Inside Sales Tips: What are the tips for success you would give an individual inside sales rep?

Focus on external impact. How will my activities today contribute to the growth of my pipeline, and the success of my customers? What are the things that fill my day that don't contribute to pipeline growth and closed business, and how do I eliminate those distractions?

Focus on what you can control. You can't always control the leads you receive, or the health of the market, but you can control how many calls you make, how persistent you are with your warmest leads, and how well you follow-up with potential opportunities to get them closed.

Focus on THEM. Stop talking about yourself so much, and talk about your prospect - their business, their objectives, their needs, their pain. Solve their problems, not yours.

Listen. In your first interaction with a new prospect, listen more than you talk. Ask the right consultative and diagnostic questions to get the prospect engaged, find out their motivations and priorities. Even in inside sales, listening and information gathering is one of your most valuable selling tools, as it allows you to put your solution in a context that drives urgency and priority with the buyer.

One of the best exercises for new inside sales reps is to create a 'sales persona' before you get on the phone. This is simply an exaggerated version of yourself that showcases your strengths and helps you step out from believing in your weaknesses.

Name this alter ego, and write down what this person looks like, sounds like and thinks about. Usually the result is a more physically attractive, confident and boisterous version of yourself. Sometimes reps draw a picture and put it up in front of their desk.

Then, envision yourself as this person whenever you're on the phone. Some might see this it as bit inauthentic to 'play' a role on the phone, but it's the easiest way to shed your phone fear, gain a new swagger and get comfortable asking for the deal.

Keep a script of YOUR best conversation and a list of questions you want answers to on the call. It helps you stay focused when the dialog goes off topic, and helps you steer the direction of the conversation. Everyone has had the experience of hanging up and thinking "I wish I would have asked ....", "I forgot to talk about..."

If you keep a best version of your conversation documented and in front of you, it will help tremendously to keep performance and quality of your opportunities consistent.

Also, do your own troubleshooting. If your production drops, stand back and look at what is consistent on your calls. Where the conversation goes flat is where you need to make some changes. For example, if you get cut off right away--then something is going on in your intro. If you can't get to the right contacts, then look at how you are networking. If the conversation goes fairly well but then no one seems to take it to the next level, what is your call to action?

Scripting will help you course-correct right away. Many times a rep might change what they're saying without realizing it and once they do some troubleshooting and surface the breakdown, they can fix it and get back on track right away.

Wow, some great stuff here. I've written extensively on outbound marketing/inside sales tips, so as opposed to collecting them all, I'll drop a link to the tag on my blog:

http://www.green-leads.com/b2b-blog/?Tag=tips

My top tips though:

- Dial when prospects are at their desks. Prime time for prospects to pick up their phones is 7:30-9:00AM, or 4:30-6:00PM their time. So teach your team to rotate their schedules a bit during the week. http://www.green-leads.com/b2b-blog/bid/26863/Lead-Generation-Tips-Take-3-Hou...

- Don't over-sell. Make the goal of your first call to setup a second call. Prospects hate hearing that first pitch, so keep it short and sweet. Set a time to have a more detailed conversation. http://www.green-leads.com/b2b-blog/bid/28137/Introductory-Appointments-Your-...

And don't forget, the sales process doesn't start until a sales person is talking to a prospect, so spend time trying to have those conversations. Don't get bogged down in activity that doesn't lead to conversations.

Best!

Mike Damphousse
Green Leads

Craig, great question. You taught me two things about 7 or 8 years ago that have stuck with me.

1. Time Management - Put a value on your time and don't waste it. Prioritize your money making activities and be sure to get them completed.

2. Be Unique - A decision maker gets a ton of calls, why is she going to listen to you? Are you adding value to their business or is this just another sales pitch?

Know your product inside and out. Take a minute to listen to your colleagues and how they are engaging their prospects and clients on the phone. Obviously you are only going to hear a one sided call but challenge yourself to figure out what they are talking about. This is a great way to test yourself on your knowledge base.
Paytime- (actionable money producing activities) must be followed with discipline. Allocate the best times to be on the phone and prospect accordingly...Refer to the study from www.insidesales.com/mit LEAD RESPONSE MANAGEMENT STUDY.
Set daily goals that keep you motivated. As sales reps we are driven by “the wins”. Be sure to leave each day with something productive accomplished. Whether it is closing a deal (“the big wins”) or simply setting 2 meetings. Whatever it may be, little wins add up to big wins. I wrote about this in my blog. http://www.gensourc.blogspot.com
Energy- Your prospects judge you within 5 seconds on the phone. If you do not engage them immediately you lost the call. You must have the right tonality, be direct (eliminate the hello my name is fluff) and be able to transition seamlessly from your intro to your purpose. Executives will take a few minutes to speak to who they perceive to be an equal. Approach your prospect as a peer not a pedestal.

