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Bill: As a sales professional you are constantly on the go. In fact only 30% of a sales rep day is actually dedicated to core selling activities.

In the November episode of Sales Pro Chat we'll learn about the top tools and resources that can help increase your productivity and get you hitting your quota more efficiently.

Jamie Jackson is a leader at the Toronto base group Rock Star Sales. With over 15 years of sales experience Jamie's mission is to provide sales professionals with solutions to increase efficiency in day to day sales activities.

Hi Jamie, welcome to Sales Pro Chat. Thanks for being our guess today.

Jamie: Not a problem.

Bill: Jamie ... lets start with a bit of a general question.

Can you tell us why prospecting tools are important.

Jamie: Absolutely. As a sales person the number one query that we get in is, "How do I get out there and book meeting?" It is a fundamental skill in sales and is one that is changing rapidly. The advance of very social media plat forms and training means how we prospect today is very different from how we use to prospect.

One, it is a very hot topic. It's something we all need to do. Two, if you failed, your time is literally money.

Every second that you invest talking with someone that's maybe not going to buy or wasted a lot of administrative work. Means income literally out of pocket.

If there are tools or techniques that can accelerate your prospecting productivity, that's literally money in your pocket.

Bill: Okay. Thank you very much.

Can you now tell us a little bit about what we're about to cover in today's pod cast.

Jamie: Absolutely. These are five tools that we use primarily for prospecting and prospecting work that we find very useful. These are tools that I particularly ... I use them almost every single day. They have been [inaudible 00:02:17] by teams of successful sales people.

We find that there is a lot of advise out there. There is a lot of tools being offered. What there is not a lot of is front line reps actually testing to see what works and is actually useful.

This is our desolation of five tools that we find very useful particularly for prospecting.

Bill: Okay. Well in that case lets jump in.

Please walk us through your top five prospecting tools for sales people. Which helps them to save time and get the best possible leads.

Jamie: Not A problem.

The first one we would like to talk about is a tool called Yesware it cost about $25.00 US a month for there team edition.

Here's why it's important. Here's why they should care, is because I use to spend on average two hours a day running through my list of people I have contacted. My prospect list, and then following up.

As we all know, you can't just send out one email or one call and have a prospect call you back and get a meeting. It doesn't work like that. It's a series of follow ups. That series of follow ups have taken me about two hours a day.

When you purchase the Yesware for $25.00 a month. Think about that, it's two hours a day, five days a week. I was spending ten hours a week on that.

You can actually purchase that ten hours a week back for $25.00. That is really a worth while investment. That is a deal that I will take every single day.

Here is the interesting thing. The Esquire allows you to do a lot of different things. Here is the two we found most useful.

Number one. The Esquire allows you to effectively look at when and how all your prospects are reading their emails. This is a great piece of technology.

It works through all sorts of different fire walls. I've sent it to people in governments and fortune one hundred companies and I can still see when they are reading my emails.

What's the value in that. The value in that is a few different things. Number one, you can see and filter which one of your prospects you actually want to pick up the phone and or send a follow up email to.

The people that are opening up those emails. The people that are opening up the attachments on those emails. Those are your hot prospects. Those are the people that are engaging.

This idea that you can convince somebody to buy something is a myth. What you are doing in sales is meeting somebody half way. Yes, we are allowing you to see who is meeting you half way when you send those emails.

The second functionality that I find most useful in it. It is their mail merge functionality. It is very similar to Microsoft office mail merge where you can customize some fields and you can send out some emails. In a sequence of emails.

That in about itself is not revolutionary at all. What is very useful is that Yesware will stop that email sequence if the person responds to your email. It will do it automatically.

That all of a sudden is very useful because it stops you from spending that two hours a day following up. Looking at it, okay Mr. Jones, where is my email to him? I sent an email three. What do I need to talk to him about or sending him that email as well.

After my first email I usually sent up my follow up queue. I've got three or four emails on a follow up. You can upload it all in one shot. Then you don't have to worry about it. Your leads and responses comes straight back in. Very useful tool.

A second tool that I have found extraordinarily useful. Is a tool called Upwork. Upwork is effectively a free lance market place for free lancers of all shapes are descriptions. Upwork tends to go to the higher end of the administrative work. Web programming and a munch of other things.

