Welcome to the year 2012! I hope the first couple of weeks is everything and more you could have hoped for in terms of sales and getting jazzed for a fresh start. I compiled a list of some blog posts I thought you all might find interesting. They outline a lot of really great best practices to get you up and running this year. For those who didn’t quite hit your marks last year, now might be a good time to start switching things up a bit. Spend the morning or afternoon reading these from some truly influential figures in sales.

1. Personality Study of 1,000 Top Salespeople-Harvard Business Review - Heavy Hitter Sales Blog
2. 12 Ways to Increase Sales – Inc.
3. Being True To “You” – Paul Castain’s Playbook
4. Optimism is a Selling Skill. Is Your Glass Half-Empty or Half Full? – Salesopedia
5. How to Create an Enchanting Pitch #OfficeandGuyK – Guy Kawasaki
6. 5 Leadership Tips for Sales Managers - Better Closer
7. Seven Steps to Sales Transformation – Selling Power
8. 8 Ways to Increase Sales – InsideView
9. Want the Sales? Watch What You Say… – Joanne Black
10. The Beauty of Imperfection – Jill Konrath

Shoot us at a tweet @insideview if you like our collection of blog posts!

Sales Data may be defined as the quantifiable facts and figures about prospects, including company and contact details as well as financials, that can be pulled from a variety of editorial or user-contributed sources. Essentially, sales data is exactly how it sounds: it’s just data. A phonebook is a book of data. A textbook is a book of data. When you Google search a term or word, what you get back are search results which is essentially data. Everything is there but how do you know which are the right nuggets of information?

Sales Intelligence may defined as going beyond demographic and financial data to provide accurate, relevant and timely business insights on their current initiatives and urgent business challenges. This presentation dives into a number of examples of how sales intelligence can greatly impact a sales team’s revenue. With the right applications, sales teams can find the precise insights from the most relevant resources to accelerate the sales performance cycle.

Sales Data vs. Sales Intelligence

View more presentations from InsideView

1. Anneke Seley – @annekeseley
2. Trish Bertuzzi - @bridgegroupinc
3. Joanne Black – @ReferralSales
4. Sam Richter – @SamRichter
5. Jill Konrath – @jillkonrath
6. John Barrows - @KenseiJB
7. Kendra Lee - @KendraLeeKLA
8. Josiane Feigon - @JosianeFeigon
9. Barbara Giamanco – @barbaragiamanco
10. Nigel Edelshain – @nedelsha
11. Nancy Nardin – @sellingtools
12. Don F. Perkins - @donfperkins
13. Paul McCord – @paul_mccord
14. Tibor Shanto – @Renbor
15. Gary Hart – @SalesDuJour
16. Gerhard Gschwandtner – @gerhard20
17. John Cousineau - @jcousineau
18. Kenneth Darryl Brown – @KenE3C
19. Pelin Thorogood – @PelinT
20. S. Anthony Iannarino – @iannarino
21. Eric Blumthal – @EricBlumthal
22. Doyle Slayton - @SalesBlogcast
23. David A. Brock – @davidabrock
24. Miles Austin – @milesaustin
25. Mark Hunter - @TheSalesHunter

It used to be that companies controlled the flow of information to potential buyers and customers. The Internet has changed that paradigm completely. Today’s B2B sales teams need to know how to leverage social selling opportunities in order to create relationships and help their companies maintain a strong brand presence in the market.

Read this white paper and learn:

• Quantifiable benefits of adopting social business practices
• What it means to sell to “Customer 2.0″
• Actionable tips for launching a social selling initiative
• Which companies have used social selling to win more business

Social Selling Paper – Download

This post originally appeared on the Focus.com Group, where InsideView regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology for sales organizations.

Lets face it, sometimes the hardest thing to do is “get in the door” with a new lead. There have been hundreds of books written about it, countless podcasts and even entire sales enablement companies built around helping sales teams learn new tactics and strategies on making the first contact. With a lifetime of content available to a sales person, I don’t think that there is any one answer that cracks the code. That being said, it is much easier now than it was 3 years ago.

