But, SMO is no longer limited to marketing and brand building for organizations, but has grown to encompass many different departments within the organization such as Human Resources, Client/Customer Satisfaction, product development, Business Development and Sales. Social Media Optimization (SMO) refers to using social media outlets to increase awareness about your brand/product and increase web traffic. As these other departments start to realize how to effectively utilize social media channels, SMO is taking a bigger focus within organizations. MORE >>

Create Twitter lists of your competition, customers and prospects to easily monitor what they are saying. With the major holiday months upon us, this can be a difficult time for inside sales professionals. Most organizations will withhold any new projects until the New Year and discovering current opportunities that fit your solution can be as difficult as fighting for that special sales item on Black Friday. There are ways to make these last few months of the year more lucrative for inside sales reps if you are prepared and are using the right tools. Social selling, or Sales 2.0, MORE >>

Without them, it can be extremely difficult to prospect potential customers and give them valuable information that could lead to great conversations and deals. Emails are a business development rep’s bread and butter. have found that a few things work really well with emails that might work well with your team as well. Always send a Thank You. If you have a conversation with someone, whether it is short, long, a polite no thank you, or a great potential fit, you want to send that person an email saying, “Thanks for your time” and your contact information. Make it personal. MORE >>

Carroll also states that Social Media outlets “can give you insight into what your customers are dealing with, what they care about, and what their thoughts are on your competition.” Most marketers are now familiar with the various forms of content that can be used during the buying process: video, case studies, ebooks, guides, checklists, blog posts, white papers, webinars, press releases, etc…(I think that covers most of them). With all of these options, it can be difficult to determine what will work best for your audience when developing your content strategy? MORE >>

As you work through the process of building and scrubbing your database, think to yourself, does this prospect look like my ideal customer? 'I have learned over the years that having a well thought out plan to reaching any goal makes all the difference. Building a pipeline is no different. When I was a rookie sales guy I was not much for business plans. Give me a list and a phone, and I''ll make it happen was my motto. Guess what, it worked, I did make it happen. What I learned several years later is that I could have made more happen with less work, if I had only took the time to plan. MORE >>