I had a great lunch yesterday with the visionary, Dennis Totah, President and Founder of Catapult Target Profiling. These guys have their pulse on the lead generation world. As we move into the Sales 2.0 world, companies like Catapult are doing their share of bringing the sales and marketing efforts together.

Their business model is unique and growing extremely fast because they provide services which are spot on with today’s needs:

Contact Discovery and List Building- the cleanest and most customized list anyone would want
Telemarketing- their skilled agents get out there and make the right contacts
Telebusiness and Lead Generation Process Design and Implementation Consulting- they simplify this process so it can scale
Database Management and Processing- they know what a time sink dirty data can be and scrub it well
Salesforce.com Implementaton and Consulting- no more complaining about Salesforce plug-ins when you can figure out how to work around it.

We talked about the state of the telebusiness industry and since my focus is on talent and their focus is on providing the best tools, we compared notes. As Dennis said, “you can give bad reps good leads and they may still mess up or you can give good reps good leads and see dramatic improvements and efficiencies.” So I guess, a lead is as only as good as the talent that stands behind it.

Another thing I agree with Catapult about is that they encourage organizations to build their own lists. This maintains the high quality of the lead, helps create stronger branding and relationship opportunities and also more ownership. It’s amazing how many inside organization task their expensive inside reps with phone jock activities that don’t pay off. Sure, they get their 60 outbounds per day and their talk time is high but the return on their efforts is low quality leads.

The Friday before a long holiday weekend is always a bit slippery. People seem to cut out early, plan their weekend activities and wish one another a Great Holiday Weekend! Well, I’m doing some of that but I’m also excited about Video Blogging.
As you know, I started my blog last year and as much as I learn about blogging, I am so far from ever really getting there. Sure I have my favorites that I always look to for inspiration because they always blog and provide exceptional content.

When I want to know what is happening, I go to Guys’ blog and when I want to see who is hot in the tech world, I listen to Robert Scoble’s PodTech show. I always laugh with brilliant Scott Adam’s Dibert’s blog- as a matter of fact, if I had 15 minutes with someone amazing, it would be Scott Adams. When I want to know what is happening in the blogging community, the very hip BlogSquad ladies keep me on my toes. These are only a few.

So yesterday, I’m checking out video blogging and I came across a few I want to share with you:

1. Roxanne Darling’s Beach Walks with Roz- I’m super excited about this. Rox takes us on daily walks on the beach in Hawaii. That’s right, here I am in foggy San Francisco with the heater in my office and I get to watch and listen to the very articulate and bright Rox.
2. Since my blog is Life in the Telebusiness Trenches and completely dedicated for inside sales folks, we can relate to the phone. I’m always looking for fun stuff on about phones. Well, check out That Phone Guy- he is hysterical. If you watch very closely, you will realize he is not talking into a cell phone- it’s his wallet!
3. Of course, we can’t forget Amanda Congdon who is prolific in her use of video.

All I have to say is stay tuned for some surprises next week.

We know that very few prospects are answering their office phones these days- although they are at their desks when we call. Many people ask me, why can’t I just try their cell because I know they will answer that? Sure, they may answer it but it’s not recommended that you prospect someone on their cell phones- not a good idea and not professional nor appropriate. I predict this will change within the next few years as more selling channels open up and we gain greater access. But today, it remains a permission-based medium that we shouldn’t violate.

There are a few exceptions however:

1. If you are further along on your sales cycle and the prospect gives you their cell number, you are encouraged to call.
2. If you don’t know you are contacting them on their cell because they have their office number forwarded, that’s okay also.

Remember when talking with someone on their cell, you need to be more sensitive to their distractions and not sound as “salesy” or formal with your approach. It’s a casual and personal medium you are selling into so be respectful.

My two sisters just started new jobs so that’s a good indicator there’s a lot of activity in the market. So I’m finding myself giving advice on how to weigh the best opportunity and once they start, how to align with new bosses and peers.

Checkout Business Week’s Podcast Series and tune in for Jack and Suzy Welch’s topic titled, Which Job is the Right Job. They suggest five questions you need to ask yourself as you weigh competiing opportunities:

1. Will the new job be filled with co-workers who share my sensibilities, or will I have to zone out or fake it to get along?
2. Will the new job stretch my mind and build my skills, and otherwise take me out of my comfort zone, or am I entering at the top of my game?
3. Will the new job open or close doors for me should I ever leave?
4. Will the new job turn my crank, touch my soul, and give me meaning?
5. Who am I making happy by taking this job, and am I OK with that bargain?

I think it’s important when you first start working with someone to sit down and talk about your different work styles. It’s important to differentiate between personalities and workstyles. We often confuse the two and spend too much time being judgmental about their personalities. What you are workstyle orientations?

