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 »

All of the recent obituaries about the death of cold calling have been greatly over stated.  As a matter of fact, more companies than ever have increased their efforts with good old fashioned cold calling.  In part, the challenging economy has pushed companies to reduce their more costly outside sales efforts and replace them with- you guessed it- cold calling.  Sure, you hear a bundle about social media, social calling and Sales 2.0 and the hope that no one will ever have to cold call again.  But, the facts support a different story.  While companies scramble to understand the changing dynamics of selling through social media, they still have to butter the bread and move products or services into the market.  Many are turning to a reliable friend that has a history of predictable outcome: cold calling.  Read the rest of this entry »

Often times, many things get lumped into the bucket of CRM.  For the purpose of this post, let’s define CRM in its most traditional sense: customer relationship management that gives managers great reporting on all of the customer touch points, links all of the departments together and gives amazing high level reporting.   Without question, CRM has changed the way we do business, deepened our understanding of customer relationships and dazzled us with reporting.  But, has it made us more productive? Read the rest of this entry »