Why is Sales Intelligence Becoming So Critical for Professional Experience?

February 14, 2012 in Sales 2.0, Sales Data, Sales Intelligence, Social Selling, Software Tools, Technology | Tags: B2B, b2b sales, cold calling, Professional Experience, Sales, Sales Data, Sales Intelligence, sales productivity, sales prospecting | by Kevin Baldacci | 1 comment

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There is little to no doubt that as sales intelligence continues to emerge in the industry, it will become a crucial component in your job resume. As companies continue to sense the empowerment sales intelligence brings to their sales teams, experience with such platforms are beginning to become a standard for incoming sales professionals.

Here is an example of a job description for a Sales Associate Specialist:

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How does experience with sales intelligence empower a sales professional?

It is best to answer this question by deriving some of the key duties from this job requirement and how sales intelligence can bring these duties to their fullest potential.

Identify key client prospect contacts: Sales intelligence platforms, such as InsideView, has the ability to build  Watchlists - Watchlists help you track and monitor a list of companies for relevant business opportunities and challenges. By building a company list through sales intelligence, representatives have the ability to easily find companies within their targeted industry without spending hours of time researching.

Market to the key client prospect contacts: Using People Insights from InsideView, sales professionals now have the ability to approach the right people, with the right message, at the right time. With this tool, representatives no longer have to go digging through the Internet finding recent news about key prospects – People Watchlists deliver them daily notifications where it becomes easy to market.

Set up phone qualification calls for the territory Account Executive: The standard of cold calling and using data has begun its final bow out of the sales cycle. Of course it has its benefits of dialing 100+ people in one day and getting a couple of leads out of it. However, sales intelligence platforms brings real-time “people” information. It’s not just contact data (phone, email, address, etc.)…it’s contact information combined with social profiles (Twitter, Pandora, Facebook, etc.), University experiences, news articles, and more. When sales representatives make that initial call, they have everything they need to make a personal connection with the potential client.

Why are sales intelligence platforms becoming a job requirement?

Today we are in the midst of a social revolution. As more people across the globe become connected through the Internet, our methods of business are rapidly changing. Sales is at the tip of the spear with this new transformation of business. The issue is, not all sales representatives are utilizing the incredible resources online – primarily because researching takes time, eating up sales productivity.

More than 1/4 of sales teams use 50% or more of their time researching. (Aberdeen)

Sales professionals should no longer be expected to perform to their fullest capabilities spending half of their day researching potential prospects. Companies are starting to realize they can no longer afford to hire sales representatives who bring are not productive with research and given poor data quality. Sales intelligence platforms aggregate crucial pieces of material needed to empower sales teams in order to make effective sales calls. Companies, such as TriNet, are starting to realize that leveraging InsideView and sales intelligence cuts down time wasted researching and increases sales productivity.

“Using InsideView, we have reduced the time for our new sales reps to be fully productive by 50%. We have accelerated our customer acquisition rates and increased our incremental customer lifetime value
by $500K.” Tina Babbi, Vice President Sales and Service Operations

There is little question sales intelligence is becoming a crucial tool for sales teams and professionals throughout multiple industries. Companies that require the experience of these platforms understand the power it gives to their sales professionals and the enormous benefits it has for their sales infrastructure.

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    5 Inside Sales Trends to Expect in 2012

    February 7, 2012 in Sales Intelligence, Social Selling, Tips and Tricks | Tags: 2012, 2012 predictions, 2012 trends, b2b sales, inside sales, josiane feigon, people insights, Sales 2.0, Sales Intelligence, trends | by Kevin Baldacci | 2 comments

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    These 5 trends are derived from a very, very interesting Inside Sales Trends Report: 12 in 2012 Inside Sales Trends by Josiane Feigon. Folks, you need to read the whole report and frame it to your desk throughout the year. Josiane is right on the money when it comes to what to expect in this year’s inside sales trends.

    I would like to take the opportunity to show you five of these trends with some additional comments of my own.