The perfect lead

The idea of the perfect lead could span all the colors of a double rainbow. Every company will have a different definition but they all boil down to a few key points. Someone has a pain, you have a product or service that can help and the clincher is that they have a budget that will cover the costs. Within that you can classify or rank your leads a thousand different ways to identify an even more specific list of the perfect lead. As a sales person you can only do so much so make sure that you are contacting the people that will have the quickest and easiest sales cycle possible. Even if the average sales cycle for your product is 6-9 months you want to keep that as close to the 6 month mark as possible right?

First impressions matter most

What you do with your leads is your business but there have been some horror stories told over the years about a shiny new lead that matched all of the criteria of the “perfect lead” just to be destroyed by first contact. If you typically send out an email first then make sure these are not some form letter sent to everyone. Since these leads are special make sure you add some great content into the email that grabs their attention and starts building the relationship that you want. Ask a question, attach a piece of  key content that is tailored to their issue and give them multiple ways to contact you with any questions.

Laurie Lynard of Telemasters offered some great advice that has worked for her.

First, I am always prepared. If they were a referral, I craft a message like “John Smith referred me to you as having a potential need for X to streamline your process and reduce your costs”. If they were a web lead or an inquiry, I will remind them that they expressed interest in XYZ.

Next, I script a value proposition that will resonate with my prospect: “At ABC Company we specialize in provide solutions that shorten time to market and reduce R&D costs”.

(Note: These two steps also prepare me to convince the gatekeeper to put me through to the decision-maker when she asks “What is this call regarding?”)

Lastly, I script a clear and compelling call purpose with a benefit to set the stage for a “discovery” conversation to understand their current process or system to determine whether it would be of benefit to partner. I also determine which question I will ask to begin the qualifying conversation.

By following this process, when I actually make the call, I am prepared to talk to:

A. The Gatekeeper
B. The Decision-Maker
C. The Decision-Maker’s Voice Mail (Different approaches need to be used in each subsequent voice mail or email)

When approaching the perfect lead you want to come across sincere and professional. They are a perfect lead for a reason and you need to make sure you can articulate that to them especially if they aren’t convinced yet. If you can position yourself as an advisor or an expert in a certain area then that can go along way.

On top of all of this, it adds another layer on the relationship if you take an interest in the people you are dealing with. Using common social selling tips will keep you ‘in the know’ about your leads and the companies they work for. Set up a new watchlist and add some value to questions they ask online. This will set you apart from being just another sales person.

by kevindooley

CRM

1. SaaS’s Impact on the Inside Sales Model – Sales 2.0
2. Salesforce.com Rolls Out Chatter 2 – Destination CRM
3. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 vs. Salesforce.com: Why Microsoft is the better investment – CRM Software
4. Marc Benioff of Salesforce Supports the Security Message – Dave Stelz
5. Where Social Media Junkies Can Find Official Dynamics CRM Sites from Microsoft – CRM Software
6. Is Your CRM System a Two-Way Street? – CRM Outsiders
7. Enterprise 2.0 and Social CRM, Two Great Tastes that Taste Great Together – Enterprise 2.0

Social Selling

1. Optimists or Pessimists? – Jonathan Farrinton
2. Sales questions are hot now – Customer Think
3. B2B Lead Generation Roundtable: A Heated Sales and Marketing Alignment Debate – B2B Lead Generation
4. The Best Technologies For a Successful Inside Sales Team – Sales 2.0
5. The Changing Nature of the Salesperson and Customer – Selling Power
6. Dealing With Slacker Prospects Without Sounding Like a Pathetic, Needy Salesperson – Jill Konrath
7. Seven Sales & Marketing Insights From Recent Events – Sales 2.0
8. Engage Your Prospects – Eyes on Sales
9. Cool Sales Tools to Make Prospecting Easier – Sales 2.0
10. The Subtleties Between B2B and B2C Marketing Data – Eloqua
11. For the Serial Prospecticider, Social Media is Now the Killing Field – Jonathan Farrinton