Be consistent and well organized while trying to be absolutely unique and personalized (take a direct customized marketing perspective).
Many inside sales reps fall down because they simply aren’t great organizers. So for example they call a prospect and then forget to follow up even with tasks set or reminders being provided by their CRM. This lack of organization or lack of concentrated focus can make for gaps in their process and inconsistency. Consistent doesn’t mean multiple touches and follow up it means committing to follow through. So if you tell a prospect you will get them information do it and if you say you are going to follow up do it. These are simple tactics that have been successful for me during the years that I conducted inside sales for a couple of different companies.
The last part is customizing and being unique with your prospects by taking a direct marketing approach. Treat each prospect as unique. Actually understand what their challenges are, what’s new and or exciting with their business and how you can help them in some capacity. In the current information age we live in, sloppy or unprofessional tactics can ruin a good inside sales professional’s chance of securing new business very quickly. I recently read the blog of a fast growing Value Added Reseller where the CEO had posted a terribly written note that he received from a Realtor who was trying to win his business. Literally he scanned and posted the letter into his blog. He was making the point, besides the terrible penmanship, that there was no value in the note it was all about the experience level of the Realtor not about anything relevant to what was on the CEO’s mind. Imagine the follow up call by that Realtor and how that must have went?

Follow-up.

The first time you call you may not reach the contact. Know when you're going to call next and schedule it in your CRM or calendar. Once you've left a message or sent an email, you want to stay top of mind with your prospects and customers, and the only way you can do that is to schedule the next call. Plan to call every 3-4 days if you haven’t spoken with the contact before. If it’s a customer, let your relationship and their sense of urgency determine when to reach out again.

If you reached the contact but they aren’t ready to move forward, end the call with a follow-up meeting scheduled, or with a promise to follow-up on a specific date. Then do it. So often all that’s needed to close the sale, or move it forward, is that next call.

This is part of your discipline, organization and preparation. Many sellers don’t realize how easy it may be to grow the relationship simply by being consistent in their follow up.

What does no really mean? Are they objecting to you or are they objecting to the experience of being called out of the blue? At the end of the day it's just a sales call. It is literally impossible to fail because the prospect will likely not remember the details of your call. You can always go back to them later. This takes all of the weight off and lets you play loose. Relax - it's just a sales call! You'll like this resource: http://www.vorsight.com/blog

Having had the pleasure of working as an ISR in a previous life I would like to re-enforce Matt's comment about the art of listening. I'd also like to add a few thoughts of my own:

Firstly, I would find techniques that improve the working environment around you that allow you to focus on the job in hand: shut down email, sign out of instant messenger and online social networks - even switch of your monitors if that helps you focus on the call(s) you are making.

Put the customer's priorities first and treat them the same way you would a first date. Get to know them, don't go for the wedding proposal in the first few weeks of the relationship unless it's mutually beneficial. Don't let corporate spreadsheets get in the way of building a long-term relationship with the client - discounting products and services for the sake of hitting target is all well and good but you'll need to keep doing that from now on to win a sale if you don't add any value in the future.

Find out who they report to, understand what the compelling events are that affect their decision to buy from you. If they didn't make this deal with you, what would be the consequences to them and their business? Are there any other projects and priorities that the business is facing that could easily over shadow this deal?

If it's appropriate, send out an external facing colleague to meet them. Don't send them out without discussing the objectives first and ensure that your notes regarding the prospective deal are up to date so that everyone involved is clear on what's what.

Talk to your other ISR colleagues about what works for them and what doesn't - this is particularly useful if they have had one of your customers on their books previously.

Find out what makes your contact tick (and make sure you have more than one contact in each business) - if you have the ability to, send them further information to help them develop a bigger picture. Technical people love whitepapers that relate to their jobs, it helps them articulate their case better to their managers and gives them greater leverage within their role.

Connect with them and recognise when you can get traction with them - if that happens, ask for help. Even if that means stating the obvious with the client i.e. 'I'd like to just take a moment to find out how we can improve our relationship... what is it that I could be doing better for you?'

One final thing, if they are a new client to you, find out about their previous experiences with their last supplier/vendor - you'll get great insight into their habits as well as competitive information and reusable IP.

The most important thing is: Preparation, preparation, preparation!

You absolutely have to be prepared in advance for the selling situations you run across day in and day out.

If you want to be a top 20% producer, then you absolutely have to be prepared for the objections, brush offs, and put offs you get over and over again.

This means, scripts, prepared presentations, and core selling skills that you practice again and again.

You'll find a ton of FREE, proven and effective scripts here:
http://mrinsidesales.com/insidesalestrainingblog/

Also, you'll find the best selling book on inside selling here:
http://mrinsidesales.com/secrets_and_CD.htm

My advice is to use these resources and watch your sales career take off!

Mike Brooks
www.MrInsideSales.com

Pick up the phone! Mr. Inside Sales summarizes everyone's comments very well. Much of the success of an inside sales rep does in fact depend on good preparation. That being agreed, I have seen many reps in many businesses and many industries spend and inordinate amount of time preparing for a call. Taking 20 minutes to prepare to leave a message or to get turned away by a gate-keeper is a poor investment of time, and money. Yes, new reps need to learn which selling situations they can expect to find bit it takes practice to become efficient and effective. And, nothing builds good skills and instincts like experience. That’s to say nothing of the fact that with technology we see more, usually younger, reps wanting to rely on well-worded emails. Sooner or later you have to pick up the phone!