    1. #WINNING - Everyone is looking for some big wins this year in 2012. Whether you didn’t quite reach your marks in 2011 or looking to blow 2012 out of the water, you need to be following those innovators and problem-solvers who are reshaping today’s sales. They know the business and how to effectively use their sales tools. A great list to take a look at is InsideView’s 25 Influential Leaders in Sales - these are the people you should be following when it comes to inside sales.

    2. Avoid the Slack Blitzer Backlash - As a buyer, how many times have you heard automated responses or pitches read straight from the script? It’s time to think about creating calculated campaigns that are personalized - you need to start selling to People, not Contacts. [Check out People Insights from InsideView to learn how to start selling to people]

    3. Seize the Hidden Sales Cycle - The new normal now is our self-sufficient customers who are engaging later and alter in the sales cycle, and coming in much more informed than ever before. They still want a relationship with someone who understands their pain and meets their needs. You need to look for the right people, with the right message, at the right time – your buyers will know all about you, make sure you know everything about them and can provide for their needs. Be that person for them in 2012.

    4. Mix the New Substantial Communication Cocktail - The phone and email can no longer do it alone – they need their peeps! People throughout the world are more connected to each other than ever before. No longer do you need the traveling salesman knocking on office doors hoping for an answer. Start bringing other process into the sales system to get in touch with your prospects.

    The new cocktail has five ingredients: phone + texting + video + emails + social

    5. Re-engineering Randomness - Say good-bye to safe and predictable linear thinking, and say hello to the weird and the wonderful. Some may be wary to admit it, but we are living in a modern industrial age as businesses getting ahead of the curve these days are the ones who think outside of the box and go beyond normal business.

    Get creative and innovative for 2012.

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    To view the free, FULL report of Josiane Feigon’s 12 in 2012 Inside Sales Trends click HERE. 

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    What Do Big Ben and the Cliffs of Moher Have to do with Sales Intelligence?

    February 6, 2012 in Technology | Tags: B2B, b2b sales, content coverage, content sources, CRM, crm 2.0, government entities, insideview, intelligence solution, Microsoft Dynamics, Sales Intelligence, sales productivity, Social CRM, social media, social selling, territory maps | by koka sexton | Leave a comment

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    From Ireland to the United Kingdom, sales people just gained more intelligence as InsideView announced the general availability of InsideView UK & Ireland edition. Working with eight of the leading integrators and resellers in the region we are already making an impact for over fifty businesses since we announced our move into Ireland and the UK.

    InsideView gathers tens of thousands of information sources, filters what matters, and delivers the intelligence on UK and Ireland businesses directly into all of the market-leading CRM solutions. But what will the UK and Ireland Edition offer?

    UK and Ireland Edition capabilities include:

    • UK and Ireland territory maps for list building and prospecting
    • Turnover displayed in GBP (£) or Euros (€)
    • Individual profile setting for country-specific display of currency
    • Expanded content coverage for companies, executives, public sector and government entities

    What will the UK and Ireland Edition Offer?

    With the UK and Ireland Edition of InsideView comes new Channel Partners. Together, InsideView and these partners are bringing actionable sales insights to teams of sales professionals in enterprises across the region. CGE Software, a specialist in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and a distributor of add-on CRM enhancements, highlighted the advantages that InsideView brings to its customers.

    Content Sources – UK and Ireland Edition of InsideView

    In response to the huge demand from companies selling to UK and Ireland businesses, InsideView is continuing its global expansion by bringing the industry’s leading sales intelligence solution to the UK and Ireland. We pull content from over 7,000 UK specific sources, the top 8 can be found here.

    “InsideView is a powerful application that gives marketing and sales people great insights into the prospects and customers they target,” said Mike Spink, sales director of CGE Software Limited. “The most significant aspect of InsideView, is its ability to identify key people in millions of companies throughout the UK and the world — and deliver rich social profiles and connection paths to them. Of all the solutions I have seen, InsideView is the absolute best.”

