Telemarketing

Why Sales is Surrendering the Pipeline to Marketing

The sales pipeline, aka the sales funnel is the long-standing measurement of the past, present and future for a company.  In the not too distant past marketing dumped demand into the beginning (top) of the pipeline and sales took responsibility for the rest of the process. 

How Variables in Selecting a TM Service Drives Price

Host Jim Obermayer interviewed Debra da Costa, president of Direct Marketing Partners ands they tackled the difficult subject of choosing a "Contact Center" that is as measurable as your own staff. 
 

Queue-Based Vs. List Based Selling

Host Jim Obermayer interviews Genie Parker of Vanilla Soft and David Kreiger of Sales Roads discuss Queue Based Selling and its promises of increased sales productivity.  Inside sales positions have grown several hundred percent a year in the past few years (says Selling Power), but is  there anything new to manage them and their results.  Parker and Kreiger insist that their method of Queue based selling is different, more productive and the users like it better.  We'll see. About Genie ParkerGenie brings more than 30 years of experience in sales and marketing with an emphasis on doing business on the phone. Genie comes with a broad experience reaching into hundreds of industries including technology, manufacturing, non-profits, financial services, and business services.Prior to joining VanillaSoft, Genie Parker co-founded Murray and Associates, a remarkably successful boutique outbound call center. Genie's company consistently delivered sales, qualified leads, appointments, marketing and fund-raising services to businesses from The Fortune 500 to small businesses across the United States for 15 years.PMA gained a reputation in the industry with companies looking to carry out highly productive calling campaigns while ensuring a quality customer experience. Her knowledge of technology and the entire phone sales process gives her the ability to bring the two together to give VanillaSoft customers the tools they want and need.Genie has worked at such companies as L'Oréal, Monet, and 1928 Jewelry and holds a B.S. degree in Marketing from The University of Southern Mississippi.About VanillaSoftThe Power of Simplicity  VanillaSoft is the industry's leading software for Sales by Phone. Our intuitive and easy-to-use inside sales software takes the best of CRM, Lead Management and Telemarketing applications to create the most productive phone sales environment available today. >VanillaSoft's core philosophy and development process is centered around one concept: The Power of Simplicity.  It is through this principle that VanillaSoft offers this platform that allows our customers to see increased productivity, higher contact rates, and sales accountability tools like no other.
About David KreigerDavid Kreiger is the Founder and President of SalesRoads, a business-to-business appointment setting, lead generation and sales outsourcing company. He was recently named as one of The Most Influential Leaders in Sales & Lead Management by the SLMA. David started SalesRoads while attending The Wharton School and received numerous awards for the company while still getting his MBA.  He began his career at TradeOut.com, a business-to-business online auction site. David was responsible for creating, managing and growing the inside sales and customer service departments.   David has held sales, marketing and training positions at several Fortune 500 companies such as Heinz, Deloitte & Touche and PepsiCo.   Prior to going back to business school, David worked in sales and marketing at The Beanstalk Group where he managed the trademark licensing programs for companies such as Ford Motor Company. David has been featured in Fortune Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor and CNN/Money Magazine. David holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from The Wharton School.About SalesRoadsSalesRoads is the nation's leading B2B Appointment Setting, Lead Generation and Sales Outsourcing provider for start-up, midmarket and enterprise level organizations. Because of our unique approach to demand generation, we understand the intricacies of implementing successful programs for our clients. Since we are on the front lines of communication, we recognize the importance of a quality first impression – this is why our US-based telesales executives are the most experienced in the industry, with an average of 14 years of telesales experience. This skill level provides our clients with the most proficient, distinguished and professional agents in the industry. www.salesroads.com

