Recently I had one of those weeks of practically non-stop travel! Although I may never hear that knock on my door from a Yankees recruiter, it’s weeks like these that make me think I’ve had at least a taste of the lifestyle, or at least the schedule. With stops including Boston, Raleigh, Charlotte, and Chicago, the birth place of Randolph Sterling Inc., it was not difficult to forget what city I was waking up in the morning, but it was definitely been worth it!

At my first stop of my four city tour, Boston, I had a particularly interesting meeting that led me to realize that as much as we tell our clients and prospects that we provide an inside sales team and not telemarketers, many people still see them as the same thing.
I was spending the day with our Boston Regional Sales Manager, Wayne Sutherland, meeting some of the prospects he has been talking to about Randolph Sterling. One of them told us his company has been working with a telemarketing firm for a while now and he thought it was a complete waste of time. He mentioned that, while this firm sends them a ton of “leads” out of their call center in India, he doesn’t even follow up on the ones he specifically receives.

I know salespeople get busy and don’t always have time to follow up on leads, but to consciously throw them in the garbage when the company pays good money for them…

I didn’t understand him, but knew he was not alone.

He told us that the leads were nowhere near qualified. In fact, their “script” did not even mention their company by name, leading Wayne and I both to think that this telemarketing firm was sending these same leads to more than one company.

He further mentioned that when he questioned the firm about the leads, their response was, “They did show some interest, but you will likely have to call them 7 to 10 times to schedule an appointment with them.”

STOP THE MADNESS!

Needless to say, we were shocked. This style of “telemarketing” goes against everything we stand for and everything our inside sales teams do. I have told people for years that we are different than the stereotypical telemarketing firms that are just pushing for an appointment, any appointment…but this, well I can’t even think of a word to describe how bad this is!

Maybe it is time to spell out how we do things differently:

1. Our inside sales teams are based right here in the U.S.A., either out of our Chicago, Raleigh, or Boston offices, or satellite offices around the country.
2. When we make a call for you, we are making that call for you and you alone. We are an extension of your sales force. When we contact prospects for your company, we are calling as your company. There is nothing generic about it nor are we “Randolph Sterling, Inc. representing…”
3. We are the ones making the 7 to 13 “touches” to build trust with the prospect, not passing that job onto you. We are also learning about your prospects as much as they are learning about our client so we help determine if they really are a good fit for our client.
4. For some clients, we handle the entire sales cycle from start to finish, however for most, we are turning the lead over to our client at a point where their salesperson or engineer making that client visit or next level call is being brought in as the expert. When they walk into a meeting, the conversation is more “here’s what we are doing, show me how you help,” or the expert is being brought in for a high level discussion on how things will work; not “tell me about yourself.”
5. As Wayne mentioned to the prospect, “Our reporting is ridiculous. You will have more information than you can imagine.” We are a partner with our clients, not a vendor. Our job is to communicate what is working and what isn’t so we can constantly adjust the message to reach the right people and have the right conversations. It is just as important for us to say, “We don’t think this is a good fit” as it is for us to say “These guys are very interested.”
6. We work with your sales and marketing groups. There is no adversarial relationships here, no ego. Our job is to get a better return on your marketing investment and to allow your salespeople to do what they do best…sell.

The work we do isn’t easy…it is hard work and not everyone can do it. We start at the top of the sales funnel and work our way down finding the RIGHT prospects and turning them into the RIGHT clients.

If you have questions on how Randolph Sterling could make an impact being part of your sales team, please contact us at 847-305-3710