Here is what sales people find it useful for. Here is what I use it for building my lead lists. I use to spend about an hour a day. Taking my time and building a list of people to talk to. Who should I talk to next?

Especially when your in a hunting role or your team is in a hunting role. They spend an awful lot of time doing that and they have to do it themselves.

As a sales person you have to trust where those leads come from. The only way you are going to do that is if your the one issuing the directions in terms of who you want to talk to.

Here's the thing. It's manual grunt work. Is that the best use of your time. No it's not. You can go on Upwork look under lead generation. There are a whole variety of free lances who will build you a lead lists and actually do some really interesting thing.

The guy I use ... well he has a premium built navigator account and that allows you to develop an incredible targeting base of people to talk to. He will fill in their email addresses and he will send them a blank email to test whether that email is active.

Then he will send me the list at the end and I'm buying that time back for typically around 30 to 50 cents US per name. That is a deal I will buy back my time with every single time.

Tool number three. LinkedIn Navigator. Here is probably the most valuable tool you'll have as a sales person.

Depending on which country you're in and where you are, it's around 700 to 800 bucks a year. LinkedIn Navigator allows you to target the right people.

Remember in the old days. We use to have to call up and ask, "Can I speak to the person responsible for.."? Those were the old days. I spent hours of my life doing that. You don't need to do that any more.

You can log into LinkedIn Sales Navigator., you can say, my target is CFOs of companies with 51 to 200 employees that are located in Canada and I want to speak to the CFO. Within thirty seconds you can develop a list of those people. That's number one.

Number two. What it does is give you the ability to contact them. For your Lincoln Sales Navigator subscription you can use a service called in mail.

In mail allows you to contact people that are not with in your network. You might not know them but you can send them an email and say, "Hey, I think we should connect and here's why".

The interesting part is that if your good at what you're doing. If your keen is actually successful in engaging someone. They will credit you that Lincoln email back if they respond.

If you send an email to John Smith and say, "Hey, I think we should connect and here's why" and he sends an email back saying, "Sure, lets do it. What about Thursday." All of a sudden you haven't used one of your Lincoln email credits.

The fourth tool is something called AudioBooks, You can download an audio book so you can listen to it.

How does this relate to prospecting? Well here's the thing. As a sales person we spend an awful lot of time in transit. Either on the subway or on a bus or in your car or on a plane.

What that means is that ... our primary source of sales technique information not product information but sales techniques. Usually comes through books at the moment.

That is where a lot of the best research is published in book format. If that is the case how do we get access to that and not impact our travel time. Particularly  while we are prospecting and meeting clients.

Audio Books is what I use because it allows me to download it onto my iPod or phone or what not and you can listen to it while you are in transit. One of the best things you should probably download. Take a look at Challenge Your Customer. Which is the sequel to Challenge Your Sale. That is an excellent sales book that you can download in Audio Books. It's not too bad. It's about $15.00 a month.

The last tool for prospecting I will through out is this, there is a website called Fiverr. Fiverr with two R's.

This is an online market place of free lancers. Here is the interesting thing about it. Is that you can buy anything on that web site for $5.00 US.

As a salesperson what you find is that Fiverr can provide you a range of different things that you need done very quickly.

For example here is what I use it for. A lot of times I will need a white paper or a brochure done very quickly. Marketing can't do it as quickly as we want it to. I'm sure everyone who is listening has had this experience.

You can find somebody on Fiverr and the graphic designer saying, here is the content I want, here is the brand guild lines I want for my company. Crank it around very quickly.

By the way your not going to pay $5.00 for it. For most things that you actually want it's going to cost somewhere around $20.00 To $25.00 US. You can expense it and you can get it done.

Which means it gives you the back up material, the follow up material that you need when you need it.

Here's another thing I use it for a lot. If you want to produce logos. I put together a Lincoln group for my prospects on things they would find interesting and my logo cost me $7.20 for the group. It makes it look that much more professional.

Bill: That was awesome. Jamie Jackson thank you very much for being our guest on the November Sales Pro Chat Pod Cast brought to you by the CPSA.

Until next month that's all listeners. Good bye for now.