Today's post is about a new organization that I know will be of interest to everyone - the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals. This organization was founded by Bob Perkins and Larry Reeves. Today we interviewed Larry.

Full disclosure, I am on the Board of Advisors for the AA-ISP and think it is a great organization!

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AA-ISP is such a great idea. What is the vision you and Bob share?

The vision has multiple facets but at its core we want to provide a centralized, trusted resource where inside sales professionals can go to get information that will assist them with their careers, performance and productivity.
 

Who are you targeting for membership?

Anybody in the inside sales community all the way from entry level rep's to senior executives. Our goal is to provide information and resources that provide value to everyone.

We know this is a very broad scenario but we feel we can address it in a variety of ways. Nothing will be segregated but things will be classified in a way that will allow people to get access to the information they are looking for quickly and easily.

Some information is of value to all categories. For instance our Member Directory and Regional Chapters are great networking tools that everyone can utilize.
 

Talk to me about the value of being a member. What do I get?

There is a number of ways members get value from their AA-ISP membership. These include:

• Access to an ever growing library of white papers, best practices and articles from a variety of contributors so you get a collective view of the industry - all in one place.
  
  
• We just introduced the AAISP Contact Exchange. Member's have access to the data collective of over 1 Million contacts being built by mywayinteractive. In a nutshell, it is a crm tool that is completely social media enabled and allows sale reps to trade select contacts.
  
  
• We are building a community via our open member directory, member forums, and regional chapters. We've had great interest in Chapters and a number are being formed (note to readers - we are very privileged to have Trish as President of the Boston chapter so please reach out to her for more info on our October meeting).
  
  
• Ask the Experts provides personalized 1 x1 consulting. Members can go online and post very specific questions and get responses from the AA-ISP Panel of Experts which is comprised of a variety of hand selected industry experts.
  
  
• We provide a Career Center which provides a portal to search all the major job boards from one centralized location.
  
  
• In August we presented our first webinar, "The Emergence of the Hybrid Role". Many more webinars will follow.
  
  
• We will conduct an annual Spring Leadership Summit focused specifically on inside sales managers, directors and executives. The 2010 Summit is planned for May in Minneapolis. In addition a Member Conference is being planned for the fall of 2010.
  
  
• Monthly newsletters and activity updates keep members up on the latest.
  
  
• A week ago we launched another new service, the AA-ISP Service Provider Directory where we list best of breed consultants, trainers, authors, vendors etc. Members can also rate and comment on providers.
   
  

Is there a way for people to sample the value? What do they get for free?

We provide a variety of ways for non-members to sample the value. These include:

• Sample download reports
• Utilize the new Service Provider Directory - view only
• Chapter meetings
• Webinars
   
  

Thanks so much for your time Larry. How can our readers learn more?

Thank you Trish, I appreciate you having me. We would like to extend a membership discount for your readers - we'd like to offer annual memberships for $99 (normally $250) through the end of September. Readers use the promo code "TBG2009".

For more information on the AA-ISP visit http://www.aa-isp.org/

(Trish here: if you are already a member, would love to hear about your experiences!)

This is a guest post by Ardath Albee of Marketing Interactions cross posted from her Marketing Interactions blog. You can find Ardath on twitter at @ardath421.

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Trish Bertuzzi and The Bridge Group have been doing some great research on what makes inside sales tick. But they've taken it a step farther and produced a really useful tool for comparing your company's metrics against benchmark metrics.

Because this is such a cool tool, I asked Trish to share a few insights salespeople can extract from the information in the table and apply to their company's inside sales efforts.

Ardath: Can you tell us the basis for the Periodic Table of Inside Sales?

Trish: The Periodic table is a summary sheet based on the data we collected from our Inside Sales and LeadGen Metrics and Compensation reports.  They are the result of surveys with 125 technology companies in North America.  The reports are 30 some odd pages long and executives often prefer the short version and that is what this is - a cheat sheet so to speak.

[You'll find both the reports available for download on the same page as the table.]

Ardath: There's a lot of meaty information in this table. Can you highlight what you see as the top 5 challenges facing inside sales teams today?

Trish: Here's where I see companies struggling in today's selling environment.

1. Productivity - Companies are being forced to do more with less. Reps are caught in the trap of trying to be everything to everyone.  Farmers are forced to hunt and hunters are forced to prospect more than they ever have before. 
   
