Inside Sales Experts Blog

Trish Bertuzzi

Author Jonathan Franzen said "one-half of a passion is obsession, the other half is love." With that in mind, ask anyone who's met Trish and they'll tell you - she is passionate about Inside Sales. Trish often remarks on how lucky she is to work with an amazing team at The Bridge Group, helping Sales & Marketing leaders make the big decisions: on implementation strategy, process to improve performance, supporting technology, metrics & measurement. Over the last two decades, Trish has promoted Inside Sales as a community, profession and engine for revenue growth. In the process, The Bridge Group has worked with over 220 B2B technology clients to build, expand and optimize their inside sales efforts.

Quick Pearls of Wisdom from the Sales Illuminati

Posted by Trish Bertuzzi on Wed, Jun 29, 2011

I spent the day at the Boston Sales 2.0 Conference last week. What follows are the pearls of wisdom I was lucky enough to pick up.

Enjoy! (Note: you'll find some of my comments in italics)
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Customers

"An IBM study reports that 80% of CEOs say getting closer to the customer is a major priority."
- Keith Hontz, VP Sales Line of Business Solutions - SAP America
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"Don’t interact with your customers without preparation. Three drivers: 1) access to contact specific customer info, 2) analytics to anticipate trends and 3) integration into one place."
- Chuck Penfield, VP CRM on Demand - Oracle
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"Are all your customers created equally, and if not, shouldn't that dictate compensation?"
- Chris Cabrera, Founder, President & CEO - Xactly
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Topics: inside sales management, technology, sales techniques

Common Pitfalls When Building Inside Sales

Posted by Trish Bertuzzi on Tue, Jun 21, 2011

I recently had the pleasure of doing a podcast with the team at OpenView Venture Partners on “pitfalls to avoid when building an inside sales team.” It was a great conversation with Brian Zimmerman, Managing Director at OpenView, led by Devon Warwick (@devwarwick).

(Note: You can read through a transcript of the conversation, you can listen to the podcast, or you can view a brief slideshare presentation of the highlights below.)
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Inside Sales is Strategic

Devon Warwick: What are some of the primary pitfalls to avoid when building an inside sales team?

Trish Bertuzzi: I think one of the primary pitfalls is when people view the building of this team as tactical as opposed to strategic. We all know inside sales is an umbrella term. There are many ways you can implement and it’s not just as easy as: I’m going to hire some kids out of college, I’m going to give them a list, I’m going to give them a phone and they’re going to pound that phone and revenue is going to shoot out the other end of that effort. That’s absolutely not how it is nowadays. Things have changed. Inside sales is much more strategic, and it really needs to be approached that way.

Brian Zimmerman: I agree completely with what Trish is saying. In our portfolio companies, it feels tactical early, and when you’re looking at building a scalable model where inside sales fits in that model, it needs to be part of the overall go-to-market strategy and the strategy as it exists.
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Topics: inside sales management, inside sales strategy

Take the Social Media “Too Much Yappin’” Quiz

Posted by Trish Bertuzzi on Wed, Jun 01, 2011

I recently discovered a blog that I really enjoy - Pam Moore’s The Marketing Nut.

With her permission I’ve excerpted parts of her Social Media: A Little Less Talk and a Little More Action Please. The full post is well worth the read, but I want to focus on her “Too Much Yappin’” Test.

To set the stage Pam asks:

Seriously folks, are you drinking too much of the social conversation Kool-aid? Do you really think that all you have to do is be social and the Twitter bird is going to deliver a basket of ROI to save your butt and justify all that yappin’ you’re doin’?

More action please!
If yer “yapper” is yappin’ your audience should be clickin’! Inspire your audience to action at every turn. As Brian Solis states “the social currency of online marketing is action.” If your audience is not inspired to take action on your behalf then what is it all for?

Relevancy is a requirement to inspire and connect. Yappin’ is good but only if it’s inspiring others to yap about it! Take the quick test below to see if it might be time to shut yer yapper for a bit and figure out how to deliver real value to your audience.

Topics: inside sales tips, technology

Central Desktop, CEO Isaac Garcia on When VC Means Value Add

Posted by Trish Bertuzzi on Wed, Apr 20, 2011

Did you ever run across an organization that you want to model your business against because they just get it? Well, I have and for me that organization is OpenView Venture Partners.

OpenView is focused on finding, capitalizing and assisting expansion stage technology companies on accelerating their journey toward market leading companies.

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We find them to be open, sharing, knowledgeable and some of the best networkers around. Since we have a love fest going with them, we wondered if their portfolio companies feel the same way. So I asked if we could interview one.

What follows is a conversation I had with Isaac Garcia, Co-Founder & CEO of Central Desktop.
Central Desktop delivers a cloud-based social collaboration platform that allows people to connect and share information to drive profitable business results.

Heads up all you technology companies considering funding…. you may want to keep reading and add OpenView to your list!

Topics: ask the experts, best practices

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Sales Models, Metrics, and Motions Blog

Trish Bertuzzi

Recent Posts

Quick Pearls of Wisdom from the Sales Illuminati

Common Pitfalls When Building Inside Sales

Take the Social Media “Too Much Yappin’” Quiz

Central Desktop, CEO Isaac Garcia on When VC Means Value Add

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