Our popular What’s Out and What’s In 2006 Hot List is here with lots of fresh insights in the Inside Sales World. This past year was a dynamic one for the sales, service and support industries.
We start the New Year with a renewed sense of optimism and the courage to raise the bar on productivity- after all, we are well positioned to dream big this year. We predict a rapid deployment of technology, continued growth opportunities from an increasingly global workforce, and an emphasis on customer retention. Let’s check out more sales and service trends as well as pop culture trends.
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| Teamed Inside Sales Model | Individual Quota-Bearing Inside Reps |
| Broad, Brush-Stroke Marketing Goals | Very Narrow Focus |
| Expensive Sales Training that doesn’t demonstrate ROI | Sales Training that demonstrates tangible increases in productivity, revenue and performance |
| Sales kick-offs in Bali | Sales kick-offs in Vegas |
| Monster Trade Shows with giveaways and no good leads | Highly targeted regional events which provide substance and cater to customers and prospects with true interest in products |
| Doing more with less | Not complaining about doing more with less |
| PowerPoint Slides | Hand-outs |
| Discounting and Providing Bland Incentives |
Stronger, creative negotiation tactics |
| Relying on Field Reps’ Rolodex of Contacts | Targeted Lead Generation Teams |
| Building Headcount Just Because You received 4 new-hire reqs | Retaining Top Talent You Don’t Want to Lose |
| Less importance on volume of new accounts | Stronger customer mining and retention efforts on generating revenue with installed base and active customers |
| Lack of sufficient training without the infrastructure to support it | Setting teams and managers up to succeed with the right systems, structure, and processes to track results |
| Meetings | Desktop Productivity |
| SPAM | Permission-based email marketing |
| A glut of unemployed talent | Talent that went off and reinvented itself in completely unrelated fields |
| Holding off on IPO | Going public in a skittish market |
| Snowboarding | Kiteboarding |
| Hilton Sisters | Olsen Twins |
| Mutual Funds | Google IPO |
| Enormous Scarves | Ugg Boots |
| Pit Bulls | Border Collies & Poodles |
| Sitcoms | Reality TV |
| Mini Cooper | Scion XB |
| TV Shows Such as: Punked, Frazier, Friends, Survivor |
TIVO Rules |
| Jimmy Falon | Jack Black |
| Bachelors | Average Joes |
Have you looked at the way your teams are selling? Are they IN the groove or way OUT in left field? It’s a new year. Maybe it’s time for you to redefine the rules and hit the ground running.
Team Training on our TeleSmart 10:
Sales Booster Series: Want to make sure your Lead Development and Telesales Teams are calling at the right level and not talking with “NoPo’s”? Register them for a monthly teleclass designed to inject new motivation, skills and tactics right to their desktop. It’s the only telesales-centric teleclass training out there. Sign up for a free demo day or listen to an audio archive.
Management and Supervisor Training on the TeleSmart 10:
From individual contributor to managing a team, what has changed? How can you continue to motivate with metrics and effectively coach and mentor your teams? We train, calibrate, coach and help telemanagers build influence and create change with their teams.
