This article is part one of the three-part series "How to Win Leads and Influence Sales."

The phone is a critical component of today’s integrated marketing strategy. Professional telesales companies today offer a deep and varied set of services that extend your capacity to serve customers and prospects while supporting your field sales force.

Top telesales agents today wear many hats; they’re your business development specialists, account profilers, channel partner managers, and trusted advisors.

Developing Leads, Lists, and Channels

When you need more leads in your pipeline, B2B cold calling may be the only way to reach your best prospects. Sometimes your inbound marketing efforts can’t reach key decision makers or drive them to call. They may not be searching for you, even when your products and services are exactly what they need.

If you have a list of dream customers, put your business development specialists to work calling them during business hours. It not only works, it’s appreciated when the agents calling are sales pros who can engage decision makers in a meaningful conversation.

When thoroughly trained in your products and services, they can speak knowledgeably, listen to prospects’ wants and needs, answer questions, offer recommendations, and counter objections. All the time they are conversing, they are qualifying your list in preparation to pass along good leads so your sales people can continue the dialogue and ultimately close sales. Best of all, sales-savvy telesales agents know the best ways to get through. They are experts at befriending gatekeepers and avoiding the voicemail trap. 

Expanding Your Market Reach

Top telesales companies can also help you expand your reach into new markets and unexplored geographic regions. They can analyze your existing partners and assess their ability to act on and close qualified leads, thus identifying the top producers in order to create a profile of your ideal channel partner. Then the telesales company can make contact via phone resellers, distributors, wholesalers, etc. in the new areas to interview them, identify if they are the right fit in your plans to expand your channel.

They will introduce your company, products and solutions, and partner programs to build interest in becoming a partner. They can then pass the information over to you as a potential new channel partner, or take the process through the onboarding and channel managing process. Then the telesales company can start generating and qualifying leads to pass to the new partners to keep them engaged and build trust. That’s a win-win for you and your partners as well as prospective customers.

Managing Records and Data

Good data is marketing’s competitive advantage in the 21st century, but don’t burden your over-taxed IT department. Charge your telesales company with list management responsibilities. Through good, old-fashioned phone work, they can verify and update contacts, purge duplicate records, fill in missing information, and add demographic data and SIC codes--directly into your CRM. Everything your sales team needs to prioritize opportunities is available at the touch of a keystroke. 

About the author

Jeff Kalter is CEO of 3D2B, a global business-to-business telemarketing company that bridges the divide between marketing and sales. He leads customer acquisition programs for Fortune 500 companies and is passionate about building strong business relationships through professional phone conversations.

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