How to choose a telemarketing Service, the 2.0 Contact Center Model

This Thursday, November 21: Host Jim Obermayer will interview Debra da Costa, president of Direct Marketing Partners as they tackle the difficult subject of choosing a "Contact Center" that is as measurable as your own staff.  They attack how to access a company, pricing, and even pricing models:Hourly by taskBy the job (bundled)By the FTE (bundled)PFP/Cost per leadTrial ProgramsMs. Da Costs promises to demystify the complex contact center business of finding the right company to partner with for sales and marketing lead generation/qualification/sales programs.About Debra da CostaDebra da Costa founded Direct Marketing Partners in 1991 with the goal of creating a company truly responsive to the individual needs of clients. To this end, she structured DMP so that the company would be large enough to have the depth of expertise required by corporations with worldwide interests, but of a size that would permit close project participation by all the firm's senior staff, as well as flexibility and agility.In her career, Debra has held several design and technical positions with public agencies in both Canada and the U.S. and was responsible for the marketing efforts of Lawrence Moss and Associates. Before creating DMP, Debra was the President of Debra da Costa Consulting, where she was responsible for high-tech industry marketing campaigns.For the past several years, Debra was named one of the "50 Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management," by the Sales Lead Management Association (SLMA). In 2011, she was one of SLMA's "20 Women to Watch" winnersA native of Los Angeles, Debra holds a B.S. and M.L.A. from University of California, Berkeley.About Direct Marketing PartnersFor more than 20 years, DMP has blended the human touch with marketing automation and sophisticated analytics to help its clients go to market and connect with their target audience. Their embedded call center is the hub of its marketing wheel, as B2B telemarketing converts more prospects to sales-ready leads over any other communication vehicle. Email, webinars and seminars all have their place and deliver those services, but NOTHING captures information better than a one-on-one conversation.DMP's U.S. based workforce is experienced in selling hard-to-explain, high-priced products. Reps are thoroughly trained in each client's business model and product or service. They speak from knowledge, not from a canned script.DMP serves B2B companies that have complex sales processes, typically in the technology, healthcare or public sector industries. They fill pipelines with BANT-quality leads to client specifications.The company augments its clients' in-house and channel sales teams with the full scope of lead generation services. Plus, DMP can also solve problems such as poor conversion rates by reverse-engineering the sales process to find out what's working and what isn't.DMP's recommendations are analytics-driven and our reports and dashboards add value to data by bringing transparency to sales pipelines and identifying areas of crisis and opportunity that demand immediate action. 

Twitter's Flash & Burn and Outbound Calling Success on the Rise

Susan Finch and Jim Obermayer were joined by Trish Bertuzzi, President & Chief Strategist of The Bridge Group, Inc.
The first half of the show covers using Twitter for social selling. If you want to target buyers who are using Twitter and they post occasionally, do they really or is it mainly automated propaganda about companies?Before you attempt to become a thought leader on Twitter and invest the time you need to know:
Are they buying there.How are they using Twitter?The post, "Twitter for Sales Reps: Big Hat - No Cattle" is about engagement. Twitter is a GREAT tool for listening. But, when you tweet, it's a snapshot - like a lightbulb going off in a room. If no one is in the room, no one sees your flash.Read the research in the post. Trish summed up that she could get better true engagement through LinkedIn, email, cold calling people. Testing big companies - same results. The question is, do you want to be POPULAR or do you want to be RICH? There are other ways to get people engaged with you that will give you a higher.She continued with, "Only so many selling hours in a day. Before you assume Twitter will work, do your analysis. It may be only a listening tool for you. We are not really reaching out to people through Twitter with rare exception.Twitter is a spam cannon when you think about it.If you are not following me, I can't have a one on one conversation with you. But on Linked In, I can send you an inmessage, I can contact you through a shared group. That's the key point. It's not one on one with Twitter."Spam may be too harsh a word, but perhaps not."I even schedule my 5 tweets a day. Unless you are in the room when my scheduled tweet or your scheduled tweet goes out - we will miss each other's messages.""I have a ball with those 142 characters!" Trish BertuzziMost of the blogs I read are because of some mention on Twitter. For me, it's a great news feed. Great place to find and share in other venues. We both find that more people engage thoroughly from LinkedIn and G+ where they read more, watch videos, make comments. Twitter was the opener for those conversationsThe second half of the show Jim Obermayer and Trish talked about the increased effectiveness of outbound calling.Outbound prospecting has improved dramatically - up by 35% Prospects are picking up the phones again. It isn't all about inbound, although inbound IS THE BOMB!  Referrals - absolutely the way to go. But if you are like most companies, you'll get 40-60% from inbound. Unless 40-60% of quota is good enough, you need to get on the outbound prospecting path.The WHYS:You have to have direct dial numbers to be effective. People are actually hiring staff to populate the database before it gets to the caller: name, title, direct number and email. Truly raising the positive results.Two technologies Trish Bertuzzi is in love with:Connect and Sell provides 5-6 conversations per hour for most of her team. For her, 8-11. That's HUGE. The other technology she loves is Insidesales.com. Use their dialer technology combined with local presence. For every call you make you show up as a local caller to the number. Aren't you more apt to pick up the phone from an unknown local number?Jim asked her why it's working better, "I think we're getting better at understanding cadence and telling a story.It takes 7-8 touches to get someone to respond. Those touches have to be in a fairly short period of time. Success comes from using a variety of mediums: video, email, voicemail. Cadence counts and you need to figure out what your cadence should be.We've also gotten better at telling story via our touches. These are chapters in your story that you are trying to tell your potential buyer."There seem to be two basic camps. Jim talked about increased success for one particular company using this approach: Send email, then call 20 minutes later - success rate went up, call back rate went up.Trish disagrees with this method - not a fan of the double tap. Best for desk-bound targets. Not a great platitude. We could have two companies using the doubletap: great branding and recognition - works better; lesser known companies, doesn't work as well.Jim asked about the misinterpreted and repeated stats from SiriusDecisions: "59% have already made up their minds..." Trish let SeriusDecisions off the hook. This was misquoted and twisted.  "It's like the game telephone, the more accurate quote is that '59% start their research online'."Listen to the show to hear the full story.About Trish Bertuzzi:Over the last two decades, Trish has promoted Inside Sales as a community, profession and engine for revenue growth. In the process, The Bridge Group has worked with over 220 B2B technology clients to build, expand and optimize their inside sales efforts.By a combination of hard work and timing, Trish and team's research & ideas have been featured on Inc.com, by associations like SLMA & AA-ISP and across more than 68 sites in the sales and marketing blogosphere.

