles his OWN Impossible Mission Force (IMF) to clear his name.  One of the characters that he recruits is a computer expert named Luther Stickell.  If Luther was good enough for top agent Ethan Hunt, let me tell you why you need a “Luther Stickell” on your lead generation team. Read more… »

If you’ve spent any time teleprospecting and making cold calls, or maybe if you’ve spent time managing a team of business development representatives, you know that typically the turn-over rate is pretty high.  I mean, let’s call a spade a spade here – teleprospecting is not a glamorous job; nobody is getting a Nobel peace prize or a Grammy for doing it.  However, that doesn’t mean that the job is not important.  I, for one, have always felt that what folks in our industry do is very important.  Our clients depend on receiving qualified sales opportunities that hit their forecast and close as quickly as they can.  Sales qualified leads are important to our clients, their families, my colleague’s families, my BDR’s families, and my family.  If you’ve got great BDR’s working for you, or maybe you’ve got a great vendor providing you sales opportunities, how do you keep a BDR from burning their proverbial candle at both ends?  How do you keep them invested in a job that, typically, isn’t glamorous? Read more… »