I say it time and time again: The best people to pick up prospecting tips from are the appointment setting guys. Steve Richard from Vorsight is one of those guys. I personally learn a lot from the tips and tactics they are willing to share. If you are in the business, you should too. Here are his Madlibs:
- The b2b buyer is overwhelmed and, as a result, more unaware of their needs than ever. How do you help someone realize they have a need that they didn’t know they had five minutes ago?
- The biggest innovation in sales is a deeper understanding of the buyer’s journey and how to align selling activities to it.
- The coolest thing happening in b2b sales is the realization the rep call coaching makes all the difference in performance. This is not a new idea; the cool part is how people are using technologies and call coaching scorecards to enable the process.
- My favorite Sales 2.0 technology is a tie between TeamVisibility and NationalField. TeamVisibility finally solves the problem of managers doing sales call coaching. NationalField puts your leader boards and whiteboard walls in a Facebook-like interface that reps love.
- My favorite sales book is The Joshua Principle by Tony Hughes because it’s a story everybody loves reading (even non-business book readers). It shines a light on what professional selling really means and the effort required to do it well.
- My favorite social media site is LinkedIn because we generate tons of revenue from it, unlike Twitter.
- Social selling has been around forever with people like real estate agents and insurance brokers. Somehow it’s taken us in B2B sales this long to figure out the power of social to sell.
- I use Linkedin to listen, learn, share, get smart, market, and social sell.
- Cold calling is peanut butter and jelly with social selling. Don’t let the ‘cold calling is dead’ crew drag you down.
- In b2b, the idea of a funnel is a helpful visual tool for understanding the buyer’s journey. At Vorsight we have funnels written everywhere on whiteboard walls throughout our office.
- The first thing every sales person should do is understand why they are in sales to truly know thyself. The second is to learn at least 10 stories of client success to understand why people buy what you are selling.
- Voicemail is alive and well. We took call back rates from 2.5% to 5-6%, depending on the month. Sales reps don’t know a) the right way to leave voicemails and b) that unreturned voicemails aren’t necessarily a waste of time.
- The biggest mistake sales people make is self-limiting thinking. People are capable of so much more than they think is possible.
- The biggest myth in sales is that cold calling is dead. To quote Joe Biden: Malarkey.
- My most forgettable sales experience was when the CIO of a $1b insurer threw me out of his office in Chicagoland. I learned later that he was embezzling money from the company and is now in prison.
- The hardest part of selling is prospecting and qualification. In a recent survey of hundreds of sales professionals, 50.74% said that prospecting/qualification is the most challenging part of the sales process. Most sales organizations have figured out a process for taking opportunities to close. But they have not figured out a prospecting process for consistently taking leads and lists and turning them into qualified opportunities.
- The next “hot-thing” in sales will be the frontline sales manager making a commitment to call coaching. TeamVisibility will give VPs of Sales real knowledge of the sales coaching actually happening in an organization.
- In 2015, sales will be more important than ever. We will always need people who are smart, courageous, and tough enough to deliver insights and facilitate the buying process.
- My favorite sales saying is an old Abe Lincoln quote, “If I had 8 hours to chop down a tree I’d spend 5 hours sharpening my axe and 3 hours cutting.”
- Over the next couple years in sales, I can’t wait to see all those ‘cold calling is dead’ people be proven wrong.
- Madlibs with the Funnelholic is exhausting but worth it. Thanks for getting the creative juices flowing at 7 am on a Sunday morning guys!
Steve Richard is Co-Founder of Vorsight: The Sales Training ProviderImage may be NSFW.
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of the Year 3 years in a row, according to the AA-ISP. Steve has been featured in The Harvard Business Review, The Washington Business Journal, The Washington Post, and CNN/Money. Outside of work, Steve volunteers for Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind and enjoys scuba diving, skiing, running, and spending time with his growing family.