Taking the Mystery out of Pricing Telemarketing Services

SLMA Radio host Jim Obermayer asks Mari Anne Vanella to tackle the tough subject of navigating what should be paid for the different levels of telemarketing services.   Mari Anne is the president of the Vanella Group and is a featured speaker at the annual SalesForce.com Dreamforce meeting.In this 40 minute interview Obermayer will work with Mari Anne to separate fact from fiction about telemarketing pricing and the different levels of compensation based on the project scope.  Should database clean-up be different from lead generation which could be different from appointment setting, which could be different from pure sales, which is different from lead nurturing?  What about a flat hourly fee verses those companies that charge for per calling hour, management and reporting?About Mari Anne Vanella CEO/FounderMari Anne Vanella has 25+ years of sales and business management experience. As Founder/CEO of sales development firms in the Silicon Valley, her organizations have consistently delivered long-term, successful sales development programs to high tech and services industries across the United States.Mari Anne's background includes successful performance as Vice President and Director at companies such as The EC Company (now ADX), PictureTalk, a subsidiary of Drake International (one of the world's largest IT solution and staffing firms), Global Knowledge, a $500 Million IT Training and consulting firm, and at Skyline Computer Corporation, where she led the Cisco Training Products organization to a #5 position in the country within one year. Prior to these she founded Procom, a sales development firm based in the Silicon Valley serving customers such as State Farm Insurance, Waddell & Reed, AmeriPro, and many others.Her executive leadership roles in enterprise technology sales organizations with field reps, sales engineers and customer service teams contribute to in-depth knowledge and hands-on experience which results in a solution that has unmatched results.Her industry affiliations include being a Founding Member of Women In Technology International's (WITI) Global Executive Network and sat on the panel of Technology Influencers at the WITI Summit alongside the CIO from Cummins and VP from IBM. She is also a speaker for The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) of Northern California. She is an honorary sales professional in the Sales & Marketing Executives International (SMEI.) Mari Anne has also been active in The American Marketing Association, the Silicon Valley AMA, SVASE (Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs), Women in Consulting, National Association of Female Executives, and the Sales Lead Management Association. She was nominated for the Industry 50 Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management in 2010,2011, 2012 and listed in the "20 Women to Watch in Lead Management" in 2011, 2012, and 2013. She is consistently ranked in the top industry influencers on Kred.Recently she has authored the best-selling and award-winning book 42 Rules of Cold Calling Executives which is available on Amazon.com and other retail channels.Mari Anne's graduate studies in Business Management were through the Edinburgh School of Business, Heriot-Watt University.Read Mari Anne's Blog Insights Into Cold Calling