Understanding the Sales Force

MARCH 24, 2025

If you want to catch up on the Bob Chronicles, you can find the previous eight installments here. I hate negotiations because most negotiations can be avoided if the salesperson simply conducts thorough qualification and discussion of terms up front, prior to ever sending a proposal. Bob is Back in the news! You read that right.

Negotiation 282

Negotiation Strategy Proposal Hiring 282

Zoominfo

JANUARY 13, 2025

Go-to-market teams that adopt AI-powered sales automation can reap major benefits: research shows they spend more time with customers, drive higher customer satisfaction, and most importantly, boost sales by up to 10%. Take email prospecting, for instance. But savvy sales leaders know AI isnt a magic wand that can close deals for you.

Lead Scoring 130

Lead Scoring Lead Rank Conversion Prospecting 130

Understanding the Sales Force

JANUARY 18, 2025

A similar scenario where salespeople spend time getting ready before conducting an act happens with prospecting for new business. While not all salespeople are required to prospect, those who do often follow the gift giving ritual where they spend quite a bit of time getting ready before making their calls.

Quota 331

Quota Top of Funnel How To Cancellation 331

Hubspot Sales

NOVEMBER 12, 2024

Every once in a while, the conversation with a prospect is going to die down and never pick back up — but you don't have to take those fizzle-outs lying down. There are some strategies you can leverage to give yourself a fighting chance at re-engaging a prospect who seems like a lost cause. Let's see what they had to say!

Demand Generation Agencies 115

Demand Generation Agencies Prospecting Strategy Follow-up 115

Zoominfo

DECEMBER 11, 2024

In Q4, we released enhancements to Copilot, our GTM Intelligence platform, that further empower enterprise GTM teams to engage prospects and customers with greater precision, speed, and intelligence. We believe these innovations will continue to revolutionize how teams identify opportunities, engage prospects, and close deals.

Intent Signal 130

Intent Signal Prospecting Intent Decision Maker 130

Zoominfo

JANUARY 30, 2025

Go-to-market teams that adopt AI-powered sales automation can reap major benefits: research shows they spend more time with customers, drive higher customer satisfaction, and most importantly, boost sales by up to 10%. Take email prospecting, for instance. Heres how AI can help: 1. You cant just let AI send shallow, automated messages.

Lead Scoring 130

Lead Scoring Lead Rank Intent Signal Conversion 130

Zoominfo

AUGUST 6, 2024

With ZoomInfo, your go-to-market team can easily identify website visitors , engage prospects with website chat , and optimize web forms to transform anonymous visitors into actionable prospects. ZoomInfo automates lead routing based on criteria like location and company size, directing leads to the right representatives quickly.

Lead Capture 130

Lead Capture Software Software Sales Qualified Lead 130

No More Cold Calling

DECEMBER 26, 2024

They put a stake in the ground for their beliefs, follow their gut, and leave their competition in the dust. How to Turn Your Suspects Into Qualified Prospects Ben confided in me about the four types of people in his database: suspects, prospects, clients, and the dead. Prospects, though? A totally different story.

Referrals 317

Referrals Cold Calling ROI Sales Qualified Lead 317

Vengreso

JANUARY 2, 2025

The art of crafting the perfect follow up email can make all the difference in achieving your professional goals. Whether youre seeking a new job, nurturing sales leads, or simply maintaining business relationships, a well-structured follow up email template can enhance your chances of success.

Follow-up 63

Follow-up Examples Hiring Proposal 63

Zoominfo

OCTOBER 31, 2024

On-Demand Webinar “Think of the 70% of tasks that don’t directly contribute to closing deals — updating CRM records, scheduling follow-ups, sorting through data,” Blount says. That’s why it’s critical to ensure that your data is clean, up-to-date, and reliable,” Iannarino says. This shift is already underway.

Scale 235

Scale Sales Qualified Lead Intent Data CRM 235

Anthony Cole Training

AUGUST 9, 2024

In selling, you should have various rules of engagement when it comes to cultivating a prospect. Across the country, most salespeople just chase prospects. They do not follow any rules of engagement. If the prospect will meet with them, talk with them, reply to their emails, many salespeople will just go all in.

Prospecting 271

Prospecting How To Follow-up Up-Sell 271

Sales Gravy

JANUARY 28, 2025

to prospect consistently, these tips are for you. In this episode, I answer a question from Paul in Rancho Cucamonga, California, whos building and leading a remote sales team in the logistics industry and needs to find a way to get his salespeople to prospect consistently. Be like teflon: no excuses stick. Dont hide in your office.

