Inside Sales Experts Blog

Sales as a Service

Janet Stucchi — Thu, 24 May 2012 18:49:00 GMT

One of the first business books I ever read was Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard. Published in 1993, my employer at the time considered it required reading for anyone in a Customer Service, Sales or Account Management.

I had a recent experience that inspired me to dust off the book and give it another read.

A quick story

Like many other attendees to the AA-ISP Leadership Summit, I visited the mall that is attached to the hotel (whoever chose that venue, you rock!). In the mall, I shopped at one of my favorite retailers and had a nice chat with the sales clerk while he was ringing up my purchase.

Imagine my surprise (and delight) when I received a handwritten Thank You note in the mail the next week. It read:

Janet,

I hope you had a great time in Dallas. You have to tell me if you found anything at Pink’s Western Wear. I know your family was eager to see authentic Texas items!! Hopefully, your daughter loves her new bag. If you’re ever in the area please come back & see us.

Jonathan
Coach Dallas Galleria

Why did I find this simple gesture so impressive?

Not only did Jonathan demonstrate that he was listening; he also confirmed what he took away from the conversation. No matter the industry, reps need to take advantage of every opportunity to show how they (not just your company or your products) differentiate from the competition.

At the end of the day, sales is a service and whoever provides the best service has the highest likelihood of winning the deal.

Disagree? Take a look at this research from CEB's Sales Executive Council.

If you're a Sales Manager

Are your reps sending ‘acknowledgement emails’ after a discovery call with a prospect? If not, they're missing an opportunity to acknowledge the prospect’s business issues and reaffirm how they're in a position to solve them.

They are also wasting an opportunity to differentiate themselves from the pack of "just-touching-base-checking-in-following-up"ers. A well-crafted acknowledgement email demonstrates that we as sellers have “listened, learned, and internalized."

Do you think I told everyone I know about Jonathan’s note?

Absolutely! Will I pop into the Coach store at Dallas Galleria next time I’m in town? You bet!

Today, news of your company and service, both good and bad; travels at lightning speed. With LinkedIn, Twitter and other social sites, it is imperative that we as sellers turn our customers into raving fans.

Thanks for listening.

How is your team turning customers into raving fans and getting them to spread the good word?

Moving the Sales Needle

Matt Bertuzzi — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:58:00 GMT

Photo credit: zooboing

It is a sales truism that we've been given two ears and one mouth and they should be used in roughly that proportion. This is the classical sales ratio - 2:1.

In recent years, there has been tremendous discussion and discovery around Sales as science, not art. I believe this to be true - at least in part. Sales is no longer a black box; a magical alchemy known only to the Sales illuminati.

(Take a look at HubSpot VP of Sales, Mark Roberge’s Scalable Predictable Sales & Marketing presentation for great perspective on metrics-based management)

The new sales ratio

Selling certainly isn't unknowable wizardry, but neither is it a chemical reaction.

That's why I'd like to suggest a new sales ratio. 1:1.

We've been given one brain and one heart. And they should be used in roughly that proportion.

A brief example

I'm lucky enough to have seen Jill Konrath present. Jill argues the case that buyers’ realities have changed (doing more with less, risk and change averse, using the web to self-educate) and this means our sales approaches must adapt.

Jill is trying help us change our behavior as sales people. To do that, she must first sell us on an idea: To access corporate Decision Makers, sellers need to radically change their approach.

So how does Jill do this?

Does she present data point after data point on the massive gains in efficiency per hour of the American worker over the past three decades? No. Does she reveal chart after chart on the explosion in volumes of email? No.

She shares a few, key (and memorable) data points to build her case, “it takes a prospect 2.7 seconds to decide whether to read your email or delete it” and then...

Having engaged our rational side, Jill turns to the emotional.

She gives a glimpse of what the buyer's life is like the moment before our call.

We learn not *that* our buyers are under tremendous pressure, but *how* that pressure presents in their daily lives. We are given a glimpse into their office: a revolving door of direct reports with wants & needs, new fires arising every minute, an impatient CEO demanding answers. Then *ring* *ring* - there we are “following up on that whitepaper download” and we'd really “love 5 minutes to introduce [them] to our company.”

Jill doesn't just tell us how busy/distracted/risk averse our buyers are. She shows us. She gives us empathy. In short, she goes after our brains & hearts in equal proportions.

Sales Leaders & the new ratio

Now, I would argue that the new sales ratio doesn’t just apply to the act of selling. It is even more critical to the act of Sales Management.

In his recent book What Matters Now, Gary Hamel, business strategy author & professor of London Business School, contrasts 'most companies' with Apple.

He presents the following:

Most companies: think like an engineer and feel like an accountant

Apple: think like an engineer and feel like an artist

Final thoughts

I believe process & methodology are hugely important to sales success. So are forecast & pipeline reviews. But to really move the needle for their teams, Sales Leaders need to:

Recruit & retain with fanatic passion
Coach reps be to their best (think: siblings, not chess pieces)
-and-
Drive new ways of solving problems on individual deals (aka mixing it up & innovating)

Sales Management, as with Sales itself, is both art and science. At its best, it’s about leading with the brain and heart in equal proportions.

Sales Leaders, get out from behind the dashboards and spreadsheets. Think like an engineer and feel like an artist.

Thanks for listening.

8 Key Ingredients in Hire-to-Revenue Onboarding

Trish Bertuzzi — Tue, 08 May 2012 13:02:00 GMT

Hiring great Inside Sales reps has never been harder.

Increased competition for top talent and supply lagging behind demand means that when we land that great rep we have to make their experience with us outstanding! It is as much about retention as recruitment, right?

Our recent hiring infographic noted that 41% of reqs take 45+ days to fill. This is creating quite a revenue gap.

I recently shared my thoughts about how you have to be interesting and different to draw talent to you. But let’s say you are successful, what then?

How do you close the revenue gap by onboarding these reps as quickly as possible?
How do you ensure a great experience for them and for the buyers that are going to be working with them?

Let’s start with the underlying problem

Sales and Marketing leaders are making a strategic investment in their hiring process and then undermining it with a tactical onboarding process.

Drinking from the proverbial product fire hose no longer gets the job done. We have entered the “no product zone” according to Blaire Group’s Kraig Kleeman. Buyers won’t engage with sales reps who pitch product, but they will give access to trusted advisors.

[Note: if you have not yet read The Challenger Sale, go get it. At times you’ll have to slog through the research, but the concept of a sea change from relationship selling to challenger (trusted advisor) selling is brilliant!]

Traditional vs. buyer-based onboarding

Do you see the difference? An effective process has the reps thinking in terms of “them” as opposed to “us”. You can find more specific information on this topic in our Sales Onboarding ebook.

Eight key ingredients

This January, I attended AA-ISP’s Executive Retreat and worked as part of the Employee Lifecycle team. The team came up with some great ideas for onboarding, including:

Define how long someone is a “new” employee and exactly what that means
Develop a training syllabus that covers the first 4 weeks and focuses on education and acclimation
Assign 1 lead person to every new hire that manages their schedule and monitors their progress
As each new hire progresses, take note of how they learn and be flexible and adaptable to accommodate their requirements – the focus should be on their learning not your process
Set goals and expectations for each week that relate to performance and culture
Test along the way to make sure they are progressing
At the 30 day mark, have an “exiting onboarding” interview. What did they like about the experience? What didn’t they find useful? What would they change? What do they still need?
Use the information collected from all of the above to evolve your onboarding process

No one said there was a shortcut to ramping new reps, but at the end of the day it is one of the most important jobs you will ever do. Are you treating it that way?

As always, please share your insights and best practices in the comments section. Thanks and happy selling!
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What you missed at the Inside Sales Leadership Summit

Trish Bertuzzi — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 17:50:00 GMT

This week I had the pleasure of attending the AA-ISP Leadership Summit. Roughly 400 inside sales execs from a diverse group of industries were in attendance.

What an awesome learning experience. I thought I'd share some of the quotes, data points & perspectives that really stuck out for me.

When prospects blink

On average it takes a prospect 2.7 seconds to decide whether to read your email or delete it. If you think the subject line isn’t important, think again! Via Jill Konrath (@jillkonrath) BTW, Jill did an outstanding (and entertaining) job as keynote. If you looking for a speaker, certainly check her out.