    Audra Oliver, head of marketing communications for King Worldwide and InsideView customer offered: “We are thrilled to have InsideView not only for the company information, but for the contact details, news, smart connection feature, and financials. We sell everything from investor relations services to high-level crisis management consulting and being able to get relevant company information at the click of a button is very valuable to us. Moreover the InsideView team is helpful, responsive, and made getting started virtually effortless. I would highly recommend it.”

    InsideView is also teaming with business information providers and gathering data from all major news, social, and company sources that are specific to the U.K. and Ireland. This information improves the effectiveness of sales professionals that serve these markets where more than forty-five percent of the population is active in social media.

    Umberto Milletti, CEO of InsideView, commented, “As more businesses understand that they can get an inside edge by leveraging social, news, company and professional information, they are turning to InsideView. The delivery of InsideView for the U.K. and Ireland is an indication that we can rapidly respond to the growing demand for sales intelligence around the globe.”

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    People Insights: It’s Like Ancestry-com for B2B Sales

    February 1, 2012 in Sales Intelligence | Tags: B2B, b2b sales, business dynamics, connecting the dots, crm 2.0, lead generation, relevant connection, Sales, Sales 2.0, Sales Data, Sales Intelligence, sales productivity, sales prospecting, sales techniques, social intelligence, social media, social selling, social sources, socialprise | by koka sexton | 2 comments

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    Selling to people has not changed dramatically over the past hundred years. You have a product or service, identify a pool of prospects and then discover how many of them you can help. Sure thats over simplified but when it boils down, those are some of the key components. What has changed a great idea over the past few years is not so much the overall process but the details of how to sell to people.

    Most sales people do not have the opportunity to walk into the offices of their prospects, see the awards on the wall, photos on the desk and bag of golf clubs in the corner. These were the details a salesperson would use to break the ice, find some common interests and start a conversation. Without these insights, a salesperson is left to their own devices and would be left with being just another sales guy with a pitch. Get beyond the contact data of someones business card and get to know your prospect as the person and not just a contact in your CRM.

    People buy from people. Business is done not necessarily with the company with the best product but more often with the salesperson who has found a connection with their prospect through a shared interest or a referral. In the post on the 8 ways to increase sales we outlined some best practices to follow.

    More than 90 percent of executives never respond to cold-call sales or unsolicited emails.

    Sales intelligence can identify connections between colleagues within an organization and prospects to reveal opportunities for meaningful sales contact. By arming sales professionals with actionable information from social sources, media outlets, company information and changes in business dynamics they are more likely to trigger sales. Sales professionals can quickly identify relevant connection points and build profitable, trusted relationships with prospects and customers that win more business and drive revenue.

    ‘It’s like watching an Ancestry.com commercial’

    You’ve seen the commercial, a site that starts connecting the dots between you and your family and then builds a map of your entire family tree. It lets you see your connections to people you may never have known existed just by following the trail of connections through out history.

    How can that apply to B2B sales?

    Early adopters of People Insights like Network Hardware Resale are already seeing an impact in lead generation, opportunities and revenue.

    “Social media mapping is my favorite feature. It’s just so cool. It’s almost like watching that Ancestry.com commercial- it’s like ‘I got a leaf!’ It’s when you find that connection that absolutely breaks you into an account; and once you’ve done that, your energy in looking for more of those connections goes WAY up. That becomes your best lead gen strategy ever. Now you want to have and create personal relationships with people through social media so that you can leverage those relationships.” - Michael Lodato, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing at NHR

    Leveraging people insights isn’t just a good idea, it’s the only way you will increase your lead generation and create new opportunities in 2012. As explained in the post 5 ways sales intelligence can increase revenue, research shows that:

    For salespeople and sales leaders, understanding how to sell to people not contacts will be the difference between hitting or missing your number.

    Related searches:
    people social ireland selling inside
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