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 »

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 »

Come-on, we have all done it at one time or another.  You know, produced a sales forecast out of thin air.  Heck, back in the day it was all but required.  “Jim, what does your gut tell you the sales team can do this quarter?”  BTW – by “back in the day,” I mean a few years back when the economy was flowing, fat marketing budgets ruled the day and the question was how much over quota will would go.  Times have changed my friends, and we must change with them. Read the rest of this entry »

 The Sales Lead Management Association has launched a cartoon series focused on lead management.  VanillaSoft got the opportunity to sponsor the first cartoon and we jumped on it.  Sometimes, a cartoon can capture in a single frame what bloggers and experts try to share with thousands of words.  The first cartoon really got me thinking; is a bigger box the answer?  Read the rest of this entry »

Lead Scoring is hot right now.  As technology continues to advance, powerful new software is emerging to assist Inside Sales teams with their lead management.  Lead scoring can take on many forms.  Some are automated, while others allow a sales person to score based on their interaction with a prospect or customer.  One thing is sure; we have moved well beyond yesterday’s standard scoring of cold, warm, hot and sold.  Read the rest of this entry »

The super cool news is that these new social selling and corporate view features are getting paired with the best-in-class lead routing features that are the drivers of productivity for inside sales.  This makes for an unbeatable combination.  

This post may be bit self-serving, so I apologize in advance.  However, to make my desired point I need my own company, VanillaSoft, as an example.  We have all followed posts from talking heads like me that discuss the question, “Is cold calling dead?”  I say, along with our thousands of customers who cold-call, that it is alive and well.  Others say its time has come and gone.  I am sure, like most things, the truth is in the middle. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s OK to admit it.  You have been holding off on empowering your Inside Sales effort with the latest and greatest software offerings.  Sure, they all look sexy and do some really cool things, but at the end of the day do they really get you the lift you need to justify the cost?  Do they make up for the effort of changing and pain of the sad good-bye to your existing platform, or dare I say, your paper and pencil Read the rest of this entry »

 Don’t get lost in the hype of slickness and cool features if you are seeking software to power your inside sales team. If you have folks making calls to generate leads or sales, then do the easy math.  It is about making better calls, the right calls, and making more of them. Read the rest of this entry »