By Steve Korn, Business Development Executive
Organizations often look to our team to help generate qualified telemarketing leads in an effort to keep internal sales pipelines full. Sales teams invest a lot of time, and companies spend a lot of money working on generating opportunities to fill the sales funnel. In the end, everyone works towards the results or the outcome at the bottom of the funnel—the sales, leads, appointments, and any other activity that turns a profit for the organization. Ideally, the process is short in length with few, if any, issues to slow the delivery of its valuable results. However, this is not reality. The question is, how does the sales pipeline stay full? How can sales managers help their sales teams be successful and achieve their goals?
Use outsourcing to get qualified telemarketing leads to fill the sales pipeline
Using an outsourced partner to get qualified telemarketing leads is a fast and effective method to help fill sales pipelines. Outsourced telemarketing can help generate those sales, leads, or appointments needed to achieve sales and revenue objectives.
Without a doubt, outsourcing will provide qualified telemarketing leads faster. Depending on the complexity, most campaigns, given complete, concise directions and guidance from the get-go, are up and running within a month. The alternative to outsourcing this function is to do this in-house. However, there are a lot more considerations. From equipment, including a state-of-the-art cloud-based dialer system, an experienced staff hired and trained with a management team in 30-days! Oh, yes, and don’t forget to hire a compliance expert to keep your company on track with telemarketing regulations. It’s not going to happen within this timeframe.
I’m reminded of a commercial for ketchup many years ago that focused on how long it took for the tasty condiment to come out of the bottle. Carly Simon’s “Anticipation” was playing in the background. Now, that might have been good for Heinz, but in this case, it is certainly not good to wait (impatiently) for qualified telemarketing leads to start filling your pipeline. This is one of the many reasons to leverage an outsourced partner.
How to engage with an outsourced partner for telemarketing leads
Before you engage in any discussions with an outsource company, know what you are looking for and what you want. Every organization knows where their sales come from, or at least they should. The more a company knows about its customers and prospects, the better they can focus their marketing and sales efforts.
Second, as you begin your search for an outsourced telemarketing partner, a thorough discussion of your goals, your target market, your list, etc. should be front and center. This detail needs to be discussed before any conversation regarding the cost of services. If the company you are speaking with seems unconcerned with these details or, worse, is not interested enough to ask the questions, they are not a good fit for you and your limited marketing budget.
I have been in the telemarketing business for over forty years, mostly in the call center environment. I have lost count of the number of conversations I have had where the first question was, “how much…?”. Quickly I learned to respond to that question with being direct about the need for more information. Without the details, how could I ever provide a price, let alone have a conversation about what I would deliver for that particular cost?
As an example, let’s take a commercial insurance provider who wants leads for its sales producers. Is that enough information? No, it isn’t. What qualifies a business as a prospect in the first place? Renewal dates? Types of coverage? Type of business? Who should we set the appointment with? How long does an average appointment take? These questions and many more will help provide the details and insight into what we need to do to plan, develop, and execute a successful outsourced telemarketing project. Then, we can answer the question of “how much?”.
The sales team at Quality Contact Solutions understands the importance of the details. We ask the questions because we cannot be successful if we don’t know the specifics of what you’re trying to accomplish. QCS has a proud 14-year history of providing exceptional call center services for inbound and outbound telemarketing. One of the reasons we have been so successful is the fact that we take the time to find out our client’s goals and have a detailed plan before we put any campaign into motion. We have found that having a clear picture of what our clients need, makes the difference between the sales pipeline that yields a trickle of poorly qualified leads or one that better resembles a firehose of highly valuable sales, sales leads, and appointments.
So, the fastest way to get qualified telemarketing leads for your company? Contact QCS!
Steve Korn is a Business Development Executive for Quality Contact Solutions. Steve’s experience spans 40 years and includes ownership of his own call center for over 20 years plus experience in B2C telemarketing and in-house B2B call center management. His core strength is in working with small and medium-sized companies in designing and implementing programs for lead generation and appointment setting. Steve can be reached at steve.korn@qualitycontactsolutions.com or 516-656-4198.
