Does the weather affect the chance of getting a prospect on the phone? XANT CEO and Founder Dave Elkington thought it might and decided to test his theory. XANT is commonly known for its dialer software, PowerDialer, that has helped customers improve contact rates by up to 65 percent, increase call volumes by up to…

Read More

Technology is speeding ahead at a break neck speed and all too often we forget to look behind and see the ground we’ve covered. The dialer is one of those technological advances, and a subtle one that’s been ignored. The infamous predictive dialer was one of the early dialers around (and sadly still in use)…

Read More

You’ve hired the best inside sales reps you could find who passed the interviews with flying colors. Now, how to get these top sellers to excel in your company like they have elsewhere? When it comes to the sales performance of your inside sales reps, every call made and deal closed is important to the…

Read More

Do young sales reps even remember what a fax machine is? More importantly, do you know how to use one? Well guess what? As a tool, faxing can still be very relevant as a communications channel. With all the different ways of communication available, people have become more leery of the most common communication practices.…

Read More

You and I have heard, many times, the old adage “Knowledge is Power!” We can’t argue with the truth inherent in this statement. Education is key to personal and financial growth. There are those who, lacking a college education or degree, have earned comfortable livings and even amassed wealth. However, these people also tout ongoing…

Read More

I’m a marketer at www.insidesales.com and I’m hijacking the sales blog today. I’m writing on behalf of marketers everywhere, and I’m calling out sales professionals. The Goal of Inbound Marketers First, let me say that I like my job and I take it seriously. I strongly feel the need to produce more leads for sales.…

Read More

Insides sales is all about communications – by phone, by email, by social media, by fax. Communicate with more prospects, close more sales.  Communicate better with those prospects and the number of closes increases even more.  Rocket science?  No. Every week, I talk with far too many inside sales organizations that are not optimized in…

Read More

Here at the Insider, we understand that for new followers some of the words we use might go completely over your head – especially for some of you newbies. So to help out in understanding what we are writing about we have created a list of 10 words we use everyday with short explanations of…

Read More

The ability to nurture your leads overtime through ELF just got a whole lot easier. With the most recent release of XANT’s ELF, users gain additional powerful features making their drip marketing and lead nurturing tools even more effective. In the latest announcement, ELF now allows users the ability to trigger events based on actual…

Read More

On a recent guest post at the Bridge Group’s blog, author Henry Bruce brings up some research by Marketing Sherpa that states that 75% of all sales leads generated are going to buy at some point in the next 18-24 months.

Think about that for a minute.

A. Only 1 in 4 leads is ever totally non-productive. They may not convert now, or in the time frame the rep wants, but contrary to popular belief, it’s relatively rare for a sales lead to be total garbage. 75% of the active leads in our CRM systems RIGHT NOW are going to buy a product or service in our sector from somebody, somewhere in the next two years. So why not from you/me/us, if we’re the right fit?

B. It also seems to indicate that the need to intelligently score leads is now more critical than ever to prevent waste. 18-24 months is a long time, and no sales rep in their right mind is going to try and keep a prospect “on the hook” for a year-and-a-half. If they’re not buying now, stop wasting effort, the thought process goes, and use a long-term lead nurturing strategy . . . .

Read More