Being a business development rep is hard. Often considered the hardest part of the sales process, we are tasked with initiating a conversation with a prospect that is not expecting a call, uncovering some sort of need or pain point, and getting them to commit to a next step (i.e. demo, intro call, etc.). All of this has to be done within about 5 minutes…
Introvert comes from Latin intro-, “inward,” and vertere, “turning.” It describes a person who tends to turn inward mentally. Introverts sometimes avoid large groups of people, feeling more energized by time alone. (From vocabulary.com) I have something to share: I am an introvert. In the early days of Facebook, there was a group for self-identified awkward individuals entitled “My Awkwardness Makes My Day Interesting”. If…
In my last post, I talked a lot about how your delivery is a huge difference maker when talking to a prospect. As sales people, one of the most important aspects of our delivery is clean speech. Clean speech is free of filler words such as “um”, “ah”, “like”, “you know”, “right”, and a few others. Take a minute to think back through your professional…
I recently read an intriguing article on LinkedIn about student athletes and sales. Having played college football for 5 years I wanted to weigh in on what athletics has taught me and how it enabled me to become a successful BDR. No doubt about it, playing a sport in college is like having a second job. On average a student athlete spends about 40 hours…
Now that you know why hiring a new grad can be beneficial to your business, how do you find the right fit that can hold up to your expectations of your sales team? Interviewing recent graduates is very different than interviewing seasoned candidates. The first step is to reset your expectations. That’s right, RESET. As a company, you want to hire the best fit for the…
I like to spend my morning commutes listening to sports talk radio. When I listen to call-in shows like these, I’m fascinated to hear how those who call into the show start off their calls. Similar to a sales call, the caller has a short amount of time to quickly get their point across (like a BDR). While the host (like a prospect) is trying…
“Hi John, this is Chris from a company you’ve never heard of! I’m going to proceed to list about 8 different things that our company does that may or may not have anything to do with you!” If you’ve been in the business world long enough, I’m sure you’ve received a call or email almost identical to this. The life of a BDR can be…
Fresh out of school, new grads appear to have an abundance of entry-level opportunities when entering the working world. However, too often they don’t get hired due to a perceived lack of job experience, or other personal biases on the part of the interviewers that have little do with the job requirements. If you look in the dictionary, an entry-level job is defined as: relating…
How One Team Saw a 400% Increase in Production After Adding This Tool Most of us gave up manually dialing phone numbers about a decade ago when we all adopted smartphones. Whether you realize it or not, using a smartphone to call your address book contacts is using ‘click-to-call’ automation. This saves time, reduces wrong number dial attempts, and records metadata for every call…
The session went well. You walked your prospect through the demo, using it as a tool for discovery, asking open-ended questions along the way. Objections were raised. You handled them perfectly. Together you discovered a need, and your prospect validated that your product could fill that need. You quickly covered pricing, and qualified for budget. The prospect said to give them a call next week…