This week I had the pleasure of attending the AA-ISP Leadership Summit. Roughly 400 inside sales execs from a diverse group of industries were in attendance.

Last month, I had the pleasure of attending the AA-ISP Senior Exec Retreat and spending time with 50+ Execs, VPs and Directors sharing & discussing issues relevant to inside sales.

One of the workshops focused on Employee Lifecycle. Well, let me tell you that I learned a ton from the other attendees – Inside Sales leaders from companies like IBM, Mentor Graphics, Staples, & Henkle to name a few.

I thought I’d share a few takeaways from that session – specifically focused on the front end of the employee lifecycle: Sourcing.

For the better part of the last 15 years we’ve all used a combination of the following to source candidates:

• Internal and external referrals
• External or in-house recruiters
• Online postings: corporate sites, Monster, LinkedIn, etc.

But we know that finding top talent is tougher than ever before. Our hiring infographic notes that:

• The demand for inside sales talent increased 124% from 2009 to 2011
• The demand for lead generation talent increased 59% in the same time period
• 59% of all reqs are filled in under 45 days

Yikes… Since filling open reqs dramatically impact our ability to achieve revenue goals, what can we do about it?

I wanted to call out 2 examples of companies that are using creative methods to recruit top talent.

Your Reps are spending significant time, effort & energy trying to speak with prospects live.

When the great miracle happens and a prospect tries to call your Sales Line, are you making it easy for them? Are you sure?

Many companies have a department they’re not even aware of – Sales Prevention. It’s comprised of delightfully polite, yet ultimately rage-inducing auto attendant that prevent Prospects from reaching your Sales Reps.

The good news is that there’s a way to downsize the Sales Prevention Department. Here’s how:

• Dial the phone numbers listed on your website, booth, cut sheets, etc.
  Make sure you call the main line and the sales line (if they’re separate). This will help you understand the prospect’s experience.
  How quickly is the phone answered, if at all? If you have an auto attendant, is the Sales option 1^st, 2^nd,  6^th? Is the prospect forced to listen to a commercial before you provide them with routing options? 

I've been a bit obsessed with sales presentations lately. Not so much on construction of attractive slides, but on the requirement to tell a compelling story via the world's most torturous medium: PowerPoint.

In the Inside Sales world, Reps work incredibly hard to earn 10, 20 or 30 minute discovery/needs analysis calls. At presentation time, we’ve got (at least in theory) guaranteed prospect attention.

But far too often, we squander all that preceding effort by confusing, boring or annoying prospects while generally failing to move the sales process forward.

I just came across this eBook from the folks over at SalesCrunch called "Designing Presentations That Sell." And let me tell you, it rocks. (Note: I wouldn't normally link to registration required content - but it is that good.)

In the eBook, presentation designer Jan Schultink goes through 3 acts: Images, Stories & Content. I thought I’d share the bits that most impacted me.