The Pipeline

SEPTEMBER 2, 2020

From the time of the first salesperson, sales leaders have been trying to figure out how to get their teams to prospect. In a recent survey, 42% of sales and corporate leaders identified prospecting as a skills gap in their organizations. How do sales leaders create and balance the core element of a fine-tunes prospecting machine?

System 316

System Prospecting Quota Decision Maker 316

The Pipeline

MARCH 16, 2021

If you have a base of accounts, you can probably get by for a time, but it eventually catches up. But if you must prospect to succeed, you will need to focus and practice the fundamentals. Here are 5 prospecting mistakes you can avoid. The 5 Prospecting Mistakes. Getting in vs. Selling. Go figure?!?

Prospecting 299

Prospecting Video Influencer Up-Sell 299

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 fundamentally lack a process, a decision tree, if you will, for deciding yes or no in terms of determining if a prospect is truly a prospect for them.

Prospecting 252

Prospecting How To Follow-up Up-Sell 252

Sales 2.0

MAY 29, 2020

In the sales domain, this big change has accelerated the trend to digital selling. Some of those new digital selling habits will stick. Here are some areas to consider using digital selling, now and after the crisis is over. Prospecting. How can you tailor what you say to the plan your prospect is hatching.

Commission 511

Commission LinkedIn Webinar Metrics Up-Sell 511

Zoominfo

JANUARY 23, 2021

If your sales pipeline is colder than a Siberian spigot in January, it’s time to rethink your sales prospecting techniques. Here’s the thing though, reps need actionable techniques and tips to make their prospecting systematic, smooth, and, of course, profitable. What are Prospecting Techniques? How did you find those prospects?

Ideal Customer Profile 264

Ideal Customer Profile Prospecting Cold Calling Decision Maker 264

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 Licensing 212

Zoominfo

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

Sales reps look to increase conversion rates by upping their cold call game. Be upfront and transparent with your prospects. Consider these following tips to get more success in your cold calls — before, during, and afterward: Do: Research your prospect (Who are they? Leave a voicemail if they don’t pick up. Conclusion.

Cold Calling 264

Cold Calling Guidelines Prospecting Face-to-face 264

Understanding the Sales Force

NOVEMBER 15, 2024

Jack’s eyes lit up. As I pivot to selling, please watch this two-minute video before continuing the article. When prospecting doesn’t take place on a daily basis, salespeople fail to build their pipelines. He was all in! Things didn’t go the same way with Kyle. Incentives work.

Prospecting 177

Prospecting Incentives Incentive Cold Calling 177

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 1, 2024

It helps us research our customers, prepare emails, actually do the outreach, plan calls, manage many of our responses, update CRM, understand our numbers, alert us to new opportunities, …… It seems each day, we see parts of our jobs that AI can do better than us, freeing up our time, making us more productive.

Up-Sell 139

Up-Sell Face-to-face Account CRM 139

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. Where does this time go?

Territories 396

Territories Compensation Scale Decision Maker 396

Sales 2.0

MARCH 12, 2020

Big events are happening so quickly it’s hard to keep up. The global crisis is taking up everyone’s mindshare. This includes your prospects. It’s time for business owners and sales leaders to take action to make sure you can sell effectively if we enter a downtown. Your prospecting numbers may drop too.

Top of Funnel 378

Top of Funnel Pipeline Follow-up Proposal 378

Sales 2.0

JULY 17, 2019

If you run a small company, you usually end up being one of your company’s early sales people. Since then I’ve sold millions of dollars of technology and services, run my own sales outsourcing and training company, grown a digital agency and pioneered a new approach to selling now known as “social selling”. Baylor University.

Outsourcing Services 78

Outsourcing Services Cold Calling Call-back Networking 78

No More Cold Calling

APRIL 16, 2020

It means pushing back when a client tells you what they want, and you know the consequences will be dire if you don’t speak up. The rest just want to sell you their products—the heck with caring about who you are. At least, that’s what many prospects have come to believe. How Your Prospects Choose Whom to Trust.

Face-to-face 434

Face-to-face Call-back Cold Calling Webinar Metrics 434

No More Cold Calling

JULY 13, 2021

Referrals help you ace Part One and set you up for success in Part Two. You get an introduction to your prospect, and you get a meeting with the decision maker. They believe a call isn’t cold because it’s a marketing-qualified lead, because the prospect downloaded a whitepaper, or because they have a mutual connection on LinkedIn.

Decision Maker 401

Decision Maker Referrals Sales Qualified Lead Marketing Qualified Lead 401

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 Rank Lead Scoring 409

Understanding the Sales Force

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

I began debunking sales articles when the first ones predicting the death of selling appeared circa 2008. Later, articles predicting the end of selling became both more prolific and more specific including the certain death of: Solution Selling Cold Calling Consultative Selling Sales Process SPIN Selling and more.

Top of Funnel 409

Top of Funnel Positioning Scale Inbound 409

Sales 2.0

SEPTEMBER 18, 2020

Even if you use social selling techniques that get you a referral or help you connect to a potential buyer using your mutual background, it is still likely to take some follow up before you confirm a meeting time (or virtual meeting time these days). For higher end consultative selling I would recommend a cadence along these lines.

Direct Mail 370

Direct Mail Outbound Referrals Social Selling 370

The Pipeline

NOVEMBER 14, 2020

Join us for a special Holiday Edition of the Proactive Prospecting Program , December 1 – 2. That’s right, you don’t even have to leave your home to improve your prospecting, sales, and overall success. Save your spot for this timely program and set yourself up for prospecting and sales success 2021 and beyond.