Job descriptions have come of age

Rather than just being a recruiting tool, they should also be used to set expectations for reps. Categorize tasks/activities and assign them a percentage of the reps time. Also tell them very clearly what metrics will be used to measure them against those tasks. Via Steve Richard (@srichardv)

Sales intelligence

An analogy from Ralf VonSosen (@rvonsosen) of InsideView on the difference between sales data and sales intelligence: “More hay on the haystack doesn’t help you move the needle."

Wagging the dog

During his presentation, Kraig Kleeman (@kraig_kleeman) had a great line, “Pipeline cures all ills.” How true! Forecast is the tail end of the dog. Are we doing ourselves a disservice by having a majority focus on a minority of deals? Definitely something to think about.

Expectations > Rules

I sat in on Lori Richardson’s (@scoremoresales) break-out session. A point was made contrasting how Sales Reps respond to “expectations” as opposed to “rules.” Semantics, but it makes sense. As people, we are geared to meet expectations and resent rules.

Prioritizing leads (for people not machines)

Want a quick way for your team to prioritize their daily tasks in Salesforce.com? Why not ditch all the HIGH, LOW, A1, C2 code-speak? Simply use the task subject field- e.g. “close this deal” or “contact went dark.” Simple and brilliant! Got 50 tasks? Sort and focus where you need to.

Tools = time

Josiane Feigon (@josianefeigon) led a breakout on Inside Sales tools. A point was made that it’s interesting (or concerning) that we’ll spend $100K+ a year on a rep, but then cringe at spending another $300 a month to give them the tools to boost productivity.

Nancy Nardin (@sellingtools) made the point that there are 215 selling days in a year. If you can give your team back another hour a day, you just picked up another month of selling. Wow!

If you are an Inside Sales professional, you need to get your butt to this conference next year! Hope to see you there.

PS – if you attended and have more info to share, please head on down to the comments.

2012 Inside Sales Metrics Research

Matt Bertuzzi — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:52:00 GMT

I'm very excited to announce the launch of our 2012 Inside Sales Metrics Research. This will be our third research project in the metrics & compensation series - where we collect, analyze & share the numbers that drive B2B Inside Sales for tech companies.

If you are one of the 8,960+ Sales & Marketing Leaders who've download or participated in these reports over the last few years, thank you!

What's the ask

We are looking for Execs running inside sales at B2B technology companies to participate in our 6-minute web survey.

Who can participate

We are asking for aggregate, team-level metrics and compensation information. Only Managers, Directors & VPs are asked to participate.

Currently have an Inside Sales implementation (pipeline generating, closing business, etc.)
Selling B2B technology (hardware, software, SaaS, etc.)
Company located in North America

How to participate

If you are interested, please email research@bridgegroupinc.com to receive the survey link. Please also identify your implementation model(s) using the following guidelines:

Lead Generation-
Teams focused on pipeline generation, appointment setting, pre-qualifying inquiries, etc. (Reps carry no revenue quota)
Inside Sales-
Teams focused on revenue generation. (Reps carry revenue quota)
SaaS / Inside Sales-
Teams focused on revenue generation - selling SaaS solutions. (Reps carry revenue quota)

More details

As always, participants in the research receive the full report pre-release. All data will only be used in aggregate, individual responses will be kept confidential.

Please feel free to pass this along to any colleagues or coworkers you think appropriate. Thanks for taking the time to participate - I truly appreciate it.

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Find Matt on Twitter and Google+

You're Hired to Lead a Startup, What's First?

Trish Bertuzzi — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 13:01:00 GMT

A few weeks back, I came across this scenario on LinkedIn (slightly anonymized to protect identities).

The CEO of a growth-focused company has hired you to oversee Sales & Marketing.

Her company is doing north of $10M in revenue and just took a Series A round of funding to “aggressively grow its sales and marketing activity.”

She has been focused like a laser beam on product and delivery. Marketing efforts consist mostly of tradeshows and webinars, generating leads for their Field team of 6.

There isn’t great consistency in terms of how Sales is talking about the product or who they are targeting. She is concerned that the lack of a cohesive prospecting strategy won’t allow them to scale to hit new revenue targets.

What are your top three priorities for the first 90 days?

Great question right? Recently I’ve been talking with the folks at PR 20/20, an inbound marketing agency, about doing something around “Sales said / Marketing said” – trying to see where our approaches overlapped and where they diverged.

When I saw this scenario, I thought I’d take up the Sales side and Laurel Miltner (AVP at PR 20/20) could take up the Marketing angle. I wanted to highlight a piece from Laurel's response that I thought was especially relevant:

Define and Prioritize Buyer Personas, Hone Messaging

Create clear buyer personas, and prioritize them. Hone your messaging for each target audience, and understand what resonates with them along the entire purchase path. Both marketing and sales will need to understand these archetypes and their key needs/desires, but speak to them in different ways.

I think this is spot on. It is surprising that more companies don’t understand the value of buyer-based messaging. (Make sure to check out Laurel’s entire response)

I’m currently reading The Challenger Sale and the authors talk about the ‘layers of tailoring’ which Reps needs to master: Industry -> Company -> Role -> Individual.

They argue “as a starting point, marketing can add a tremendous amount of value simply by helping sales reps to tailor at the industry and company levels…When a rep comes in not just with a sales pitch, but with a sense of what’s going on in that customer’s company and industry, you’ve got the beginnings of a tailored message.”

This segues nicely to my “top three priorities” as a new Sales Exec.
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#1: Understand our type of sale to determine approach

In a new role, the new Sales Leader has one distinct advantage – they get to ask the dumb questions. Often, companies will describe their sale in terms of:

Who they are (we’re a startup)
What they sell (widgets in the cloud is the future)
-or-
Who their buyers are (we sell to forward thinking CIOs / we target leading consumer brands)

These are important questions – but they don’t answer where your solution sits in the technology adoption life cycle.

I’ve always used the language in Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm to talk about this problem, but have found that language no longer resonates as strongly as it once did with CEOs and VPs of Sales or Marketing. That’s why we have transitioned to referencing SiriusDecisions’ “Demand Spectrum”.

In a nutshell, it segments into three categories:

New concept – buyers don’t know they have a solvable problem, we are a disruptive product, “evangelical” sale,
New paradigm - buyers are solving the problem with inefficient/legacy methods, we are a more effective solution, “quantifiable reason to change” sale,
Established Market – well-defined space, “differentiation” sale

Our approach should be based on where we fall in the spectrum. The entire model should be dictated by the answer to this question!

#2: Remember, those who focus are those who win

When I ask an Exec about their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and they answer “Fortune 500” or “we’re a horizontal play,” I know I’m in trouble. Growing companies will often argue they can sell to anybody. But to scale, you need to know where you’ll find repeatable & profitable success.

Defining our ICP isn’t about creating a named account list, but it is about identifying where our optimal buyers reside. Including:

Embracing the philosophy that not all prospects are equal
Focusing outbound activity towards the accounts with the highest likelihood of success
Triaging inbound activity - by aligning effort to opportunity
Identifying market segments with future potential

The ICP should be central to a host of sales and marketing discussions and decisions.

How do we create territories? (Think: how many accounts fit our ICP in a given region) Who is the hero in our content marketing? (Think: it better be within our ICP)

You get where I’m going, but let me say it one more time: those who focus are those who win.

#3: Leave our baggage at the door

A common pitfall I see Execs grappling with is treating past success as an indicator of future performance.

We are all guilty of wanting to stick within our comfort zone. All too often we'll say – “This model worked really well at my last role/for our competitors/at a Board member’s other company. I’m just going to create that same model here.”

Unless you have the exact same type of sale and ICP - don’t do it! If success was so programmatic, algorithms would run Sales - not people.

Scaling is about developing a cohesive go-to-market strategy that answers the hard questions first. Then we need to take that knowledge and combine it with our experience, expertise and people to craft something that is right for the NOW.

I'm very interested in how you would respond to this scenario. Please share a thought or two in the comments.

(Photo credit: R/DV/RS)

Are Your Sales Demos like Dilbert or Thom Finn?

Brian Geery — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 13:11:00 GMT

Early in my B2B software sales career, I ran into a competitive situation that turned out to be a major learning experience. If you’re a Sales Leader at a company that sells B2B software, you’ll enjoy this.

The situation

I worked for SoftPoint Data Systems, selling software that helped pharmacists improve the prescription fulfillment process. Everywhere I turned, prospects would tell me, “No thanks, I bought a system from Thom Finn.” (Name changed to protect the innocent.) Thom worked at Script Systems, a primary competitor.

