“One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself” (Wikipedia). The Golden Rule is one that is often repeated, but not always followed. In honor of Golden Rule Week (April 1-7), I thought it would be fun to address some Golden Rules that should be applied to the world of inside sales. …
Next week VanillaSoft will be attending the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals (AA-ISP) 2013 Leadership Summit. This is a great opportunity for inside sales leaders to learn, share, and network with colleagues from around the country. The inside sales representative is an increasingly important role in sales organizations. With improvements in communication technology and …
Will We See You at the AA-ISP Leadership Summit? Read More »
The inside sales model has steadily gained prominence over the past few years thanks to the advancement in technology and lower cost benefits. One recent study reveals that even companies with “outside” sales teams conduct 40% of all customer conversations over the phone. According to another study conducted by David Mitchell, Gartner Research Group, “Inside …
On Thursday, March 28, 2013, at 5:00 pm PST, I’ll be joining Jim Obermayer on Sales Lead Management Association Radio. The focus for the show is the growing trend of companies moving to inside sales teams and away from outside sales. Some of the topics we’ll cover include, differences in productivity between inside and outside …
I just wanted to give a quick shout-out to the anniversary of an important day for all of us who work in the inside sales space. On this day 137 years ago the US Patent Office granted a patent to cover “the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically ….” Although …
International Coaching Week came and went without a lot of fanfare last week. Unfortunately I think that coaching does actually get short changed in many companies. I don’t believe that this is usually a conscious decision in that the manager has decided that coaching is not worthwhile. The problem is that coaching takes time, and …
In part two of the blog series on common mistakes, I would like to talk about what I see as a fairly common error when designing sales processes: the desire for perfection from the start. These managers often have a fairly complex sales process in mind. They have flow charts, complex routing rules, and elaborate …
“CRM, in my opinion, is no more of a sales productivity tool than using Excel and Word are.” So states Nancy Nardin in a recent post where she outlines what she calls the “Efficiency Paradox” as related to CRM technology. This is obviously a statement designed to shock many. I am not one of them. …
As many of you may already know November is National Entrepreneur Month in the US, giving us all an opportunity to talk about the importance of entrepreneurship to the economy. Entrepreneurs have changed the way we live and small business continues to contribute a large number of jobs to the economy. Here at VanillaSoft we …
National Entrepreneur Month and Global Entrepreneur Week Read More »
I still have quite a few conversations every week with sales managers or CEOs who are running their sales teams on paper. Just yesterday I was speaking with the manager of an inside sales team responsible for setting appointments for manufacturing reps. She was spending time every week printing lists to hand out to her …
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