Prospecting 369

Prospecting Buyer Revenue Pipeline 369

Bernadette McClelland

MAY 22, 2022

When I was a sales rep in Corporate Australia, it was quite common to receive multi 5-figure commissions for selling certain solutions – and most often selling those deals involved a series of detailed stages: Your normal sales discovery calls. Believing that ‘selling’ means ‘ having to earn ‘ the money.

Energy 448

Energy Commission Up-Sell Conference 448

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 Rank Lead Scoring 386

No More Cold Calling

OCTOBER 1, 2020

I wondered about those in non-traditional sales roles like customer success, CPAs, attorneys, architects, engineers, and consultants—who are now being asked to sell. Referral selling is hard for us all, because it’s the most personal kind of selling. It takes roughly eight touches for sales reps to reach cold prospects.

Referrals 373

Referrals Cold Calling Sales Qualified Lead Call-back 373

Mr. Inside Sales

JULY 6, 2021

Rookie mistake: You’ve got several products or services you can offer a prospect, and you start by offering the first, or main one, then hear an opening for another one so pivot to that one, and describe another—and then another. You can use the intel you got from your initial pitch to open up the upsell. At that time, load them up!

Face-to-face 317

Face-to-face How To Pivotal Call-back 317

No More Cold Calling

JUNE 25, 2020

The lyrics perfectly sum up the most common B2B lead generation mistakes: “I was lookin’ for love in all the wrong places, Lookin’ for love in too many faces, Searchin’ their eyes and lookin’ for traces, Of what I’m dreaming of.”. How do most companies ramp up their B2B lead generation strategies?

Lead Generation 409

Lead Generation B2B Lead Rank Lead Scoring 409

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

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. Start With Yours.

Lead Rank 367

Lead Rank Vendor Buyer Prospecting 367

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. Happy Selling! Ever feel stalled during a close?

Closing 334

Closing Gatekeeper Face-to-face Licensing 334

The Pipeline

MAY 6, 2020

Before we dig in, some of you will know Jeff, he is a consultant, author of The Five Forgotten Fundamentals of Prospecting, co-host of The Why and The Buy Podcast. Jeff wants you to Rethink The Way You Sell, and do it with swagger. A roadmap for the best way to sell during challenging seasons.” Fundamentals. Weight In Gold.

Construction 377

Construction Energy Up-Sell ACT 377

No More Cold Calling

APRIL 15, 2021

Every sales leader says their #1 prospecting challenge is getting leads in the pipe. None of us stands out during prospecting. When they get introductions from people their prospects know and trust, they walk straight into meetings with your ideal clients. Not getting the ROI you expected from your lead-gen tactics?

Lead Gen 397

Lead Gen Sales Qualified Lead Leads Marketing Qualified Lead 397

Mr. Inside Sales

AUGUST 13, 2021

But when you’ve done a presentation and then don’t hear back from a prospect, it can often mean the kiss of death. While it seems counter intuitive, I’d rather know up front if I’m wasting my time or if this is a real prospect. Speaking about prospects hiding behind emails, etc., What to do? That’s right. Relentlessly.

Face-to-face 317

Face-to-face Call-back Gatekeeper Licensing 317

Understanding the Sales Force

AUGUST 31, 2024

One thing I have excelled at in my hole digging responsibilities is cutting into the coaxial cable that makes up Dinger’s invisible fence, rendering it useless. That got me thinking about how salespeople chase their tails and waste time that could be better utilized on actual selling activities.

Cold Calling 316

Cold Calling Call-back Follow-up Proposal 316

The Pipeline

AUGUST 5, 2021

With nearly half of B2B reps missing quota , it follows that they are failing to deliver value to their prospects. In fact, I recommend you share the definition with your prospects as a means of creating a clear path forward. If you and your prospects can shift time in your favor, you’ll both have an advantage over your competitors.

Lead Rank 352

Lead Rank Lead Scoring Ideal Customer Profile Objections 352

The Pipeline

AUGUST 10, 2021

Questions are the weapon of choice for consistently successful salespeople, so listen up the half that aren’t making quota. But done right, there are dimensions to questions that can help in prospecting and lead to a more meaningful Discovery. As I have probably mentioned a million times, prospecting is different than selling.

Fashion 329

Fashion Campaigns Outbound Quota 329

Mr. Inside Sales

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

We’ve all been there – you call your prospect back at the appointed time for your presentation and they tell you any of the following: This isn’t a good time, OR. And, since many sales reps don’t qualify thoroughly enough, most of the leads they stuff into their pipeline are made up of 6’s and 7’s. How long will this take?” What to do?

Sales Qualified Lead 320

Sales Qualified Lead Face-to-face Scale Call-back 320

No More Cold Calling

MAY 28, 2020

This was even the premise of my second book, Pick Up the Damn Phone!: I wrote that book because I was horrified when reps started telling me they didn’t need to talk to prospects and clients anymore. That’s not how social selling works. Maybe, if you sell widgets. How People, Not Technology, Seal the Deal.

Referrals 391

Referrals Social Media Cold Calling Social Selling 391

No More Cold Calling

SEPTEMBER 26, 2024

If you miss your flight and end up at the airport hotel for the night, are you more likely to belly up to the lobby bar to meet new people and make some new connections, or will you head straight to your room and order room service? That’s the first question @KristieJones asks in her new book: Selling Your Way IN.

Referrals 156

Referrals Meeting Scale Prospecting 156