COMMENTS
20% laurie? 30-40% email has been effective for me. Dont get me wrong, business is done over the phone and prospects can more easily say "no" via email. But to initiate a conversation and at least get the attention of a decision maker its often easier to do via email. You can contact more people in less time via email and more rapidly market a product/service via email than you can by leaving numerous voicemails over and over and over....
Also, people can more easily fwd emails than they will voicemails, and when youre prospecting (cold calling) into huge organizations I think its helpful to suppliment the phone calls with effective emails.
I do, however, agree that at the end of the day if you need to qualify opps you need to speak with someone. But to get the attention of a prospect its often easier to do so by supplimenting a phone call with an email.
I hear you, and agree. I find it a great way to introduce the company, technology, and myself, with some expectation they will have given it a cursory glance so the call is a little smoother.
Errors in syntax etc. very bad.
@email fan. If I understand Laurie's post correctly, she is not talking about using email to "market" your product or service. She is talking about using email to "qualify an opportunity" - big difference.
So many ISRs fall into the trap of thinking activity equals opportunity that I see where she is coming from.
Another great post on a topic that addresses the same issue can be found on the Hubspot blog. Mike's post is about using email to do lead nurturing. Here is the link
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/3881/Inbound-Lead-Nurturing-Relationships-not-Emails.aspx
How do you spell b-u-l-l-s-h- -t?
Why are salespeople afraid to have a conversation. You cannot show tonality in an email. You cannot correct yourself instantaneously in an email. Pick up the phone and talk to your prospect. Don't be afraid!
The key sentence for me in Laurie's post is "...replaced having a conversation with a prospect to using email." Email can supplement a conversation but not replace it. Like Rick says, reps that email instead of picking up the phone are scared.
Who else is concerned that management would consider email a part of an Inside Sales rep's activity metric anyway?
Let's fix this problem right away - throw away email as an activity metric and get back on the phones!
Telephone sales as a purity died a long time ago with the advent of voicemail. Inside Sales is about selling to people who you are not face to face with correct? So, I can speak to them, I can write to them and I can even IM with them. The key is to correspond with your prospects and customers in the manner that is most comfortable to them - not in the manner that makes your manager and his spreadsheet with call activity, bathroom time, prospect to close ratios, and all the other nonsense used to supposedly gauge how well a person is doing their job. That said - if you can't write well - don't rely on email or IM - use email to get your self a phone call. If you can write well and your prospect and clients like communicating that way - then do it and use the phone just to maintain that personal connection from time to time. Get the sale, get a customer and who cares whether you use the phone or smoke signals. We should use all the tools at our disposal, not the just the ones that can be monitored by a spreadsheet. After all, if you use it correctly almost any form of communication can be personal. Now, I will say writing in little "forum" comment boxes can be a little tough.