Social Media

1. Social Media and the End of Privacy. – Gartner
2. Calendaring Your Social Media Marketing Content – HubSpot
3. 21 Ways to Build Trust and Sales Leads in Social Media – Kyle Lacy
4. The Social Media Telephone Game! – Paul Castain (Sales Playbook)
5. Old Tweets, New Twitter and B2B – Social Media B2B
6. 10 Misunderstandings Of Social Media – Sales 2.0
7. How Social is Social Networking? – MENG Blend

1.      Drive Increased Sales Productivity with Sales 2.0 – Selling Power

2.      Are You Interested in Monitoring Social Media? – CustomerThink

3.       The Role of Technology in How Sales and Marketing Work Together – Marketo

4.       Is Brand Awareness the Number One Social Media Goal? – Small Business Trends

5.       B2B Social Selling Meets CRM – Social Media B2B

6.       The Brave New Business Model for CRM – destinationCRM

7.       Control or Ownership? Either Way, the Customer Has It (Or Both)! – CRM Outsiders

8.       Difference between Social CRM and traditional CRM – Customer Think

9.       The Silent Zone: Lost Sales or Lost Truth? – Eye on Sales

10.   Gatorade Mission Control Project Misses the Social Biz Mark – The Blakery

11.   9 Awesome Ways to Market a Business Blog – Hubspot

12. What’s next after Social CRM: VRM - Marketing & Innovation

13.   The Power of the Social Cloud – Paul Mulder

14.  Customer Engagement: Key to Internet Marketing Success – CRM 1080

15.  Improving B2B Sales Productivity with Social Media – Business Idea

16.  What Is Customer 2.0? – The Social Nexus

17.  How 4 Small Businesses are Using Location-Based Services – Mashable

18.  When Success Get’s A Stay Of Execution! – Paul Castain

19.  Three Steps in a New World of Customer 2.0 – Rare Agent

20.   Is CRM training really that important? – Tracy Kinsey

photo by Thomas Hawk

I read a lot of blogs in a week. Some for entertainment, some for education and most just to stay on top of what is being said around the blogosphere about sales 2.0 and sales enablement. I have been sending out tweets about these posts but wanted to start highlighting a few of the posts I think should be read by anyone looking for good content in the B2B, Social CRM, and related fields. This will be a weekly exercise and may not always go live on a Wednesday depending on what works best for our readers. So here are 15 Sales Productivity Posts You Should Read Today.

1.      Give Your Prospecting Legs with Social Media: Sales 2.0

2.      CRM system end-user givebacks?: Tracy Kinsey

3.      Sales 2.0: How Will It Improve Your Business?: InsideCRM

4.      Customer 2.0: Buyers have changed, have you?: The Funnelholic

5.      Kickstarting your Social CRM Initiative: Brian Vellmure

6.      Selling Power Begins With Powerful Sales Leadership!: Paul Castain

7.      Inbound & Outbound Marketing Play Nice Together: Eloqua

8.      How important is the next new feature in a CRM system?: Tracy Kinsey

9.      Behind the Cloud: An Interview with Salesforce.com’s CEO Marc Benioff: Blake Landau

10.  13 questions about social media and thought leadership: Chris Koch

11.  Social CRM: The Rise of Social Service: Chris Butler

12.  Catch the Window of Opportunity Before it Closes!: SellingPower

13.  Social CRM: The Future of Customer Relationship Management: Internet Marketing

14.  B2B Companies Must Keep Pace with the Customer 2.0: Social Media B2B

15.  Social CRM: Bring Clarity to the Craziness: Casey Cheshire

What is your favorite blog that covers Sales 2.0, Social Selling, Social CRM or sales intelligence?