Motivation 92

Motivation Prospecting How To Face-to-face 92

Zoominfo

OCTOBER 24, 2024

Reaching the right prospects at the right moment is often the difference between closing a deal and coming in second. Copilot’s insights are fueled by first-party customer and prospect data, ZoomInfo’s unparalleled business data, and the industry’s most extensive collection of buying signals.

Software 211

Software Software Tools Hubspot 211

No More Cold Calling

OCTOBER 24, 2024

But to set your sales organization up for success in 2025, you also need to: Prioritize Pipeline-Building Over Last-Minute Deals The last quarter of the year should be 25 percent about closing current deals and 75 percent about building a robust pipeline for the next year. The answer will tell you how to proceed with your prospecting.

Opportunity 177

Opportunity Referrals How To Pipeline 177

Hubspot Sales

JULY 15, 2024

Here's a look at the “clear strategy” I use to ensure I get the most out of my LinkedIn prospecting efforts. Ingram's Tested, 10-Step Process for Nailing Prospecting on LinkedIn Your LinkedIn profile is your first digital impression, and you don‘t want to waste your shot with a lackluster profile. Pin down your ICP.

Ideal Customer Profile 111

Ideal Customer Profile LinkedIn Prospecting Face-to-face 111

Hubspot Sales

OCTOBER 15, 2024

Sales is, in large part, the art of developing trust in a tight window — making credibility one of the most valuable assets you can have when engaging with prospects. To help you out on that front, we connected with some sales leaders for the strategies they leverage to establish themselves as credible, consultative resources for prospects.

Prospecting 105

Prospecting Case Study Industry Study 105

Mr. Inside Sales

MAY 12, 2024

Who do you think knows why your prospect buys? Who do you think knows when your prospect is going to buy? The answer, of course, is your prospect! The problem for many sales reps, is that they prefer to pitch and talk at prospects more than they actually ask questions and listen. Or who they like to buy from?

Prospecting 212

Prospecting Face-to-face Gatekeeper Decision Maker 212

Understanding the Sales Force

FEBRUARY 10, 2025

You could say that the Philadelphia Eagles showed up for Super Bowl LIX with tremendous urgency to win. While the single most important thing for salespeople to achieve in a discovery call is urgency, you can’t tell a prospect that they have urgency, you can’t manufacture urgency, and you can’t fake urgency.

Kana 188

Kana Benefit Margin Sales Qualified Lead 188

Sales 2.0

FEBRUARY 18, 2025

Ive gotten to the point in this project where I need to start building a list of prospects. Trying to build the prospect list that I need within the CRM would be too time-consuming, involving manually updating thousands of records and tens of thousands of fields. There is data missing and there are duplicate records. Enter Excel.

CRM 221

CRM Lead Rank Lead Scoring Leads 221

Sales 2.0

MARCH 17, 2025

I accompany salespeople to meetings where the prospect has an interest in these types of services. Many of these prospects have very little technical background. Prospects eyes glazed over rapidly as these executives spoke to them about their amazing products. And up to this point, I thought I was doing well.

Engineering 195

Engineering Up-Sell Prospecting Course 195

No More Cold Calling

JULY 29, 2021

Unless you address the broken links in your prospecting system, your sales reps will continue to struggle with closing the deal. Other reasons why salespeople fail to close sales include: The initial prospects were unqualified. This is not how you wow buyers, build relationships, and convert prospects into clients.

Closing 409

Closing Sales Qualified Lead Lead Scoring Lead Rank 409

Smooth Sale

MARCH 27, 2025

Photo by Geralt via Pixabay Attract the Right Job or Clientele: Prospects Can Direct Us to A Better Path for Sales Long ago, salespeople were advised to generate many cold calls daily to find one or two interested parties. Its critical to realize that we are each unique individuals, prospects included, with varying thinking and abilities.

Prospecting 78

Prospecting Hiring Lead Rank Lead Scoring 78

The Pipeline

JULY 20, 2021

I’ll follow up by asking “for prospecting and selling?” The majority will tell you they do most, if not all their “research” before even prospecting someone. It is clear that many salespeople use the “activity” as busy work and a means of avoiding actual prospecting. Research Or Recreation?

Research 386

Research Call-back Lead Scoring Lead Rank 386

Understanding the Sales Force

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

Ironically, instead of replacing salespeople they said would become obsolete, they created a need for a whole new breed of salespeople - BDRs - to follow up on all of the crappy leads generated by their inbound marketing platforms. Fifteen years later, their products have a place at the very top of the sales funnel.

Top of Funnel 408

Top of Funnel Positioning Scale Inbound 408

Understanding the Sales Force

NOVEMBER 23, 2024

God’s punishment for failing to follow his commands were harsh. Your punishments are up to you, but without following through, you won’t achieve compliance. The next part is where you play God, and demand that those metrics be met on either a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Work on your KPIs!