I always found it interesting that pharmacists would say
they bought from Thom Finn; not Script Systems.

I later learned it was because Thom showed the pharmacists how to solve their business challenges. As such, they felt they were buying from Thom, a trusted advisor, not Script Systems, an anonymous company. Realizing I couldn’t beat them, I persuaded SoftPoint’s CEO to hire Thom. (Hey, got any better ideas?)

With Thom on the team, I learned his secret. It was the effectiveness of his software demonstration.

While I was doing the usual features & benefits run through:

"Here is how easy it is to enter a new patient’s name...[eyes glaze over]
You can spell Rodriguez multiple ways and find the patient... [yawn]
These are the drop downs where you select an insurance plan with an automatically validated number… [zzzz]”

Thom was demonstrating how to solve real business problems.

How Thom demo'd

Thom would take out a stack of six prescriptions that he'd collected when visiting the pharmacy.

Then he would ask, “Mr. Pharmacist, would you please time me using the second hand on that clock on the wall? I’m going to fill these prescriptions. I’ll explain what happened afterwards.”

Thom would pick up prescription #1, enter it into the computer, flip it over, and do the same with each copy. When done, he would ask, “How long did it take me to enter those six prescriptions?”

The pharmacist would answer, “Five minutes.”

Thom would say, “OK, that's 75% faster than the 20 minutes it currently takes you. Let me tell you about what we just accomplished along the way. While entering these prescriptions, we identified an expired insurance plan, enabling the pharmacist to require a cash payment. If I recall, you estimate that you are losing $2,500 per month on expired plans. We were also able to substitute a brand name when the generic was not in stock, increasing your profit by $2.50 on just one subscription. And, by the way, if this were real life, no customers would have left because of a long line, as now happens during your busiest times.”

Wow. While I was merely demonstrating how my software worked, Thom was demonstrating how his solved real business problems (and cost justifying along the way).

Key takeaway

If you want to help your Reps to sell more, be sure they are demoing how your software solves business problems and makes financial sense, and not how it works. Showing how it works is training and training should take place after the sale, not during it!

Sometimes, prospects do ask “How do you?” questions. For example:

Prospect - “How do you enter updates to a customer’s account receivable record?”

Rep - “It’s quite simple. We actually have you do a few sample entries during the training session. Tell me about the type of information you need to track in your customer’s accounts receivable record, and I can show you how the software will deliver that information when you need it.”

Of course, your Reps need to be able to show people how to use basic features, but it is more important that they can demonstrate how your software solves the business challenge!

What you can do today

List five business challenges that your software solves. Roll out an incentive program for the best “problem solving demo” and watch your team’s demo-to-close ratio improve!

Thanks for listening. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Sales Lessons from 'Angry Birds'

Janet Stucchi — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:40:00 GMT

The Angry Birds phenomenon continues to grow. Not content with being the most downloaded app in 2011, the game is headed to Facebook. For those of you unfamiliar, here's the game's trailer. (In short, Angry Birdsplayers control a flock of birds attempting to rescue eggs that have been stolen by a group of evil pigs.)

Sounds crazy, but I can tell you that - it is addicting! So, how does this relate to Sales?

1. Be prepared – focus on your target

To win in Angry Birds, you can't waste birds by just flinging them out there and hoping to knock something down. Instead, you want to isolate a single part of the structure and strategically fire at it until you destroy it. In Sales, it is equally important to understand the structure or sweet spot you want to “attack”. In other words, knowing your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

Many times, CEOs & VPs of Sales will tell me, "Our ICP is the Fortune 500." My internal response is to hope they get hit in the head with a flying bird. The F500 is not a sweet spot - it is a huge target that can swallow up your resources without gaining any traction.

Give some thought to the commonality where you've already had sucess. Is there a revenue size or # of employees where your message resonates best? Must other technologies to be in place for you to succeed? What functional areas must you target to launch the sales process?
Before you deploy your team, be sure you have identified your ICP.

2. Launching - hire the right people for the job

Now that you know where to aim, determine the right bird for the job. Since each bird has a different talent, you must deploy the correct one against certain obstacles. For example, launching a big red bird at a straw hut would be overkill; while launching a blue bird at a concrete structure would be like trying to use a feather to knock down a steel-reinforced door.

What skills must your Reps have in order to succeed? Strong time management skills to handle lots of transactions? Great message-tailoring skills to work deals with multiple stakeholders? Great detective skills to profile accounts and find the right contacts?
Hiring and deploying the correct skill set for each role is essential to building a successful team.

3. Prepare your game strategy – pre-call planning

Prior to launching birds, you need a strategy. Smart Reps will research their target organization and contacts in advance to identify areas of weakness or opportunity. Things to know are: external influencers the company is facing – a merger or acquisition, technology changes, etc. Do your Reps and buyers share any LinkedIn connections or social groups? What or who do they have in common to help break the ice?
Pre-call planning gives your Reps a foundation for having great conversations with buyers.

4. Obstacles – use persona-based messaging

At each level, you have a limited number of birds; so a plan is necessary to avoid launching birds willy-nilly. The angle of trajectory is critical. Launching at the wrong angle may result in missing the target altogether.

Since you have limited time to capture your buyer’s attention, their industry and functional role must be taken into consideration before uttering a single word. You don’t want reps talking about features & functionality to a CxO; and lowering cost per lead and increasing market penetration aren’t the right messages for a technical evaluator. Focusing on your buyers’ hot buttons will enable them to hear your message over the squawking of the competition.
Using persona-based messaging will enable Reps to spark interest and engage buyers in meaningful discussions within the first few seconds.

5. Levels increase in difficulty - introduce specialization

As you move through the levels of the game, they increase in difficulty and complexity; requiring specialized talent. The black bird is one of the heaviest birds; creating shockwaves upon explosion and inflicting maximum damage. In extreme circumstances, the eagle - essentially a ‘hired gun’ - will destroy everything in sight.
As the market for your products/services evolves, consider introducing specialized roles to help you gain deeper penetration. Focus heavy hitters where you need them, providing the additional leverage you need to win more games.

Closing thoughts

In Sales (as in Angry Birds), it's critical to use your limited resources wisely. Isolating your target, understanding your strengths, identifying obstacles and fine-tune your trajectory as part of your game-winning strategy.

Challenge your Reps to compare & contrast their Angry Birds strategy to their selling process. They may not have an a-ha moment, but will most certainly be engaged in the conversation! Thanks for listening!

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Find Janet on Twitter and LinkedIn

(Photo credit: Nick Chill Photography & renata miyagusku)

Attracting Top Inside Talent [moving past the 90’s]

Trish Bertuzzi — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:43:00 GMT

Last month, I had the pleasure of attending the AA-ISP Senior Exec Retreat and spending time with 50+ Execs, VPs and Directors sharing & discussing issues relevant to inside sales.

One of the workshops focused on Employee Lifecycle. Well, let me tell you that I learned a ton from the other attendees – Inside Sales leaders from companies like IBM, Mentor Graphics, Staples, & Henkle to name a few.

I thought I’d share a few takeaways from that session – specifically focused on the front end of the employee lifecycle: Sourcing.

For the better part of the last 15 years we’ve all used a combination of the following to source candidates:

Internal and external referrals
External or in-house recruiters
Online postings: corporate sites, Monster, LinkedIn, etc.

But we know that finding top talent is tougher than ever before. Our hiring infographic notes that:

The demand for inside sales talent increased 124% from 2009 to 2011
The demand for lead generation talent increased 59% in the same time period
59% of all reqs are filled in under 45 days

Yikes… Since filling open reqs dramatically impact our ability to achieve revenue goals, what can we do about it?

My hypothesis is that the static, newspaper-come-Monster-come-LinkedIn job posting isn’t doing the job. We need to get creative (read 21st century) to stand out & showcase our opportunities.

I wanted to call out 2 examples of companies that are using creative methods to recruit top talent.

First up, HubSpot.

(For those unfamiliar – HubSpot's Inbound Marketing Software gives you all the tools you need to make marketing that people will actually love - earning quality leads and loyal customers in return.)

Now, let’s take a look at their recruiting page. What are they doing that is different and creative?

