The world’s most incomplete list of inside sales experts
This blog post contains a list of experts in the Inside Sales space. This list is incomplete, is missing people, and in general is not ready for prime-time, this I admit. Please play along: My goal is to create a fairly complete list of experts in the inside sales space. My hope is that if I post the “World’s Most Incomplete List of Inside Sales Experts”, readers of this blog will recommend experts to complete my list. I actually tweeted out this request and didn’t get anything, so I feel like I am doing a service to the world. There you have it.
Here is how I am thinking about this list:
1. Inside Sales is defined as people who make their living using the phone as their primarily vehicle for selling. This can mean lead qualification or closing revenue over the phone.
2. An expert for the sake of this exercise fits the following criteria:
a. Tweets and Followers (sorry, welcome to 2010)
b. Blogging (once every two weeks is all I was looking for here)
c. Inside Sales as expertise…there is a lot of REALLY good sales bloggers out there that I read regularly that I purposely left off the list. The key here is that these people actually care about inside sales, the profession.
d. There is one guy I have to leave on even though he continues to ignore letters a and b above and that is Stu Silverman who was my mentor and gets a pass.
3. Who I missed is as important as who i have….either send me people I missed in the comments (keep the rules above in your head), tweet it to me, or email me at craig AT funnelholic DOT com.
Experts:
1. Mike Damphousse
2. Trish Bertuzzi
3. Josiane Feigon
4. Stu Silverman
5. Anneke Seley
6. Matt Bertuzzi
7. Ken Krogue
8. Karla Blalock
9. Aaron Ross
10. Chris Snell
11. Steve Richard
12. Geoff Alexander
13. Art Sobczak
New Additions:
14. Matt Heinz
15. Michael Pedone
16. Mark Roberge
17. Simon Carruthers
18. Larry Reeves
19. Bob Perkins
20. Mike Brooks
21. Kevin Gaither
22. Dan McDade
23. Laurie Page
More New Additions (9/9/10)
24. Sharon Little
25. Tom Scontras
Remember, I want more…send, tweet, whatever, but hurry, I want to get this list to 30 in a week.
Written by Craig Rosenberg - The FunnelholicSign up to receive emails when new articles are posted
First, thanks for including us! Second, I submit Mark Roberge the VP Sales of Hubspot. Brilliant analytical mind when it comes to Inside Sales and has the results to back up it up! @markroberge
Thanks for including me on this list; what an honor! I’ll let you know if I can think of others!
Thanks again!
I’m going to add my former colleague, Simon Carruthers, head of research sales at The 451 Group, to this list.
Even though he ALSO completely ignores a and b.
He otherwise is an inside sales rockstar/guru/etc. in my book.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/simon-carruthers/0/560/3ab
OMG.. how could I forget Bob Perkins and Larry Reeves the co-founders of the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals?? http://www.aa-isp.org
Craig -
I’ve gotten over the omission of me from the list, which I admit, upon reflection, is justified. My twitter and blogging productivity is lacking in comparison to the others on your list (except Stu, who I agree deserves a pass, because he’s put his time in and has lots of devotees to carry his message).
I would, however, like to nominate S. Anthony Iannarino for inclusion on your list. http://thesalesblog.com/
Caveat: I have not worked with him personally, but from reading his blog it’s apparent he knows his stuff, and he’s focused on small sales teams. What I really like is how he takes a business owner’s view of Sales. He’s not provincial or into “Sales v. the rest of the world.” He’s good and I notice that compete.com shows his traffic picking up nicely this year.
Tom
I nominate Reg Nordman at Rocket Builders in Vancouver BC. See http://www.regnordman.com/
Craig,
Wow, thank you so much for the mention.
I also second Trish’s inclusion of Bob Perkins and Larry Reeves.
The AA-ISP is rapidly becoming a premiere service organization, founded on key principles for professional, ethical sales and sales management, and they are both deserving.
Don’t forget Mike Brooks, Mr. Inside Sales himself. Published Author, top notch trainer. http://www.mrinsidesales.com
How about Laurie Page. Forget blogging and tweeting (no offense to effective self promoters and knowledge sharers), if you are responsible for a sales and marketing pipeline, you can’t do much better than insight from Laurie Page. She isn’t shy about offering an opinion.
http://www.bridgegroupinc.com/laurie_page.html
Dan McDade, president and CEO of PointClear. Dan blogs, he tweets, and most of all he is passionate about applying a process-oriented, analytical approach to inside sales (and prospect development). Sales Lead Management Association named Dan one of the 50 most influential people in sales lead management in 2009. Consider adding him to your list! http://www.pointclear.com/about-us/management.php
Hello everyone and thanks for including me on this list Craig. Great line-up and good criteria on who makes the cut. I know lots of incredible people who have dedicated most of their professional lives in the inside sales world- they know it cold. They have built and managed multi-million dollar organizations and hundreds of teams but they don’t tweet, blog or do much social media. The “social” aspects of inside sales hasn’t caught on but that doesn’t mean they are not experts. The Telebusiness Alliance LinkedIn group and the Inside Sales Pros are where you can find your experts. Hope this helps.
Craig, I’d nominate Sharon Little, former telesales executive and consultant and now Director, Global Field Communications at VMWare:
http://twitter.com/SalesCraft
Don’t miss Tom Scontras, VP of Sales and Marketing at Glance Networks (makers of the on-the-fly sales demo tool). Tom blogs at The Upside - Killer Sales Tips http://glance.at/a3FLdz. With 20 years of software sales experience, Tom likes to write controversial posts that question the Sales status quo, like “Are Software Sales Slow, or Is That A Tar Pit You’re Standing In?” He’ll be speaking at the Oct. AA-ISP inside sales event in Boston.
Craig,
Love the list and thanks for including me. So you’re giving Stu a pass on Twitter and blogging…:-) This begs the question: is being active on social media a requirement for inside sales expertise? What if someone is running a global group of thousands…or building a new team at a startup?
What do all you experts think?!
(I had to ask a controversial question to keep the conversation going! Too easy to just submit names.)
/Anneke
Craig,
Is the list “inside” or “inbound”? “sales” or “marketing”? From an inbound sales perspective the best I’ve ever met is Greg Malpass of Traction Sales & Marketing. The guy is a rock star and works heavily with SFDC, Marketo, Manticore, LoopFuse, and Jigsaw.
With that said, he has next to zero social / inbound street credibility. Now… if you said inbound marketers, I’d be all over it.
- Tewks
themarketingmojo.com
Anneke,
Didn’t read your comment to afterward, but I totally agree.
- Tewks
Craig:
Another addition to your list of Inside Sales experts:
Gary Ambrosino, chief blogger at “Strategic Sales Growth”
(http://blog.garyambrosino.com/) and also President/COO of TimeTrade (www.timetrade.com)—software to help streamline how sales and service appointments are made.
Gary (aka @garyambrosino) recently gave a featured presentation at the 2011 Leadership Summit of the AA-ISP that was well received by attendees, as well as a significant number of others on your list (e.g. Trish Bertuzzi, Anneke Seley, and Larry Reeves).
Gary’s AA-ISP presentation (”Keep Your Leads out of the Sales “Death Zone”: Don’t keep prospects waiting.) challenged the audience (of inside sales pros) to realize how much time they waste in calling, chasing and waiting to connect with prospects. Through his blog, speeches, and TimeTrade products/services, Gary’s an insightful and helpful inside sales expert and facilitator who belongs on your list.
Best
/Patrick