Comparison 173

Comparison Exact Follow-up Call-back 173

Pipeliner

OCTOBER 25, 2024

Many people stress toward year-end, knowing that most prospects said ‘no,’ and fear losing their jobs by year-end. However, one easy strategy relaxes everyone we meet during the selling process, including follow-up. My example is to ask, ‘Are you looking forward to the holidays, followed by, ‘Do you have special plans?’

Hiring 126

Hiring Follow-up Proposal Motivation 126

Mr. Inside Sales

OCTOBER 30, 2023

If you want more “treats” than “tricks” when dealing with prospects, then be bold and call back sooner than you are now. I don’t know why sales reps always default to: “I’ll call you again in a month…” Or 60 days or 90 days, etc, but why would you want to miss all the sales this prospect will place in the meantime?

Call-back 240

Call-back Face-to-face Follow-up Gatekeeper 240

Hubspot Sales

JULY 22, 2024

I'm always saying, “Sound, well-structured business email templates are central to effective sales communication, initiating productive sales conversations, and sustaining relationships with prospects and customers.” They're typically sent following initial conversations, meetings, or proposals (shocking, I know.)

Ideal Customer Profile 111

Ideal Customer Profile Proposal Lead Rank Referrals 111

Zoominfo

MARCH 26, 2025

Imagine that one of your top sales reps spends weeks courting a promising prospect, only to discover at the 11th hour that its actually a subsidiary of your largest customer. The duplication, conflict, and confusion that follow all flow from the fact that company hierarchy wasnt clear from the start. The result?

Data 130

Data Revenue Scale Territories 130

Hubspot Sales

AUGUST 19, 2024

Today, we will help you overcome that fear of rejection by following a process. The Art of the Introduction: Mastering the Pattern Interrupt The first few seconds of your cold call are crucial — yet most people wing their intros, and you can completely lose your prospect if you don't prepare what to say. Value proposition 3.

Cold Calling 115

Cold Calling Hiring Call-back Objections 115

The Pipeline

MARCH 23, 2021

One way to stand out is to demonstrate to prospects that you not only bring different habits but are willing to change. If you want to lead your prospects to change their buying habits, be a role model. Change needs to be led, and how you prospect, sell, and manage discovery is the first step. You Only Have to Change Once.

Lead Rank 367

Lead Rank Vendor Buyer Prospecting 367

Understanding the Sales Force

JANUARY 15, 2025

When he got older, we watched Christmas Vacation, Home Alone, Elf, School of Rock, and Grown Ups every year. Until there is an agreed upon compelling to buy, the prospect has no incentive to enter into any qualification conversation. We watched The Lion King with him around one hundred times and Brother Bear another fifty times.

Sales Process 173

Sales Process Lead Scoring Lead Rank Sales Qualified Lead 173

The Pipeline

AUGUST 31, 2021

Closing business and prospecting to ensure you avoid the January lull with a pipeline that propel you to success. What follows are five things you can do any time in any year, but given the opportunities, they are crucial this year. Take time to catch up with your inbox. Catch Up With Your Inbox. Harvest referrals.

Harvest 360

Harvest Referrals Call-back Video 360

Mr. Inside Sales

JULY 30, 2021

Wouldn’t it be convenient to have a list of 5 questions you could use to get your prospect talking, to get them to open up about how they’re feeling and what you might need to concentrate on? You could do two: one for prospecting and one for the close. Ever feel stalled during a close?

Closing 334

Closing Gatekeeper Face-to-face Decision Maker 334

Sales 2.0

OCTOBER 25, 2021

Prospecting : Companies routinely run cold calling prospecting processes that fail 99% of the time, with 1 in 100 calls getting a meeting. Smarter approaches to prospecting are needed. One of the main reasons for this low close rate is that sales people miss decisionmakers in the prospect company. Sales time sucks.

Territories 396

Territories Compensation Scale Decision Maker 396

Understanding the Sales Force

OCTOBER 13, 2024

There were many follow-up coaching sessions between God and Moses and they went on for many days and weeks, preparing Moses to demonstrate even greater powers. Unfortunately, Pharaoh lied about letting the Israelites go free each time, much as prospects often lie to salespeople.

Coaching 188

Coaching Hiring Scale Sales Leadership 188

Hubspot Sales

SEPTEMBER 6, 2024

When a prospect first reaches out for more information, I’ve found that engagement is at its peak. Many times I’ve been frustrated trying to chase down a once-excited prospect whose priorities have already shifted to the next item on the list. Wondering how to achieve this lofty goal? AI can help.

Closing 115

Closing Ideal Customer Profile Top of Funnel Lead Rank 115