The page is visually attractive and calls out their awards as a great place to work
There are a variety of videos that showcase Hubspotters and the many reasons to work there
They share their unique culture: no offices, focused on education including buying books for employees etc.
They provide resources for job hunters that extend beyond just them like “Building Your Online Brand” or “3 Things We Love About Your Resume & 3 Things We Can Do Without”

What a great recruiting page! They have invested in being attractive to candidates and also invested in a culture that will retain those candidates.

Next up, M5 Networks.

(For those unfamiliar – M5 Networks is a recognized leader in cloud based business phone systems. While other companies have added voice service as an afterthought, voice is the core of M5’s business.)

M5 recently made a corporate commitment to hiring great talent and have re-organized to back it up. Here’s an excerpt from a recent release:

M5 Networks today announced the creation of the M5 People Team, a group dedicated to creating a winning workplace for M5’s valued staff of over 200. Focused on employee engagement, the M5 People Team, led by Chief Learning Officer, Heather Bennett, will use fun and creative ways to foster a work culture that supports its staff to help them meet their personal and professional goals.

So, what are they doing that is creative? They are offering things like:

The M5 Rock program, where employees form rock bands, take music lessons and compete in a yearly Battle of the Bands.
A digital suggestion box, called M5 Ideas to systematically collect, process and reward innovative staff ideas.
A Jiujitsu program run in partnership with MMA Champion Marcelo Garcia and international Chess Champion Josh Waitzkin who recently wrote, “The Art of Learning”. Waitzkin, who was the subject of the popular film, “Searching for Bobby Fisher” works with M5ers on practicing learning techniques while they perfect their jiujitsu moves.

Heather Bennett (Chief Learning Officer) shared: "We want people to love working at M5. That means creating a workplace where people are free to be themselves and feel well cared for. If we can create that environment, we will attract the best talent who will then bring the next wave of innovation to our customers. It’s a win-win situation for everyone."

Wow, right? In this new world where attracting top talent is so competitive, you really need to stand out from the crowd. Why not try:

arming internal & external recruiters with landing pages for candidates not just prospects
content marketing for open positions (video that captures your people's passion, slideshares that present your vision)
equipping your current Reps with all of the above to share with their network

What are you doing that is creative? I'd love to hear from you!

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(Photo credit: bjmccray)

The Inside Track on Salesforce.com’s Outbound Team

Matt Bertuzzi — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:51:00 GMT

To those that know me well, I’m not making news when I confess my love for Salesforce.com. Add in metrics, reports and dashboards and we have a perfect weekday afternoon.

That being shared, I recently stumbled upon a recorded Dreamforce session on "Sales Prospecting Secrets: How Salesforce.com Fills the Funnel with Hot Leads." Needless to say, that’s right up my alley.

Since the full session clocks in at 52 minutes, I thought I'd share some of the highlights here. The first part of the talk is given by Erik Nierenberg,VP of Sales Business Development, and covers his outbound-focused team.

Point 1: Build Career Path into your Sales Roles

Salesforce.com breaks their Sales Development group into 2 roles: SRs and EBRs.

The SR team handles inbound lead qualification. These Reps are often straight out of college. This group serves as a training ground for future EBRs.

The EBR team (Enterprise Business Reps) is tasked with generating net new opportunities. These Reps are 3-5 years out of college and often former SRs. This group also serves as a training ground for future Account Executives (Reps closing business). Erik shares that the average tenure of EBRs is 12-18 months.

Takeaway:

If you are hiring Gen-Y Rep, you need to be ready to discuss career path – ready during the interview, ready at month 8, month 12 or month 14. Managers need to be prepared to answer “what’s next for me within this organization?”.

Point 2: Dashboards for more than Pipeline & Revenue

Erik shares that for Senior Management, pipeline and revenue metrics are all that matter. His Managers, however, need more detail to manage their groups day-to-day – at right is a screenshot of their Key Metrics Dashboard.

The left column reports on “Connects by Rep.” Most interesting is that they a) use colors and b) stack rank the Reps (best producers at the top) – to turn the dashboard into a Hall of Fame / Wall of Shame.

Similarly, the top chart in the center column reports on “Opps created this Month by Rep.” Again they use stack ranking with best performers on the left tapering down and to the right.

The beauty of this style of dashboard is that:

Directors can use the same layout/format to evaluate not only individual Reps, but the Managers as well
Managers get real-time insight into the weekly and monthly metrics that will eventually deliver qualified pipeline
Reps can see exactly where they stand and, perhaps, can reach out to the best producing Reps to learn what’s working for them

Point 3: Let Reps Build & Share their own Dashboards

Erik shares how each of his Reps creates their own dashboard and shares it with their Manager. The dashboard is their view into how they will manage, prioritize & execute their territory strategy.

What I love about this approach is that it flips the traditional paradigm of day-to-day metrics & measurement on its head.

Rather than saying, “OK, New Rep. Here are the metrics I’m going to measure you against. This dashboard tells me how you’re doing.”

This approach is closer to:

“OK, New Rep. You know how you’ll ultimately been measured. What are the steps you will need to take on a daily and monthly basis to make your number? You tell me how you’ll measure yourself.

Better yet, show me. Build the dashboard that you’ll measure yourself against – and I’ll manage you to it.”

And better yet again “As a starting point, here’s the Dashboard that Vanessa (your new peer mentor) uses.

The money quote for me was “I’ve got 90 Reps running their own business – using our dashboard.”

Again there is a lot in the session worth considering. You can see the full 52 minutes here.

My recommendation is this – pick one of the 3 points offered above, take it to the Senior Executives in your organization and say “Here is a best practices we need to replicate. How do we get started?” Thanks for listening.

--
Find Matt on Twitter and Google+

Building Inside Sales in Europe [New Ebook]

Matt Bertuzzi — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:30:00 GMT

Judging by the constant stream of job postings in the Inside Sales Experts LinkedIn group, the market for Inside Sales talent in Europe is hot.

Recruiting a German-Speaking Inside Sales Specialist in (Reading, UK)
Looking for Dutch-Speaking Business Development Agents for an IT Co. (Barcelona, Spain)
Hiring Multilingual Inside Sales Reps Based in Dublin (Ireland)

Through numerous conversations with clients, we've been hearing anecdotal feedback about the challenges US & Canadian companies are facing when building inside teams targeting the European market: the more active role of resellers, hiring for sales/language skills, list & data sources, acceptance of phone & web selling, etc.

New research on Inside Sales & Lead Gen in Europe.

So in Q4 of last year, we decided to do a bit of research. Today, I am extremely excited to release our new ebook on the topic - Inside Sales Abroad: Inside Sales Efforts Targeting Europe.

I found the data and comments from survey takers fascinating. One particular sentiment kept coming up again and again:

While Inside Sales is gaining acceptance in Europe, Companies need to be prepared build, manage & support more than one implementation and set of metrics.

In other words, you might grow to manage several Reps in Cork, Ireland calling into the UK, another cluster in Barcelona, Spain calling into Southern Europe, and potentially smaller clusters in country within France or Germany.

Understanding what means of communication is most effective with the particular geography and how to build a sales process around that culture is a critical success factor.

The ebook gives companies looking to expand into the European market, or those already doing so, valuable metrics, data points and perspective. You can download your copy of the ebook here.

As always, please feel free to share any feedback you may have with our community.

Scoring our 2011 Inside Sales Predictions [for golf lovers]

Trish Bertuzzi — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:50:00 GMT

It’s 2012 and high time to revisit 9 predictions that Laurie Page and I made early in 2011. I thought it might be interesting to see how well we did.