Detailed Oriented - Likes to have all data and resources researched and analyzed; has difficulty making decisions without this in place.
Interpersonal Oriented - Likes to motivate people and get them engaged; lacks follow through with commitments.
Team Oriented - Likes to work with others and follow their lead; has difficulty with independent work.
Vision Oriented - Likes to take charge and set the vision for the account; doesn’t have a need to work with others and usually doesn’t unless delegating to them.
Technically Oriented - Loves the technology and thinks that’s what the customer is buying; has difficult time with business people that don’t understand the technology and language.

Have you ever prospected someone who you called on years ago? Sure, this happens a lot. They keep their title, same responsibilities and just switch to another company. So you call on them, they remember your friendly voice, you remember their programmed vendor response but you think things will be different now because they are at a new place, new budgets and new level of influence. Get real- if they never bought from you before chances are they won’t buy from you now. Why? Here’s my theory on this topic:

1. There is an unspoken pact that has been made between you two- somewhere in negotiation land, you two made a pact that you would not work together. Perhaps it had to do with the many years you spent contacting them and they no longer saw your value as a potential vendor but more as a resource consultant.
2. People like to do business with people they like- I know we hear this all the time but it’s really true. When something clicks with two people on a business relationship level, things move a lot faster.
3. Hope is not a strategy- I wish I came up with the title of Rick Page’s book because it is so true in sales. We sit around hoping and wishing for something to happen and we actually believe it will (because we know that person?) which is not a good reason.
4. Get tough with your new approach or let go- take the time to approach this differently, change the score, turn the tables around, raise the bar and don’t go back to them with the same old offerings.

There are many qualities that make for a good salesperson and trust is one which is underated. Face it, the only school out there that teaches us about trust is the school of life. And- only if we are ready to learn it, because some never really do. Our social, professional and personal relationships teach us how to trust and give us insight on how others trust us. Trust takes awhile to establish but can be lost quickly never to be regained again.

How do we trust our prosects? I don’t recommend we mistrust our prospects but we must be doubtful because the only time we really trust is when they say yes. Otherwise, every promise, negotiation, commitment and agreement is only for the moment. When we are on the phone, we don’t see the visual clues to determine trust. We can’t see their facial expressions, their posture or the way they are perceived by their peers. On the phones, we just hear their voice, their tone, pace and word choice. These are all indicators of trust and if we listen carfeully, we can determine whether we trust them or not.

How can we gain trust with our prospects? We know that prospects come with a lot of baggage and they mostly want to dislike salespeople. No matter how great your product is or how much technology we use, people still buy from people they like. Let’s revisit the 7 basics to establishing trust when we are on the phone:

1. Strong pre-call research- do your homework
2. Opening with captures attention and earns time
3. Questioning skills that demonstrate you are genuinely interested
4. Listening and not waiting for your turn to talk
5. Acknowledging the empathizing with their pains and linking these with your solution
6. Follow-through and commitment
7. Quick response time that shows you are interested in their business

My daughter handed me a cost estimate for going to her high school prom- Whoa! An easy $600 when you include the:

Prom Dress
Shoes and Accessories
Hair
Tickets
Limo
Dinner
Flower Corsage

Not to mention the therapy that happens months before when feelings of inclusiveness and rejection may set it. No I didn’t go to my high school prom, and yes I sometimes regret not going. My daughter and I seem to have the same conversation every day:

“You just don’t understand because you never went to your prom”
“You’re right, I didn’t go to my prom but I understand what it feels to want something and wish for it and hope it happens”
“Things are different now- my friends and I don’t operate like you did in the past”
“Feelings of courage, anticipation, worry, excitement, social pressures never change”

Some of this relates to sales-especially when you work so hard for a deal only to find you lost it. The feelings of rejection, not being included, frustration hits the same faultline as prom emotions.

Sales takes trememdous courage- each day we put ourselves, our product, our company out there and risk rejection. And once we’ve been rejected, we never really know why. There are so many layers of rejections from the unspoken rejections to the hidden objection to the legitimate objection.

Once we have been rejected, do we ever really want to know why? We may scramble out so fast, we never really hear it or we are so angry we never really catch it. Learn from your objections because they are golden opportunities to learn and grow.

Email volume is rapidly growing and according to a Carlson Marketing 2006 Whitepaper, it’s about 2.4 trillion messages per year in the US. So how do we stand out?

Our Webinar today, Got My Email; Measuring Response in a Noisy Market presented by TeleSmart and Genius will address that.

We will meet the next generation email sales pioneers who will share their secrets for getting response in this crowded space. Ask us for our Email Control: What’s Out and What’s In 2007 article.