You know those prospects who just "yes" you to do, then tell you they need a few days to think about it?  The ones that give you buying signs the entire way through your mutual exploration and then... they just go dark? 

The Outside Sales Rep - While Not Extinct - Is Officially On the Endangered Species List. But Why? 

Imagine the following world if you're a sales leader: 

Where Did You Buyers Pick Up the "Holier than Thou" Attitude?  Relax!  Most Sales People Are Actually Trying to Help You

I have no idea where prospects and buyers got the idea in their head that the sales rep they're working with is "priviliged" to be able to be speaking with them, but I've seen it happen way too many times over the past four years.  

At the end of my second week in training at HubSpot we started to get a good deal of free time. I remember a Tuesday or Wednesday I had more free time than normal and I asked my manager, Dannie, what I should be doing.  She recommended I read a lot of our customer case studies, listen to recorded calls, read the sales scripts, and watch training videos on our sales process.  

If you've read the previous two posts on Inbound Selling, you know that we're prepared to actually start picking up the phone, drafting emails, and engaging on social media.  But how?  What should you say?  How many times should you attempt to connect with someone?  

Before we get into the details of exactly what to say, I want to lay out some principles for: 

1. How many times should you call/ email/ connect socially with a prospect?, and 

2. When should you actually be making these attempts to connect with your ideal buyers? 

I was just talking with my manager -- our Sr. Director at HubSpot -- about an age old challenge that anyone practicing inside sales or inbound selling faces.  The CONNECT call.  Many new reps struggle to build a healthy pipeline because they cannot even get someone to answer the phone for the first time, or agree to take a call with them.  

As I mentioned in my last post in this series this is the sales series, this is not necessarily the sales process that is going to work for every company; however, it is the one that I was taught, followed, and executed successfully for the past four years.   

Now that we have an understanding on the context around why sales professionals need to change -- namely, that 60% of the buying process is done without them (but not necessarily BEFORE talking to a sales rep) -- I'll dig into what the first stage of the Inbound Sales Process looks like.  This is referred to as the "IDENTIFY" (RESEARCH) stage in the four-stage process. 

Ideally, research should be preceded by a complete understanding of your company’s Buyer Personas.  If you’re not familiar with a buyer persona, this is a stereotype -- in the best sense of the word -- of what your ideal buyer or customer looks like.