This week we’ll begin our Sales 2.0 blog series by discussing the role of acceleration in Sales 2.0.

1. Sales 2.0 is about acceleration.

Selling is moving from human speed to Internet speed. Salespeople spend less time on every phase of the sales call, from finding prospects to closing the sale. Since every phase of the sales funnel is optimized, salespeople will pursue better opportunities, waste less time chasing unprofitable business, accelerate the creation of better solutions for their customers, and move deals faster from the discovery phase to the close. Sales managers can rely on better technology to respond to the constant shifts in the marketplace with agility, precision, and lightening speed.

Examples: ConnectAndSell empowers salespeople to speak with 7 to 10 prospects per hour instead of 10 prospects per day. InsideView gives salespeople clear insights into their prospect’s business, as well as access to relevant social information about the prospect. Jigsaw allows salespeople to quickly target prospect companies, bypass gatekeepers, and go straight to the decision makers.

Selling Power: You’re credited with coining the term “socialprise.” What does it mean?
Umberto Milletti: Socialprise means bringing the benefits of social media (like blogs, forums, social network sites, etc.) to the enterprise in general, and to the sales organization in particular. Sales professionals realize that there is a great deal of information on the Web about various people and organizations, but they are often at a loss about how to find what they need to know. Our product, SalesView, leverages and aggregates that ever-growing information in a way that doesn’t place an undue burden on sales professionals’ time and energy.

SP: Can you give us an example?
UM: Certainly. A sales professional can ask the application questions, like, “Who are some people with the title of vice president who live in Ohio and are interested in employee performance?” SalesView aggregates the information from blogs, LinkedIn entries, press releases, SEC filings, news articles, etc., to provide a list of individuals who fit that profile. A sales professional could, of course, do much of that research through multiple searches, but that would take a large amount of time that otherwise could have been spent in more productive selling activities.

SP: Is the technology useful for more than just lead generation?
UM: Absolutely. It’s frequently used for further qualifying leads that have been generated using other methods. For example, if your Web site logs inquiries from a hundred prospects, it can use information on the Internet to categorize and prioritize those leads so that you call the ones that are most likely to buy, or which are most likely to have the money to buy. SalesView is also a good tool for account development and cross-selling because it provides an alternative and detailed view of the people inside a current customer organization.

SP: Many sales reps already feel overwhelmed by having to learn so much technology to get their job done. How are you keeping this from being yet another burden on their time?
UM: Actually, that’s the “prise” piece to “socialprise.” We simply inject it into their existing CRM application. You don’t have to be trained, really…just show up to work one day and see the new information. Also, we’ve been working with over 150 companies to ensure that this product is extremely easy to use. In most cases, it’s presented as a button or field right inside the CRM application. For example, if you list your current opportunities, you’ll also be presented with links to relevant information about the customer, such as a new blog entry or an update to the customer’s Facebook entry. You can then click on the links and learn the details. In other words, it provides a deeper perspective into your customers and contacts. You can also have regular email sent to you on a daily or weekly basis summarizing what SalesView thinks is important.

SP: How has the product been received?
UM: At the CRM application level, this year we established partnerships with the likes of salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Oracle CRM On Demand, SugarCRM, and Landslide Technologies. At the user level, we’ve experienced a rapid growth rate with an accelerating adoption rate inside the companies that already have it. We originally saw companies consuming it for just a subset of their sales team, maybe 10 or 20 users. Now we’re seeing many more cases where it’s just being rolled out to the entire sales staff. It becomes immediately popular because it piggybacks atop the CRM system and just suddenly appears, with all its functionality, on the Monday morning that you turn the functionality on.

SP: What’s in the future for InsideView?
UM: In the short term, we’re focusing on the changing economy of the sales profession. Longer term, we see InsideView as an essential element of the entire Sales 2.0 movement, which applies technology in new ways to help sales professionals sell. We plan to continue to make our product more integrated and more relevant so that our customers can be more productive.