It’s been on their Web site since September 2010, but I loved this blog from lead generation company Green Leads revealing some “superstar” tips for doing outbound prospecting over the phone.

It spoke to me because when push comes to shove, when the rubber hits the road, when its put-up-or-shut-up time (okay, you get the picture) outbound phone prospecting still happens.

A lot of people talk about the end of the cold call, that “inbound” is the new panacea. That “real” sales reps build pipeline through a steady stream of referral business. No more of those itchy-scratchy uncomfortable sales calls, no more angry prospects tired of our pitch, no more “dialing for dollars.”

To which we at XANT add, “Yeah right.” Don’t get me wrong, if you’re in the right vertical, with the right connections, with the right product at exactly the right time, maybe you can get away without doing outbound prospecting in B2B . . .

Read More

Something short and sweet today for teams doing lead generation:

We’ve all heard the concept of the “elevator pitch”–A concise, high-impact statement designed to convey the identity and value of your company/product/brand in the space of 30 seconds or less (some say as little as 10).

For example, “At XANT, we empower sales reps to take control of their prospecting and fill their pipelines faster, and give managers better insight into the process while it happens.”

The value of such a statement, obviously, isn’t that it’s actually going to be used to pitch a VC board member on an elevator (although if you’ve actually done this and gotten funding, that would be a great story and I’d love to hear it). The value is that an “elevator pitch” lets you boil down a core message into something easy to digest, but still demonstrates key touch points that communicate how you serve a prospect’s potential needs . . .

Read More

On February 16, 2011, the Salt Lake Chapter of the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals (AA-ISP) had the distinct pleasure of hearing from renowned performance psychologist Dr. Craig Manning. Dr. Manning has been a key performance consultant for the U.S. Olympic Ski team, and professional and amateur athletes in dozens of other sports. As…

Read More

Saw a link to a Harvard Business Review article this morning on Twitter (thanks @abneedles) that had something interesting to say about the “sales funnel.” “A global consumer electronics company embarked on a CDJ [Consumer Decision Journey] analysis after research revealed that although consumers were highly familiar with the brand, they tended to drop it…

Read More