   We no longer have the luxury of specialized sales teams and are forced to have our teams become "jack of all trades".  This is impacting productivity dramatically as the reps fumble to acquire skills they either don't have or have not used in a while.
   
   
2. Performance - 64% of all inside sales teams and 72% of all leadgen teams achieve quota.  Doesn't sound bad BUT you have to remember...these are averages and there are quite a number of reps that perform below acceptable rates. 
   
   The real question is why and there are two possible explanations - either the goal was wrong to begin with or the reps are not being provided with the tools and training they need to adapt in this selling climate.  Each company has to figure out which it is and make changes and investments accordingly.
   
   
3. Motivation - Selling is not for sissy's - now more than ever.  How do you keep your team motivated when they not only suffer massive rejection every day but also lose deals because of layoffs and budget cuts?  It is not an easy task especially with limited funds for traditional spifs and contests. 
   
   What you can do is get creative.  All reps want to learn - invest time in mentoring and coaching.  You have the skills to share so take the time to do so and it will pay off in spades.
   
   
4. Training - What is the one thing that gets cut when times are tough - training.  What is the one thing that shouldn't get cut when times are tough - training.  Need I say more?
   
   
5. Systems - Implementing your CRM used to be a daunting task but with the advent of SAAS, it has become a non-issue, well almost anyway.  But what has emerged as a problem is integrating your CRM with all the great Sales 2.0 technologies that are out there. 
   
   The tools that are meant to increase productivity are starting to impact productivity because of lack of integration.  On a daily basis, our team uses: salesforce.com, InsideView, Zoominfo, Jjigsaw and LinkedIn just for pre-call planning! 
   
   Each and every one of these tools is amazing, but how do you seamlessly link them and develop a process so that your reps are efficiently selling and not spending too much time in research mode? That is the challenge.  Add to it all the back office systems that need to be integrated and you can see the problem.

Ardath: I can see how each of these challenges plays off another. If you had to choose, what would you say are the top metrics that inside sales should start focusing on to improve their outcomes?

Trish: I'd suggest starting with these three metrics to increase productivity:

1. Make sure your reps are using live conversations with your prospects to drive the sales process.  Email is not a substitute and does not allow for effective qualification or closing to take place. 
   
   
2. It takes multiple touches to move a suspect to a prospect and a prospect to a win.  Not all of these have to be "human" touches so make sure sales and marketing have developed an integrated strategy for getting it done.
   
   
3. Pay attention to your conversion ratios.  If you don't have a grasp on the numbers detailed in the Periodic Table then you can't control your results.

Ardath: That's some great information for us to use in conjunction with your Periodic Table for Inside Sales. Any final words for my readers?

Trish: Inside Sales is not magic...it's not art...it is science.  You need to create the formula that works for your organization and then execute flawlessly!

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Go get your copy of the Periodic Table for Inside Sales. And, while you're there, get copies of the research reports that go with the tool.

After you review it, let me know your thoughts.
Did you find metrics that surprised you?
Are there any your company is beating?
Which ones do you find the most challenging to address?

Thanks to Trish for the great information!

This is the 2nd half of our interview on Inside Sales methods, metrics & strategies with Bob Memmer, Director of Sales for Jigsaw, (read the first part).

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What technologies are in place to support your team's efforts?

• Lucidera for reporting
• Salesforce.com for CRM
• Echosign for signature
• Conga Merge for document management
• Clicktools for customer satisfaction surveys
• Salesgenius for prospect tracking

Bob, how do you motivate your reps? What is their career path?

We have a great culture.  We are very focused on awards and once a month we take out everyone who made their quota to a reward luncheon.  We don't do many spifs anymore as I feel like they lost their charm and that recognition is now a better motivator.

As far as career path, an ADR can progress from that role to an AE and then out to the field.  We are fans of promotion from within.

Jigsaw did something interesting in that they chose to build their Sales and Customer Service team in Idaho. How did that come about?

Interesting story... Jim Fowler, one of our founders, actually ran a ski resort in this area many years ago.  He became familiar with the area and loved it.  When they were thinking about building a strong Inside Sales team, they did research and found that was a very strong location for IS talent and that a lower cost of operation could be found here.  So, we built Sales and Customer Service here in Post Falls, Idaho.  We are about 25 minutes outside Spokane, Washington.

How and how often do you communicate with executive management about your challenges and achievements?

Lots of communication at Jigsaw.  We have a Board meeting every 6 weeks so that is like the "state of the union".  On a weekly basis I speak with our CEO and COO and every morning everyone can check our sales dashboards for snapshots of activity and performance.

