Our popular What’s Out and What’s In 2004 Hot List is here with lots of fresh insights in the Inside Sales World. This past year was a dynamic one for the sales, service and support industries.
We start the New Year with a renewed sense of optimism and the courage to raise the bar on productivity- after all, we are well positioned to dream big this year. We predict a rapid deployment of technology, continued growth opportunities from an increasingly global workforce, and an emphasis on customer retention. Let’s check out more sales and service trends as well as pop culture trends.
| What’s Out | What’s In |
|---|---|
| Teamed Inside Sales Model | Individual Quota-Bearing Inside Reps |
| Broad, Brush-Stroke Marketing Goals | Very Narrow Focus |
| Expensive Sales Training that doesn’t demonstrate ROI | Sales Training that demonstrates tangible increases in productivity, revenue and performance |
| Sales kick-offs in Bali | Sales kick-offs in Vegas |
| Monster Trade Shows with giveaways and no good leads | Highly targeted regional events which provide substance and cater to customers and prospects with true interest in products |
| Doing more with less | Not complaining about doing more with less |
| PowerPoint Slides | Hand-outs |
| Discounting and Providing Bland Incentives | Stronger, creative negotiation tactics |
| Relying on Field Reps’ Rolodex of Contacts | Targeted Lead Generation Teams |
| Building Headcount Just Because You received 4 new-hire reqs | Retaining Top Talent You Don’t Want To Lose |
| Less importance on volume of new accounts | Stronger customer mining and retention efforts on generating revenue with installed base and active customers |
| Lack of sufficient training without the infrastructure to support it | Setting teams and managers up to succeed with the right systems, structure, and processes to track results |
| Meetings | Desktop Productivity |
| SPAM | Permission-based email marketing |
| A glut of unemployed talent | Talent that went off and reinvented itself in completely unrelated fields |
| Holding off on IPO | Going public in a skittish market |
| Snowboarding | Kiteboarding |
| Hilton Sisters | Olsen Twins |
| Mutual Funds | Google IPO |
| Enormous Scarves | Ugg Boots |
| Pit Bulls | Border Collies & Poodles |
| Sitcoms | Reality TV |
| Mini Cooper | Scion XB |
| TV Shows Such as: Punked, Frazier, Friends, Survivor | TIVO Rules |
| Jimmy Falon | Jack Black |
| Bachelors | Average Joes |