We’ll be scoring our predictions like a 9-hole round using this point system:

Hole-in-one (1) - when a prediction hits the nail on the head
Birdie (3) - predictions that are in the area, but aren’t quite holes-in-one
Bogey (5) - those that landed near the truth, but missed par
Snowman (8) - those that just didn't come close

No longer will the Inside Sales Rep be a “jack of all trades”. Roles will be clearly defined and measured based on specific desired outcomes.
Segmentation/specialization is still a hot topic. We are seeing some hesitance on the part of smaller organizations to specialize but, for those that have adopted the strategy, specialization often leads to dramatically increased productivity.
Score: Birdie
Data will become an integral component for predicting the likelihood of Inside Sales success. No longer will companies buy data from one vendor but rather they will create a network of data providers to deliver to them the specific information in their target markets.
I actually think this problem got worse last year. People will invest in everything but data. If you got something wrong 30% every time you tried it, wouldn’t you look for a better way? Well, at least 30% of your database is bad and your sales and marketing teams have to work with it … not good!
Score: Snowman
Metrics will evolve beyond baseline activity (calls, emails) to include metrics that track movement through the qualification & sales process. Management will track demo conversion and forecasting accuracy at the group and rep levels. What will change is that only those metrics that are used to make business decisions will be tracked. All others will fall by the wayside.
We were off on the adoption curve on this one. People are still tracking activity metrics and few, although some, are track forecasting accuracy.
Score: Snowman
Marketing measurement will become revenue focused as opposed to activity focused. It will be less important to track what comes in at the top of the funnel (TOFU) and much more important to track what makes it to the middle of the funnel (MOFU).
Early adopters are on to this. Many companies now measure marketing on revenue and not just activity or number of leads. This is a thorny issue, but one that is definitely top of mind for many organizations.
Score: Birdie
Effective onboarding will finally be recognized as a critical success factor. The days of “let’s hire a bunch of college kids and let them go at a list” are gone. Companies will realize that they need to have an effective process with supporting tools in place and that they need a plan for Reps to be effective.
I think we nailed it with this one– yeah!! Companies are taking big steps forward and improving their onboarding processes.
Score: Hole-in-one
People will stop focusing on bright shiny technologies and implement those that move their sales efforts forward. Many are toys but some are real tools that increase productivity and yield. The market will continue to understand the difference and make their buying decisions accordingly.
I think the rush to adopt technology without understanding its place in the process or ROI has slowed. There is so much great technology out there, but like we always say “A fool with a tool is still a fool.” But slowed isn’t stopped, so we missed this one.
Score: Bogey
Messaging will continue to evolve from sales centric to buyer centric. It will become increasingly for Inside Sales Reps to understand a day in the life of their buyers.
We have definitely seen companies making the move away from me/I/we/our messaging. And towards speaking to the motivations, emotions and often compensation of their buyer personas. There is still significant room to grow, but I’m happy with the direction we are all heading!
Score: Birdie
Great content will continue to evolve as the tool of choice for ISRs. Ask Reps what they want and they will tell you they want meaningful tools that will allow buyers to better understand their company’s unique value proposition. They want content that is interesting, available in a variety of media and moves the qualification and sales process forward.
Inside Sales Reps still want great content, but now they also want to be able to track who consumes it and when.
Score: Birdie
ISRs will begin to understand the value of personal branding and how it can impact their sales efforts. No longer will the only thought leaders to be found at the top of the organization. Blogs, Twitter, etc. will create an environment where individual Reps can know showcase their knowledge and value.
We are making progress, but adoption is a much slower than anticipated. Hopefully 2012 will be the year this idea crosses the chasm.
Score: Bogey

So we shot a 39. That's 3 over with a hole-in-one? That's a round I can be proud of!

What do you think? Any predictions to share for 2012? Any thoughts on what you saw in 2011? I'd love to hear from you.

(Photo credit: Steinarwariar)

Things I'm Wishing For In 2012

Trish Bertuzzi — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:55:00 GMT

Many thanks to Peter Shankman for inspiring this post (see his Things I’d Like to See Happen in 2012). Here's a list of things I’m wishing 2012 will deliver.

May 2012 be the year we embrace social media for sharing - not endless self-promotion. I’m bored with hearing how busy and wonderful we all are. Aren’t we boring ourselves too? We can learn so much more from what didn’t go perfectly and how we adapted, improvised & overcame.
May 2012 be the year that Inside Sales Reps embrace the fact that they are “the new black” and show us what they can really do. Dazzle us – you have the skills, the knowledge and the support!!
May 2012 be the year of the least amount of public information about any of the Kardashians. (Copied verbatim from Peter’s list – because it’s my wish too.)
May 2012 be the year I figure out how to keep my business partner, Laurie Page, off a plane. If I don’t she is going to kill me…I know she is. Goodbye cruel world.
May 2012 be the year that Executives realize that to get the most out of your sales team you need to invest in them. That means training, tools, technology … and, oh yeah, you might want to pay attention to them once in awhile. (PS – forecast reviews don’t count. That’s torture – not mentoring.)
May 2012 be the year that people figure out that the idiom is “fleshed out” not “flushed out”. The latter is the result of an acai berry cleanse – the former means to make more substantial.
May 2012 be the year my retirement portfolio actually grows. If not I see handing out smiley faces at the door of Walmart in my future.
May 2012 be the year my son doesn’t make me feel like Scrooge because he is so good about philanthropy and I need an occasional prod. It feels so good to give – why isn’t it always front of mind?
May 2012 be the year that airlines get the basics right (no tarmacs detentions, no lousy customer service). Hello United Airlines, if I book United I should be able to use United miles even if you are using a US Air plane. Don’t confuse your issues with ours.
May 2012 be the year we stop hanging 2.0 off the back end of everything we do. The Internet Explorer 7.0 mindset doesn’t jive with a Chrome world.
May 2012 be the year that publishers understand sharing their books is a good thing. I’d happily pay a premium for the privilege.
May 2012 be the year I actually find the time to launch Inside Sales for Good. I bought the domain now I just need to build the program and get it going. Going to be teaching inside sales teams how to run events to support local charities.

Happy New Year and many thanks for listening. And another thank you to @petershankman for inspiring this post.

What would you like to see happen in 2012?

(Photo credit: ferlomu)

Quick Thoughts for a Pre-Holiday Week

Matt Bertuzzi — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 13:59:00 GMT

First things first.

Thanks, for real!

Thanks for reading our thoughts and sharing your comments this year. We hope that, in some small part, our perspective (and occasional snark) made your job a little easier and your business more successful.

Your vote is your gift

As part of our 1/1/1 integrated philanthropy program, we are looking to make a year-end contribution to two charities. Please take a quick moment to vote for your top choice. We’ll be donating to the top 2 charities.
.

2011 Best Of!

As we love to do, here’s our official The Bridge Group 2011 Year in Review – best of:

BOOKS
Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure (by Tim Harford)
Before I Go to Sleep (by S. J. Watson)
Read This Before Our Next Meeting (by Al Pittampalli)
The Litigators (by John Grisham)

MUSIC
21 (by Adele)
Duets II (by Tony Bennett)
Helplessness Blues (by Fleet Foxes)
Let England Shake (by P.J. Harvey)

PODCASTS
HBR IdeaCast (by Harvard Business Review)
Freakonomics Radio (by WNYC & APM)
Labcast (by OpenView Labs)
Six Pixels Of Separation (byTwist Image)

Just because

I could only include 5 folks in this video - so I had to leave myself out. Darn!

Click to launch video

From all of us at The Bridge Group, we’d like to wish you very happy holidays and best wishes for a very prosperous new year. We are looking forward to another very exciting year with you in 2012.

More about the author: Matt Bertuzzi

Recruiting, Motivating & Retaining Inside Reps [new research]

Matt Bertuzzi — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:59:00 GMT

Recruiting, motivating & retaining great Reps is a critical component of any Inside Sales strategy. One thing that has largely been absent in the process is feedback from the Reps themselves.

With that in mind, I am very excited to announce the launch of a new research project with our good friends at Vorsight:
Inside Sales Motivation Research Survey.

We are asking Inside Reps (& reps only) to share 3-minutes on a web survey about what motivates them professionally and how their current role is stacking up. In exchange, participants will be entered into a drawing where one winner will receive an Apple iPad2 and another a Kindle Fire. For the full who, what, where & how please see this.

We've been collecting data for a few days and the information is fascinating. Here's a quick preview.

What motivates you professionally?

We provided 10 or so motivators and Reps were able to select their personal Top 2. I've separated the data generationally. Fascinating stuff, right?

So if you are Rep, please consider taking part in the 3-minute survey. It is much appreciated and you could win a cool toy in time for the holidays.

--
Find Matt on Twitter and Google+

5 Steps to Twitter for Sales

Trish Bertuzzi — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 14:57:00 GMT

This is a guest post from Matt Heinz, President of Heinz Marketing a Seattle based marketing agency focused on sales acceleration. I saw this piece he had written on how to use Twitter asked if we could share it. I hope you find it interesting and useful. Enjoy!

PS – I’ll save you some time… if your buyers are not on Twitter (and many of them are not) you can sally forth and do meaningful work or read on for future reference.

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Twitter will never be confused with a direct response channel, but it’s still a proven and measurable tool for finding and engaging more prospects. Below are five specific tips to start finding more opportunities via Twitter.