Bob, what issues would you be interested in brainstorming with your peers about?

How do you keep up with the evolving world of sales...what is new and improved? Are there things out there in terms of efficiencies, what is the latest and greatest?

Last question - is Garth as funny in person as he is on his blog?

Funnier - he is the best story teller ever!

Thanks for this and I hope it drives both interest and business your way!

Thanks Bob.  You have shared great information and we really appreciate your time!

...

This is the 3rd in a series of interviews we are conducting with Inside Sales Executives on metrics, methods & strategies for inside sales teams.

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Featured Executive:

Bob Memmer is the Director of Sales for Jigsaw and has been with the company for 4 years. 

For those of you that aren't familiar, Jigsaw is an online directory of free, downloadable company information and more than 12 million business contacts. Every Jigsaw business contact is complete with hard-to-find direct dials and email addresses, while each company record gives the low down on company size, location, and industry.

Bob, how did you get into the sales game?

Right after college in the mid 90's I went to work for Cabletron.  They were very Inside Sales focused and, at that time, had 220 reps pounding the phones in the Northwest alone.  Cabletron was a great learning environment for me because they were very process and metrics focused and provided great training.  That, combined with my later experience in the field and management, laid the foundation for what we have built here at Jigsaw.

What does your current sales model look like?

We sell primarily through Inside Sales and are a direct sales organization although we do also use sales agents.  Our current structure is:

• 5 Account Development Reps (ADRs) doing lead generation and qualification
• 17 Account Executives (ISRs) in geography based territories
• 4 Enterprise Reps focused on larger accounts
• 2 Sales Managers

You are metrics focused, how have you integrated metrics into your strategy?

First let me lay the groundwork.  We get about 1500 signups a day from a variety of sources: webinars, Google SEO/SEM efforts, email campaigns, shows etc.  We use lead scoring to determine who is truly in the buying cycle and, based on their lead score determine who should go to the ADRs.  In addition to inbound leads, the AEs assign their ADR 20 target accounts.

We use salesforce.com and have customized it to accommodate our "Dirty Dozen" which is the qualification questions we would like the ADRs to answer.  Once they get most, if not all, of that information they set up an appointment for their AE or do a direct transfer of the lead.

Now, to answer your question about metrics...

Account Development Reps

Account Executives

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Note to readers: We will be publishing the 2nd Part of this interview next week.
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This is the second half of our interview on Inside Sales methods, metrics & strategies with Mark Roberge, VP of Sales for Hubspot (read the first part).

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What technologies are in place to support your team's efforts? 

• Hubspot - for attracting prospects to us, converting these prospects to leads, and automatically qualifying them
• Salesforce.com -  to manage our funnel
• Gotomeeting - to execute on our demonstrations

What metrics do you capture and how do you use them to measure performance or make business decisions?

The simple framework we use is sales success is a product of activity level and quality of activity. We start with:

• Leads worked
• Demos
• Customers
• Conversion rates across the two

Monthly we look at peer-to-peer comparisons to help us dive into where is the most upside in development in each sales person. We are looking to identify one development baby step for them to work on.

We look in 2 different ways. We look qualitatively and quantitatively. If it's a prospecting issue because the prospect to demo ratio is off, we look at:

• Connect to demo conversion
• Total attempts per lead
• Emails sent vs. dials

We compare these metrics against the most successful reps to see if there is different quantitative behavior. Then we do prospective call reviews to look at quality.

What percentage of your team makes goal?

80%

How do you motivate your reps?

There are a lot of perks that come with being at or above quota continuously.

We are really big on recognition. When someone is over performing, we'll turn to them to lead development exercises. They love to be seen as an expert and coach the team.

We use individual and team sales contests with a different twist to what we are trying to work on today.  For example, recently we were focusing on forecasting.  We ran a contest around gaining and losing points based on forecasting accuracy.

We have also run complete team contests. We win only if everyone hits quota, the entire team loses in anyone misses quota. If they get it, they all get a limo to Manhattan, individual hotel rooms, dinner, etc.

Another spif is if they make quota 75% of the way through month, they get dinner with the co-founders.  As Hubspot has grown, there has been less exposure for the individual reps with the co-founders. These "Champions Dinners" are a great way to get that exposure and the reps really want it.

What is the career path for inside sales?

