The CRAP Report

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… »

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!

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… »

By now, I’m sure you’ve all seen the movie Jerry Maguire.  Pre couch-jumping Tom Cruise as a the titular character, Jerry Maguire, a slimy sports agent who has an epiphany and writes a dissertation on how ethics need to be brought back from the dead into an industry that would rather keep them buried.  Jerry’s manifesto gets leaked out to his entire company and he winds up getting fired by his friend.  Renee Zelwegger leaves with him and she and Jerry start their own sports rep agency.  Long story short, Jerry only has one client, wide receiver Rod Tidwell, played by Cuba Gooding, Jr. (who won an Academy Award for the role).  Rod is a very arrogant player who believes he is worth more than he is, and Jerry has to kowtow to him for most of the film.  There comes a point in the film where Jerry is trying to get Rod a new contract signed with the Arizona Cardinals.  After arguing back and forth about Rod not working hard enough to deserve to be paid what he wants, Jerry begs Rod to, “help me help you.”  Jerry wants Rod to help him out by proving to the Cardinals that he is really worth what he thinks he is.  I want the same thing Jerry does for my clients – for them to be happy and make a lot of money.  I need them to help me help them. Read more… »

Do you know the definition of what a “vicious circle” is?  According to dictionary.com it’s, “a situation in which effort to solve a given problem results in aggravation of the problem or the creation of a worse problem.”  Maybe you’ve seen it comically played out in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.  Spoiler alert for those of you who’ve never seen it in the last ten years, but there was a character in it named Fat Bastard, a Scottish hit man, played by Mike Meyers.  Per his name, he really is a fat guy under the employ of the movie’s main antagonist, Dr. Evil.  Near the end of the film, Fat Bastard tries to kill Austin Powers and his co-spy in the movie, Felicity Shagwell, by pretending to be a UPS delivery guy.  Fat Bastard crashes through their front door and tries to kill them, and eventually breaks down in tears and admits that, “I eat because I’m unhappy, and I’m unhappy because I eat. It’s a vicious cycle. Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s someone I need to get in touch with and forgive: meself.”  If you find yourself thinking that you don’t have any budget to put towards teleprospecting in 2010, I think you’re going to find yourself falling into the same vicious circle that got you to that point in the first place. Read more… »