1. Follow your prospects

Create private lists of your prospects in Twitter, and follow them via segmented columns in HootSuite, Tweetdeck or some other tool. If you want to stay more “stealth” until you're ready to reach out and engage, you can add prospects to a Twitter list without actually following them but either way, knowing what your prospects are thinking and saying will help you: get to know them better, learn quickly what their priorities are and give you plenty of opportunities to engage at the beginning of their buying cycle.

Trish here: It is not always easy to find your prospects on Twitter as they may not be using their full names. Use the search function in twitter and/or google their name plus the word twitter. If you can’t find them then simply ask if they tweet the next time you chat.

2. Follow your partners

Partners that work with the same target audience often share needs, questions, and/or look for help with existing projects via Twitter. The more these partners see and interact with you, the more likely they’ll remember you when their customers and prospects have a need you can fill.

3. Curate customer-centric content

One of the quickest way to attract prospects to you via Twitter is to read everything they wish they had time to read, and filter the best content into your Twitter feed. You don’t have to originate content to attract a following on the social web – it’s good enough (and sometimes better) to curate the best content from a variety of sources so that your prospects begin to trust that you’re, effectively, doing their reading for them.

4. Listen for buying signals

What are some of the things your prospective customers experience before they need what you’re selling? These buying signals are from people who aren’t yet ready to buy, but are about ready to start looking for solutions to a problem or pain. If you know your customer targets well enough, you can specifically search for those keywords and phrases from prospects on Twitter and other social channels.

Trish here: Matt has a great point with this one. Twitter is one listening channel but LinkedIn is amazing for this as well. You should look at your prospect’s profile and see what groups they belong to and join those groups. This gives you three opportunities – one) to see what they talk about in the discussion areas, two) to participate in those conversations as a subject matter peer (NOT a sales person) and three) to see who else is participating in those conversations. You might find a new prospect along the way!

5. Watch & use hashtags

Hashtags, especially those tied to associations or events, are a great way to follow conversations and find prospects that already self-associate with a group, a cause, an interest or a need. It’s a great way to engage in those real-time conversations and help your message reach new prospects directly. It’s particularly important when using hashtags to add value, and don’t directly sell. But if you engage in the conversation naturally, new prospects will be drawn in to learn more.

What a great list of tips – thanks Matt! If you (or Reps on your team) are using Twitter effectively we would love to know what you are doing so please comment to share your knowledge.

Quick Thought for a Short Week [the Jobs book]

Matt Bertuzzi — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 14:33:00 GMT

"There's something happening here." That was the thought that went through my head when I learned that three folks I respect tremendously (Paul Roetzer, David Meerman Scott & Mitch Joel) are all reading the same book:

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.

My second thought was back to a piece of advice from Trish’s new ebook Sales Onboarding: the express route from hire-to-revenue.

So heading over to Amazon, I was blown away to see the Jobs book at #2 in the Top 100 Books (not just business books – all books).

I’d argue that if your perfect buyer cares deeply about:

Products
Marketing
Innovation
Entrepreneurship
-or-
Leadership

there's a pretty good chance that they’re plugged into the Jobs book too.

So what should you do about it?

Clearly where the rubber meets the road is in using this common reading in your selling process. I certainly don't have a magic bullet, but am reminded of a recent post by David Skok at For Entrepreneurs blog: When Selling is the Worst Way to Win Customers.

David argues that many Sales & Marketing folks ignore the importance of trust, jumping too fast (and often too hard) into selling. He shares this advice:

Adding Value is often best done in an orthogonal way.

Many times the way I added value was not directly associated with the product I was going to try to sell them later on.

For example, I might pick a much higher level topic of some mega-trend that was affecting their business segment, and discuss how other companies in their segment were tackling that issue. The value would be the insights into their peers or competitors.

So there's my quick thought on this short week: if your Buyers are reading Steve Jobs, you should too. Try adding value in "an orthogonal way". You will definitely stand out from the pack.

We're going to implement a more formal Buyers Book Club here at The Bridge Group. We’ll let you know what we learn along the way. I'd love to hear your feedback if you do the same!

Social, Content & Selling - a Chief Revenue Officer's take

Trish Bertuzzi — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:59:00 GMT

I recently participated in a conversation over at Focus.com: How can you create a culture where your employees feel comfortable creating content? The idea being, that the creation of content is now an organizational responsibility as opposed to just being Marketing’s.

At one point in the dialogue, I was sick of hearing what all the pundits think (myself included) so I threw down the glove and asked a Sales Exec to chime in. Well, Alex Shootman the Chief Revenue Officer of Eloqua did. His excellent response follows:

Three interesting words in this exchange; culture, sales & content. In a vacuum these words do not seem like they should go together but let's break this down.

1) Culture is the external manifestation of the shared values of a group.
2) Sales is connecting what you have or know with what someone else hopes for.
3) Content is useful information or tools that people find helpful.

So the question of creating a culture of content management for sales to me might need to be re-framed. What parts of the sales culture are already in place that result in content being created and shared? What values always exist in great sales organizations? Since the beginning of time great sales people need to go hang out where their customers hang out and be interesting. What we need to help sales people understand is that their customers are hanging out on-line and they get interested in interesting content....

We are spending more and more time with our sales teams helping them learn to authentically prospect in social media. The more they create their online 'brand' and the more time they spend on-line seeing prospects attracted to great 'bait' and reject poorly thought out 'bait' the more they are beginning to become content aggregators. Which is the first step to beginning to actually create content.

Awesome, right? I immediately called Alex and asked him to share a bit more about how he actually shares this vision with his sales team.

[Trish] You say you are teaching your reps to prospect in social media. What channels specifically do you point them to?

[Alex]: The channel selection is one of the easiest parts. There are numerous communication channels for you to use to develop and build your personal brand. The basics are online communities, social networks like Twitter and Facebook, YouTube, SlideShare, blog sites, Flickr. The sheer number of different platforms makes learning where your customers/prospects hang out so important. We ask them to study their territory and learn where their clients are hanging out. They have to show us concrete examples of people they are trying to sell to and the channels in which they participate.

An overly simplified example of this is a great rep on the west coast selling to technology companies is on Twitter. A great rep in Chicago selling to more traditional manufacturing organizations hangs out on LinkedIn. The next step is teaching them to master the channels. I guess we are fortunate here we have one or two experts on each of the major channels and we enroll them in teaching the others and being the resident expert. For example check out Kevin McArdle - LinkedIn or Jill Rowley - Twitter.

[Trish] How are your Reps creating their online "brand"?

[Alex]: We've created a program. We're not yet sure if it is comprehensive because we are experimenting, but this is what we are doing in four simple steps; Discover, Develop, Monitor & Communicate.

First – discover; What are your personal drivers? What are you known for? What do you have answers to? What do others consistently say about you?

Second – develop; Who are you customers and what do they care about? As you think about your territory, what issues/challenges do your customers have in common? What’s a “day in the life” like for them? Do you know why your customers value you? In this phase we are asking the team to think about how they want to position themselves.

Third – communicate ; this is where channel selection fits in. Where did you decide your customers hang out? Do they find their information on Facebook and Twitter? Are they blog readers? Are they at conferences and other networking events, too? Again, personal branding is about positioning yourself as the trusted solutions provider. This step is about identifying the combination of communication channels that will consistently reach your customers and play to your strengths. Then it is about creating a publishing schedule – here is an example:

Fourth –monitor; we have them set up Google Alerts on themselves and also at every quarterly sales meeting they have to stand up in front of their peers and demonstrate their on-line brand and activity and the rest of the team scores them. And yes; I have to lead from the front. I'm coming way up the learning curve on this. Sometimes the team gives me a passing grade and sometimes they fail me. For example I have a personal blog I used to keep a long time ago; it is still up because I am interested in the type of research that people interviewing at Eloqua do before they show up but the content is really old. They kill me on that every time.

A huge thanks to Alex for taking the time to share. I do think it is important to note that Alex and his team sell to Marketers (a group that does fall into the early adopter category for social media.) A word of caution – as you are defining your approach, think about your buyers as a) people who b) want to consume relevant and useful information. Where do they go to get that information? Answer that question, invest there and you've taken Step One in your journey!

So, what do you think? How are you encouraging your team to use social media? I love Alex's online brand show & score sessions at the quarterly sales meeting. What stood out for you?

