Dear Santa,
Twelve long months ago my sales manager wrote you a letter. Through the power of social media his letter went viral and became known to all and sundry here at the office. At the time my colleagues and I thought he had finally lost his marbles. He is, after all, 45 years of age. However as we trundled through Q1 a strange and eerie coincidence occurred.
It all began with him engaging with a telemarketing company you recommended (Maven something-or-other I believe they are called). This company conducted some data cleansing of our target customer base. This had an immediate impact on our data quality and provided me with great confidence that the contacts I was calling were at least still alive!! Due to the success of this initial activity, the telemarketing agency in question was utilised to provide a sales lead generation campaign. Again the results were fantastic. A focussed prospecting campaign was run by the telemarketing company and my team and I became the beneficiary of highly qualified sales leads directly resulting in closed business. When I glanced back at the letter he had written to you only months before, I was flabbergasted. So in a nutshell Santa ….I believe in you once again (P.S. don’t forget to friend me on Facebook!)
However Santa, my boss made one fatal mistake. A bit like my new years resolution, his inspiration lacked continuity!! So big guy (may I call you big guy?!) I am penning you a letter to see if you can work your magic once again, only this time with a little extra brandy on the pudding. With this in mind, my wish list is as follows:
- Continuity - Although the lead generation campaign which was run was extremely successful, it was only a one off. The results were great and led to a peak in sales activity. This peak, however, was shortly followed by a trough! I believe that we need to implement an on-going engagement with this telemarketing agency. I would love it, Santa, if you could make my boss aware of this.
- Steady Stream of Leads – An open and transparent engagement on a rolling basis with said outsource partner will result in a steady stream of sales qualified leads being fed through to myself and my colleagues. We could all work out of a shared CRM meaning an open flow of communication and the ability to build a solid partnership where we are all working towards the same goal.
- Data Quality - Santa, my boss needs to understand something - Data is a constantly moving target! Information that is up to date today can be completely outdated in 6 months’ time. There is a myriad of reasons for this, such as changes in company structures (acquisitions, mergers, closures), contacts moving to new roles, organisational changes etc. The result is that data needs to be revisited and refreshed on a regular basis. We need to move away from garbage in, garbage out!
- Subject matter experts – the outsourced partner we engaged with for the lead generation campaign was clearly excellent at what they do. However they can only expect to learn so much about our products in an 8 week period. By engaging them on a continuous basis they can become true subject matter experts. They can build in-depth knowledge of our products, our target market, our USP’s and our competitors. In summary, become an integral part of our sales process.
So Santa, whatever magic dust you sprinkled on my boss last year, I am asking you to please repeat the trick. Santa you may have noticed that my wish list has my boss foremost in mind and as such is not a selfish list.
However if you feel that I deserve a little something for myself, I do have one suggestion…………get my boss to give me a pay rise!
Happy Christmas, Santa (say Hi to Mrs Claus!)
Maven TM is specialised in B2B Telemarketing and B2B Technology Sales Leads Generation services for technology companies looking to consolidate, expand or penetrate national or international markets. For more information, please contact Maven TM at info@maventm.com.
