There is a massive amount of Ah-Ha Moments throughout the entire book! Whether you’ve been in sales for a week, a year, 10 years or 40 years, you will learn something new. With an ever changing landscape of technology and information, you need to be on the fore front in order to be successful. As a sales person, you get leads. Whether it be an inbound demo request, MQL, they downloaded content or whatever the case may be; it’s time to think outside the box.
“When a (lower-level) contact takes some action, yes, your reps should follow up. Then, either at the same time or subsequently, they should reach out to a higher-level contact too.”[note]Page 211[/note]
At first I wasn’t too keen on this, but with the reasoning behind it, I feel in love with the idea. Instead of prospecting the prospect, prospect for the opportunity. Go above and beyond to reach out to the organization. What’s the worst that could happen? That person’s boss never gave them the authority… now you know that it’s not a legit opportunity. Nobody likes getting 75% through the sales cycle to find out that nobody else knew about the project. Prospect higher and wider.
Another Ah-Ha Moment that comes to mind is:
“…give the SDR’s themselves ownership to work on special projects.”[note]Page 217[/note]
Imagine the idea’s people could come up with if they got to own a project. It could be anything that could improve the department or the company. Because they’re in the trenches all day long, they could come up with solutions to their problems that the managers didn’t even know about. Give your people a little bit of freedom and they’ll repay you 10 fold.
Data… it’s a trending word right now in the tech industry. Big Data… etc. You’re right, it is a huge talking point, but only if you’re using the data correctly.
“There’s also a big difference between being data driven and data informed. I’m 100 percent in the camp of using data to lead a team. I feel equally strongly that data shouldn’t drive the manager; the manager should use data to drive decisions.”[note]Page 220[/note]
In order to have good data to make good decisions, you need to keep track of everything. Depending on what your data says, you can make some game changing decisions based off of it. All of those decisions will directly affect your bottom line.
“Every moment your team spends trying to figure out whom to call and how to reach them is lost to actually engaging with prospects.[note]Page 235[/note]
Do yourself a favor and keep your data clean. Bogging down your CRM with crap isn’t going to get you anywhere. I’ve been updating my system lately and it’s a pain in the butt. You have to do it if you want to ‘own’ your territory.
“What you do matters. You have the ability to influence not only the culture of your team, but also how your company is perceived by prospects. You have the chance to shape not only the career trajectory of dozens and dozens of reps, but also the growth path of your entire organization.”[note]Page 239[/note]
If you’re in sales or thinking about going into sales development, this book is a must read. This book paints a bigger pitcher and gives the reader a clear and conscience image of how a sales development organization should run. The Ah-Ha Moments Bertuzzi has displayed in this book are absolutely incredible.
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Connect with Trish on Twitter @bridgegroupinc
The Sales Development Playbook | Trish Bertuzzi
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