Inside Sales Onboarding is Broken

Trish Bertuzzi — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 12:50:00 GMT

18 short months ago I was presenting to a room full of 200 or so Inside Sales Executives at the AA-ISP Leadership Summit. I asked them the following:

Raise your hand if you believe that sales onboarding is a critical factor in the success of new hires: almost all the room
Raise your hand if you have a documented process: about 2/3 of the room
Raise your hand if you think you have a good process: maybe 25 people
Raise your hand if building an amazing onboarding process is one of your top 3 initiatives this quarter: not a single hand

The more I thought about it, the more unfair my final question seemed to me.

With everything that Inside Sales Leaders have on their plates, how can they make the onboarding experience truly incredible if they don’t know what is broken.

So I sat down to put together my thoughts and ended up writing an ebook - Inside Sales Onboarding: the express route from hire-to-revenue.

I tried to capture five key areas, gaps really, between where we are today and where we need to be. Here’s a quick excerpt for you:

Inside Sales Onboarding (part1)

Simply put, I wanted to identify some key gaps in the onboarding process, provide quick tips that Sales Executives can put to work immediately and share a framework for ensuring Reps have the opportunity to reach their full potential.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Download the Inside Sales Onboarding ebook and please feel free to share your best practices in the comments.

Thank You for Calling the Sales Prevention Department

Janet Stucchi — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 13:33:00 GMT

Your Reps are spending significant time, effort & energy trying to speak with prospects live.

When the great miracle happens and a prospect tries to call your Sales Line, are you making it easy for them? Are you sure?

Many companies have a department they’re not even aware of – Sales Prevention. It’s comprised of delightfully polite, yet ultimately rage-inducing auto attendant that prevent Prospects from reaching your Sales Reps.

The good news is that there’s a way to downsize the Sales Prevention Department. Here’s how:

Dial the phone numbers listed on your website, booth, cut sheets, etc.
Make sure you call the main line and the sales line (if they’re separate). This will help you understand the prospect’s experience.
How quickly is the phone answered, if at all? If you have an auto attendant, is the Sales option 1^st, 2^nd, 6^th? Is the prospect forced to listen to a commercial before you provide them with routing options?
Make sure that the Sales option rings more than one Rep
Most systems will allow you to route to a specific extension or randomly based on availability. Whichever way you go, you must have overflow routing in case the first person is unavailable. This may mean that you, as a Sales Manager, will have to answer the phone on occasion. Not a bad thing, right?
Never have your inbound line dump into a single Rep’s voicemail.
Does the caller get dumped into ‘Brian Sellers’ voicemail – without any indication who exactly he is?
There are numerous issues with this, not the least of which is the inability to retrieve those messages in the Rep is out.
If you can't have a live person answer the call, have a dedicated Sales voicemail where prospects can leave a message. It goes without saying that you’ll need to make sure that voicemail is being checked – perhaps sales support can help with this one.
Establish an SLA for Sales voicemails.
There should be a time limit by which each voicemail must be retrieved and answered. It should be as short as reasonably possible. Your prospects need to know that their calls are important to you. The only way to demonstrate this, if the call cannot be answered live, is to respond to their message in a timely manner.
Ensure your Reps’ names & extensions are publicized within the organization.
It would be ideal to include the territories (if not too complex). If a prospect mistakenly dials HR or Customer Support, can those folks quickly and seamlessly intro and connect the prospect with the correct Rep.

Fair or not, if your prospect is left thinking – “Gee, talking to a Sales Rep is so effortless I just can’t wait to work with their legal & billing team!” –they will call your competitors.

No matter how unique your product; or how differentiated your company; in 99.9% of cases, you have competition and your potential customers will reach out to them if you make it difficult to speak with you.

Now, go call your sales line and see what happens!

(Editor’s note: Thanks to Cindy Littlefield for sharing two companies who’ve added some humor to their auto-attendant.)

Bronto Software: 919-595-2500 listen & choose Option 3
Unidesk: 508-573-7800 listen & choose Option 7

(Photo credit: ElDave)

3 Links Not To Miss- Sales as a Noble Profession

Matt Bertuzzi — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:58:00 GMT

Welcome to our 3 Links Not To Miss “will/they won’t they - NBA season” edition. This is going to be a semi-regular feature on the blog where we’ll be sharing 3 recent links we found particularly interesting.
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Conversational: Sales as a Noble Profession

Trish & I were fortunate to sit down with Don Perkins and chat about trends in sales & marketing. In this segment, we spoke about the selling profession and how Reps can become better sellers.

Actionable: Are your Sales Reps Invisible?

Paul Castain argues Reps need to understand that buyers aren’t shy about searching for them online. Like Jill Konrath says, buyers are crazy busy. And what they find (or don’t find) on Google, LinkedIn, etc. might go far in answering “Is taking a meeting with this person worth my time?”

Here's an excerpt from Paul:

So if this were a radio station I guess I would sign off by saying . . .

“This one goes out to all the ‘anonymous sales people’ who still ‘don’t get’ the importance of having an online footprint.”

Then I’d play a really cool tune called - “Google yourself to see what your prospect sees”

Today is your tap on the shoulder.

Things have changed and . . .

They keep changing whether you and I get it or not!

Controversial: An Open Letter to B2B Marketers

Fresh off a trip to Dreamforce, Carlos Hidalgo addresses three themes he repeatedly heard from Marketers he met there. One theme Carlos shared was:

Fear of Change

Technology (namely marketing automation) is one of those forces challenging today’s marketing status quo. Too many marketers are resisting the change that automation is driving. It’s time we faced the reality that B2B marketing as we know it has changed. This fear was highlighted by a discussion I had with a CMO who said “I want nothing to do with this revenue discussion. We are not ready for that and quite frankly it’s too big of a shift.”

WHAT?!? Maybe this is why the average CMO’s tenure is only 18-months.

Several vendors have hitched their branding wagon to Revenue Fill in the Blanks as a tag line. But, does that concept scare off Marketers who want to reap the benefits of lead scoring, nurturing, etc. but aren’t ready to be measured on revenue?

Brain Kardon from Eloqua shares this in the comments:

Seems like the “safe” measures of lead score, # of SQOs, conversion rates, open rates, etc. are not really tied to what the CEO and CFO care most about — revenue. While I do agree that making the leap from CTRs to sourced and attributed revenue measures can be scary, marketers need to know that this is the destination.

On this “journey” (sorry — take one drink per Steve Gershik’s drinking game), there are interim stops along the way. But I think our emphasis on revenue attribution, scary as it is to some marketers, is the right way to go.

We’d love to hear what others think. What are some of your recent not to be missed links? Please let us know in the comments.

Inside Sales Interview Questions [VIDEO]

Matt Bertuzzi — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 13:15:00 GMT

I recently ran across this question on a group on LinkedIn:

What are some of the best questions you feel should be asked during a Sales interview?

Judging by the 162 (to date) responses, this is a hot topic. So I asked around and put together some interesting Inside Sales interview questions. A few folks were kind enough to share their favorite questions and the rationale behind them:

What do you know about us? What do you know about me?

This is a twist on the standard, did they do their homework question. It lets you see how well prepared they are & how confortable they are using publically available data. Did they do the research on you as well as the company or did they just show up and throw up?

What are your hobbies outside the office?

- Mike Damphousse, Green Leads
Mike shares that responses to this question give insight into how a candidate ticks. For example, fantasy footballers might have the competitive drive you’re looking for while musicians & artists might possess creativity in a sales situation.

For your current role, walk me through the typical stages of a sale.

You want to make sure they understand and are able to communicate the sales process at their current job. How do they describe that process? Is it all about the steps that they take (e.g. initial presentation, demo, proposal)? Or, actions that their buyers take (expressed curiosity, discussed solution, gave access to all players, etc.)?

When was the last time you were competitive?

- Kevin Gaither, Inside Sales Recruiting
Kevin advises asking the candidate to get specific and to not be satisfied with generalities around “always having to being competitive in Sales.” He argues that you have to dig deep and really listen to determine if this person is truly competitive or not.

How do you measure yourself? What personal metric are you most proud of?

You want to know how the candidate thinks in terms of results and the steps that get them there. Do they know the actions that are leading to their success?

Thinking about the last really great voicemail you left. Can you recreate it for me?

Voicemail is a huge part of an inside sales role. Listen to how they message. Are they clear and concise? Is the message buyer-problem aligned?

Tell me about a specific call where the prospect wasn't talking much? Specifically, what did you do to get them to be more engaged?

