Not so many years ago, we would click on a few icons, wait for a report to generate, review the report and feel pretty good about the control and speed we had over our data, salespeople and results. Well friends, in a world of instant gratification, reports seem like yesterday’s news. Today, we want live streaming stats, and we demand that our sales software provides them.

If your Lead Management, Telemarketing, Prospecting or Inside Sales Software can’t tell you instantly and at a glance exactly what is going on with your leads Read the rest of this entry »

I was chatting with my good friend Dan McDade over at PointClear about how some businesses select not to outsource their sales lead generation and prospect development even when they are struggling with it internally and missing their sales goals.  It got me really thinking about how I see the value proposition of when to outsource and when to go at it alone. 

 If I may be so bold as to paraphrase a line from Master Card, here is what I have to say about outsourcing in general: “Building your own internal campaigns for lead gen and doing a decent job without losing focus on your core business- fair enough. Pulling the trigger and letting the big dogs run while you focus on your core competencies and winning the day on both sides of the ball- priceless.” Read the rest of this entry »

I must admit, when I heard Steve died, I think I was like many people. We were somewhat expecting it, and not necessarily shocked by the news. Like many of you, I watched the coverage and it made me reflect on the many contributions Steve and Apple have made in terms of form, design and marketing. But, with all of the coverage, I did not necessarily feel that connected to the event. Or, at least not until I read the following Facebook post the next morning. It read:

“Game changer to Electronics

Life changer for the Future

We will miss the man that lets us

do what seemed out of our grasp”

  Read the rest of this entry »

I get quite a few questions about the value of auto dialing and whether or not it can really increase the productivity of a sales person who works by phone. Most managers who have never tried a form of auto dialing are skeptical, and they should be. There are so many amazing claims in the market built around dialing that it makes it hard to get to the truth. I have seen wild claims: 400% increases promised, triple your sales, never go 10 seconds without a live conversation and so on. Most are just that: claims.  But before we throw out the baby with the bath water, let’s take a look at reasonable claims. Read the rest of this entry »

VanillaSoft remains the leading software platform driving phone sales. Thank goodness right? If we had listened to the pundits we would have pulled the plug years ago. Selling by phone is dead they yelled. We heard it all. No one uses the phone anymore;  people can’t be reached. If you reach them they do not want to be bothered. Read the rest of this entry »

“WOW! Free, and it does everything I need it to”…. Really?

Because of the nature of what I do, I keep a close eye on search volume for particular terms. Over the last several years I have seen a measurable uptick in the number of searches for “Free Software.” It is not only call center software, but software of many types. And, interestingly enough, advertisers and software companies say come hither, we have what you desire.

The purpose of this post, as with many of my posts, is to say get real. Remember the golden rule: you get what you pay for. Now, for what you did not expect me to say: Read the rest of this entry »

 Not so many years back, non-profit organizations aiming to do membership drives, renewal campaigns or the traditional annual fund drive or phone-a-thons had very limited choices in terms of software.  A handful of players dominated the landscape with expensive and complicated platforms that were often out of the reach of many smaller organizations.  Sure, the big universities, private schools and national organizations could pay the price, do the implementation and send their folks away for training to make it all happen.  However, 1000’s of other smaller non-profits were left out, or forced to take a disproportionate part of their budget to acquire the tools that drive success.  Read the rest of this entry »

If your business is dependent on setting appointments as the starting point to generate sales, or if you are a professional service that sets appointments for your clients, and you have not taken full advantage of the remarkable advances in appointment setting software, then the boat to success may have sailed without you. Get on board – it is not too late.

Over the last several years we have seen a migration from basic telesales software and lead management software, to powerful appointment setting software focused on driving better qualified appointments and, most importantly, more appointments. Read the rest of this entry »

August of last year I posed the question: “Can Twitter really be a lead source?” That original post follows these revised comments. Give it a read afterwards and see how things change. Back then we were new to Twitter, experts at driving inbound traffic, but somewhat suspicious of all of the Twitter hype. To remain relevant, we dove in and gave it the old college try. I think, at the time of the post, we had around 1000 followers.  Read the rest of this entry »

If you get caught up in the blogosphere or read all of the marketing hype around inbound marketing, you may find yourself hard pressed to hear the reasonable voices of sanity.  New companies have burst (OK-exploded) on to the scene, promoting all things inbound marketing.  “GET FOUND!” they  scream.  Some seem to suggest that people need to take a back seat to technology.  Actual sales people need not apply.  If I get one more e-mail suggesting I read this blog or article and it says; “Powered by” whoever the flavor of the day is, I will just… Read the rest of this entry »