We are growing so fast we try to keep a 9:1 ratio of reps to managers.  So you can imagine how quickly we need to promote. Anyone here can step up to be a leader.

If you come in here, build your credability through results and have the behavior of a Sales Manager you will be promoted.

What does the hiring landscape look like in your area?

It is hard because of pace of our growth.  We've hired a sales recruiter to assist. For Hubspot, the landscape is good. We are in a really hot space, the role involves no cold calling and we are getting great press in the Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other major publications.

Also, we have built our own predictive index. We evaluate all candidates pre and post hire on over 40 different criteria and behaviors. For our hires, we run regressions between these criteria and success in the HubSpot funnel to continually refine the index.

If any readers are interested, you can apply at http://www.hubspot.com/company/careers/account-executive/

What issues would you be interested in brainstorming with your peers about?

Leadership development.  It's my biggest concern right now. I think we have a good formula for bringing on rep talent, but nurturing managers fast enough to be able to run a 9 person team will likely be a challenge.  I would be interested in knowing how others have addressed that challenge.

Thanks Mark.  You have shared great information and we really appreciate your time!

This is the 2nd in a series of interviews we are conducting with Inside Sales Executives on metrics, methods & strategies for inside sales teams.

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Featured Executive:

Mark Roberge is the VP of Sales at Hubspot. Learn more about Mark.

HubSpot's vision is to provide a (killer) marketing application and provide great advice to small businesses enabling them to leverage the disruptive effects of the internet to "get found" by more prospects shopping in their niche and to convert a higher percentage of prospects into customers.

Tell me about your inside sales team. How many reps do you manage?

Right now we have an 18 person team: 15 reps, 2 sales managers and a recruiter.  We will have a full time trainer starting in October. We add 2-3 new sales people a month.

That's quite an aggressive hiring strategy, what are some strategies for attracting top talent?

One strategy we employed is that we hired above our target profile on the first couple hires. We took on a few all-stars and weren't concerned about fitting their experience levels and compensation into our normal plan.  They took the risk of "sales quality" off the table, helped us figure out our sales process, and evolved into mentors for our future hires.

We also try to differentiate ourselves from other companies that are hiring.  For instance, if you are hitting quota you can work at home 3 days a week.  This has allowed us to attract talent from a wider geography.  The fact that the entire job is following up on inbound leads with no cold calling helps a lot.

Sourcing talent is the most difficult job.  I have assessed over 500 candidates in the past year.  Although we run ads, we have not made one hire off the job boards.  The quality is just not there.  LinkedIn has been our most successful channel.   I have over 700 connections that I can use to network to top sales talent.

You are inbound marketing mavens.  How many inbound inquiries do reps get monthly?

On average 500 per month, but only about half of these make it down to a sales rep.  Right now, the other half is manually scrubbed to a degree and with some automation by crawling their website.

One of our biggest challenges is hiring fast enough to keep up with this volume of leads.  We use this manual scrubbing process not to filter out "bad leads" but to focus our sales team on the best possible leads.

How many times is a lead touched before it converts to an opportunity? What is your conversion rate?

On average, 1.5 times, but the variance is high.

The connect-to-qualification ratio approaches 1. Typically prospects have been following our blog for months and have attended a webinar. We have a relationship before we even talk to them.

Does "inbound marketing" work for enterprise software companies?

Every company should make inbound marketing a piece of their strategy.  They need a diversified attack.  There is a significant imbalance in how much time/energy/effort many companies are putting into inbound marketing. The percentage spent on inbound should be significant regardless of whom you are selling to.

Keep in mind CTOs/CIOs are all over the web keeping up on trends, innovation, etc.  Even non-technical execs are on the web. They are definitely spending time on the web somewhere.  Even if they are reacting to links from friends, subordinates, colleagues, etc. they are all online.

As a VP of Sales, you are a prospect for many companies.  When you have a problem, how can potential vendors let you know about their solutions?

When I have a problem I go to Google and I read up on everything that is there. I go to Technorati and subscribe to sales blogs, for example, and read about the problems being discussed there.

I might also post a question on Linkedin and look at the responses that come in.  Problems are solved not during "normal business hours" it is closer to 1AM on a Saturday than 1PM on a Monday. Late at night when the emails and phone calls are not flying is when I can really focus my attention on strategic decisions.

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Note to readers: We will be publishing the 2nd Part of this interview next week.

You can also find the Q2 '08 Inside Sales Executive Interview with Silvana Sears here.