- Bruce Allen, Point B Search
Bruce’s point is dead-on. In both outbound prospecting and lead qualification, you are often catching a prospect cold. How do they respond when a prospect isn’t giving them much to work with?

How do you define Inside Sales?

I’m a big fan of hearing people describe what it is they do every day. Are they passionate or do they sound bored? Compare what you’re hearing with what they’ll be doing for you day to day.

How do you respond to your competition meeting a key prospect in person?

- Mark Rodman, XtraEffort Solutions
Mark shares that if you’re hiring for an Inside Sales role, you want to be sure that your candidate understands they will be spending the majority (if not entirety) of their time selling over the phone & web. How they’d handle that situation will give you valuable insight.

At what point do you stop calling a lead?

For many, this issue is religion – they either stalk prospects to the ends of the Earth or try them twice and move on. How does their response align with your methodology? Can you really train them to go against what’s in their DNA?

Who do you think are the top 5 internet retailers?

You should target the question to your specific market (e.g. largest hospitals, software companies, insurers, etc.). Their response should give you an understanding of their wider business knowledge

What’s the most recent Sales book you’ve read? What do you do personally for your professional development?

- Anne Kelly, BuyerZone
Anne shares that you’ll be able to learn what this individual does to grow themselves as a Sales Professional. If they haven’t read anything recently, or aren’t able to share key takeaways, is this really an individual you want to continue interviewing?

What’s the favorite thing you’ve bought over the past few months? How would you sell me on it?

Hopefully you’ll hear some excitement & passion about their new favorite toy. Better still, they might ask you some questions and get you to discover a need you didn’t even know you had.

(Idea) After the interviews, have the candidate shadow one of your Reps.

- Steve Richard, Vorsight
Steve shares that by doing this, candidates tend to lower their guards and take off their "game face." If the candidate isn't enthusiastic and asking questions of the Rep they are shadowing, Steve suggests you might be looking at someone who is just looking for a job - and definitely not a Sales job.

What didn’t we cover that you’d like to discuss?

- Trish Bertuzzi, The Bridge Group, Inc.
Trish suggests giving the candidate the opportunity to bring closure to interview. It can give you interesting insight into their priorities and motivations.

What are some of your best, favorite or most unique interview questions? This is a great opportunity to share with community and I'm really looking forward to hearing your ideas. Thanks!

Photo by stitch.

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Find Matt on Twitter and Google+

The Marketing Automation Drinking Game

Trish Bertuzzi — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:15:00 GMT

This is a guest post from Steve Gershik, Chief Marketer at 28Marketing. Steve has been a VP of Marketing & demand generation leader for over 16 years. He's a very funny guy to boot.
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A drinking game, if you can remember back to college, is where you watch a movie or television show and you take a drink every time some key term is mentioned. Usually it's the utterance of some cliche, character tag line (imagine Seinfeld saying "Newman") or a ridiculous, abstract, content-free term.

The Marketing Automation space is rife with the latter, which prompted me, during a Focus teleconference with Craig Rosenberg, Carlos Hidalgo, Justin Grey and Adam Needles, to propose whether there ought to be a demand generation drinking game.

So here are a proposed few rules for the game. Feel free to add your suggestions and modifications in the comments:

Every time someone says People, process, technology, take a sip.
If someone says marketing automation is easy, pour all your drinks into his glass and have him chug everyone's drinks. He's going to need it.
Whenever someone cites Sirius Decisions research, raise a toast in the direction of Connecticut and take a drink.
Every time someone says "content is king," take a drink.
If someone suggests creating an info graphic, consume the entire glass.
Take one drink for every social media consultant you are current employing.
Every time someone suggests doing a trade show because the lead quality is so high, drink a double.
Whenever someone suggests aligning sales and marketing, everyone drink and then lock the person who said it in the supply closet.
If someone says that sending an email newsletter out monthly is marketing automation, take a drink.
Whenever someone uses a TLA (three letter acronym) to describe lead generation, lead nurturing, data management and reporting, chug the entire glass.

Note: Too much drinking is bad for you.
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Be sure to check out the comments on the Focus.com post, they are hilarious. Feel free to add your own rules as well!

(Photo credit: scottroberts)

Sales Presentations that Don’t Suck [Share this with your team]

Matt Bertuzzi — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 12:31:00 GMT

I've been a bit obsessed with sales presentations lately. Not so much on construction of attractive slides, but on the requirement to tell a compelling story via the world's most torturous medium: PowerPoint.

In the Inside Sales world, Reps work incredibly hard to earn 10, 20 or 30 minute discovery/needs analysis calls. At presentation time, we’ve got (at least in theory) guaranteed prospect attention.

But far too often, we squander all that preceding effort by confusing, boring or annoying prospects while generally failing to move the sales process forward.

I just came across this eBook from the folks over at SalesCrunch called "Designing Presentations That Sell." And let me tell you, it rocks. (Note: I wouldn't normally link to registration required content - but it is that good.)

In the eBook, presentation designer Jan Schultink goes through 3 acts: Images, Stories & Content. I thought I’d share the bits that most impacted me.

You are the presentation – not the slides

Schultink advises:

You can leave a page blank

In a presentation there are moments when you want to pull the attention of the audience back to you. And to do that you can either just use a blank,dark slide.

Doing this will break up your presentation and focus the energy of the room back on you again.

Here's why this resonated for me: You & your Reps need prospects to be listening and connecting - not daydreaming and staring at some eye chart, an endless series of bullet points or worse yet, logos of completely unrelated customers.

Build a story & think about flow

There is plenty of excellent advice that has become Sales canon: “Find the pain,” “Always be closing,” “Talk benefits not features.”

I think it is time to make a new entry “Build stories, not decks.” Schultink offers this advice:

So many decks, so few stories

Many times presenters implement a process called “Frankensteining,” where you open all presentation decks that your company has possibly had in the last several months and mash them all together to get the ultimate deck.

As a result there is no flow, no story, and it is not interesting to listen to.

I can feel you nodding your head. How many times have your Reps pulled together 20 slides from 10 different decks? How did you feel about the monster that was created?

If you take away 1 thing - let it be this

Schultink’s idea on how to best use your final slide, really blew me away.

No “Q&A” on your Q&A slide

What is the slide that gets the most attention in the entire deck? It’s usually the questions and answer slide. It sits there burning into people’s minds for roughly 35 minutes while you take the questions - much longer than any other slide.

It is best to make a final slide with an image of something that you discussed in your presentation and something you want to billboard. You can simply put it up in the back while you take questions just to remind the audience about how great you are and how great your product is.

This is brilliant! Billboarding is such a great idea.

But, be careful. Pick the most critical point and try to communicate it in a simple & powerful fashion. The goal here is make the most of that single frame that will be "burning" into your prospects' minds.

What do you think? Should presenting be up there with prospecting, qualifying & closing as sales skills worthy of development? I think so - but how about you?

I hope you will check out the ebook & perhaps organize a training for your team around the content. I'd love to hear the results if you do.

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Find Matt on Twitter and Google+

Parlez-vous Inside Sales in Europe?

Trish Bertuzzi — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 13:20:00 GMT

UPDATE: We've released the Inside Sales Abroad ebook. Thanks to all who contributed to the research.

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Here at The Bridge Group we pride ourselves on being Inside Sales experts. But, we do have a weakness and that is deep knowledge of how US & Canadian companies are implementing Inside Sales targeting Europe.

We want to know and need your help with a quick 4-minute survey to collect the data.

Topics include:

Where are companies building the inside teams that focus on Europe? Here? There? Where?
How are they handling multi-language challenges?
Has Europe adopted phone & web usage for B2B selling as readily as we have in North America?

We want to know as badly as you do and think this research will provide valueable metrics & perspective to the topic.

I’d like to invite you to take part in our new research on Inside Sales Abroad.
(Once again, the survey will take you 4 minutes to complete and we’ll share our findings in early Q4.)

If you're interested, please email us at europe@bridgegroupinc.com or comment below and we’ll send along the survey link.

Here are a few requirements for participation:

Selling B2B technology (Hardware, Software, SaaS, etc.)
Company HQ’d in North America
Survey participants are Managers, Directors, VPs with knowledge of metrics, compensation, quota & contribution, etc.

We are extremely excited for this particular bit of research! Thanks in advance to all who participate and please feel free to spread the word.

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tpcom/)