Yikes. I've been receiving a lot of concerned calls lately. "Have you died, Jackson?"

No. All's well. My sincerest apologies. I didn't think anyone actually read my museings and rants, so this blog has not been getting my attention.

Since my last post, I have been working very intensively on completing and cleanly wrapping up a Sales Jumpstart program for a business association. I've also been busy ramping up another for a vendor of municipal infrastructure services. There's more... but today I will assess the project for the association.

Background

The association provided 2 excel files with some 4,000 manufacturing company names and contact information. The goal: assemble the information in a CRM system, clean up the databases, identify the decision makers, and book meetings for the regional Vice President of the association. We would make up to 3,000 phone calls with the objective of booking 60 meetings, as we assumed that 25% of the meetings would result in sales.

Outcomes

Over 18 weeks, we actually made 2,787 telephone calls, sent a similar number of email messages and faxes as follow-up to the calls. We stopped calling at the point when we had contacted the total addressable market of eligible prospects. At the conclusion of the Sales Jumpstart, we had generated 50 meetings.

Was the program a roaring success for the association? Maybe. Maybe not.

While we did what we said we would do, and more when it seemed the right thing to do, the number of sales made during the campaign was less than what we had expected. What happened was that the Sales Jumpstart was so successful, it overwhelmed the client. The VP of the association, it turns out, was the only person who had the expertise to "close" the opportunities... and he was already overworked with all of his other responsibilities and frequent travel. At the conclusion of the campaign, 43 of the highly qualified prospects had not been contacted.

Lessons Learned

• Start with a good list. The Sales Jumpstart started with calling to a general database of prospects. It then shifted to calling 3 lists of most likely prospects. It is highly recommended that new agents test scripts and train on less important prospects, but that emphasis thereafter be placed on calling to the most likely prospects.
• Communicate often. A significant number of refinements were made to the scripts and the overall program during the first 4 weeks. An outsourced calling campaign requires frequent dialogue and, in this case, communications were excellent.Meetings were held daily with agent and recordings of 5 random calls were reviewed daily. Client meetings were held weekly, so things stayed on track... and when plans needed to change, they could be changed quickly
• Keep a common prospect list. The campaign started with several opportunity pipelines, a clearly defined Sales Jumpstart and an overall sales methodology that had not been implemented. Prospecting activity and contacts in a prospect account should be clear to all participants in a campaign so that effort is not duplicated and opportunities are not overlooked. We invested time as a team to integrate all processes into a cohesive whole with three distinct phases and very clear guidelines on the interfaces between phases. Additionally, a single opportunity pipeline was created to qualify and track all prospects that were generated from the Sales Jumpstart, or first phase in the 3-phase sales process.
• Persistence counts. Relatively few meeting booking were made in person by the agent. The majority of all meetings booked came after a qualified prospect had received at least 2 voice and email contacts. This suggests that prospects needed time to research the association's value proposition before committing to learn more from a senior representative.
• Monitor all communication channels. Success of the Sales Jumpstart can be monitored by prospects who agree to a meeting when contacted in person, or when they reply to a special email address used in email communications in the campaign.Several prospects responded by calling or emailing the association directly and therefore could not be measured by the campaign. It is believed that most inquiries resulting from the Sales Jumpstart were identified in weekly meetings.