Top Ten Reasons to Outsource Your Lead Generation & Appointment Setting Process
Written by: Dave Goates, Director of Human Capital
I can point to literally hundreds of opposing points of view on this question – to outsource lead generation, or to not outsource. There are some key issues you need to have resolved to your satisfaction before you proceed into this space. Here are the top ten reasons our clients have given us that create successful outsourced relationships.
We thank them for their input, and share their insights with you:
1. Learning Curve – Look for a company that doesn’t plan to be experts on your product or service. Make certain they only know enough to be dangerous. You want them to crown you as the expert in your space, not to have to train them fully on what you do – the learning curve is dramatically shortened if you’ll approach it this way.
2. Value Proposition – Make certain you identify the essential qualification criteria for your product or service. Don’t risk losing something in translation by outsourcing your messaging. The Translated video or the message you put out must be perpicuous and unambiguous. They should deal in your headlines, not your white papers. Preserve the details for your experts, your inside people who know it better.
3. Relationships – Your outsourced provider for lead generation must be willing to “disappear” in the relationships with your prospects. If you can’t integrate them into your systems with the hand off to your sales team seamlessly, then the prospect will always be confused about his loyalties. Make certain the outsourced sales company is someone you can trust and who can crown your company. If you can integrate them and you trust them, use them; if you can’t then pass.
4. Scripts Must Be Dynamic – Test your outsourced sales company’s effectiveness with their scripts and make the needed adjustments on the fly. Make certain your outsourced sales or lead generation company is nimble and flexible. Again, your outsourced group should never be viewed as the expert – let your sales team ask a few key questions, then let your inside sales team take over and be the experts.
5. Information Reporting – Be certain your outsourced appointment setting company can produce reporting about their experiences with your prospects that are giving you the KPIs you need to turn their leads into closed sales.
6. The Goal of Their Work – You need leads, you don’t need a separate sales team that competes with your inside team. Let them understand their goal is to set up opportunities for your sales team, not to be responsible for replacing your experienced voices. Take the burden of the cold call off the shoulders of your inside sales team, and let them focus on closing more business. Let the outsourced company do the heavy lifting on the front end.
7. Lead Qualification – Each lead you buy either from your own sources or your outsourced company represents an investment by you in time, money and resources. Your outsourced appointment setting company must absolutely be able to score those leads to generate and qualify new opportunities for you. If they don’t have the capacity to do that, your leads will never advance to the final disposition and will be worthless. It is critical that they understand your KPIs.
8. Appointment Setting – This is where the seamless nature of your relationship really pays off. Coordinating calendars is the key and is easily accomplished if your outsourced appointment setting company can truly be viewed as your partner in the process by the prospects they engage for you.
9. Trust – The prospects often form trust with the first person they talk to — the “point of your spear.” If that outsourced provider is smart, he will be certain to build value for YOU, not for himself. Be certain they are building trust in you for your prospects.
10. Market Changes – Your outsourced choice for lead generation and appointment setting must be a clear channel voice back to you in feedback about the demands and changes they observe in your target market. When difficult questions they can’t answer arise, no problem. They can and should defer to your inside sales team for the technical answers.