Challenges
With the goal of being one of the most preferred and respected ICT and connectivity providers between the United States and the Philippines, GTI wanted to expand. Having that submarine cable of theirs enabled GTI with terrific opportunities to bring technology globally.
Below are the challenges they faced.
- Lull in a business. A temporary drop in business activity isn’t always a bad thing. However, too long of stagnation can lead to a significant decline in business. When GTI decided to re-energize their B2B sales, they turned to Belkins’s for lead generation.
- Reaching out to large enterprises. Prospecting large companies is time-consuming and confusing for most. Not only do you need to find the right fit, but you’re also left to try and understand their pain points. The trick? Create internal champions. However, CEOs of major telecom businesses and solutions are not easy to book a meeting with.
- Leads research. GTI had several services to offer. However, with Belkins, they decided to test telecom solutions and expand its services to the companies that needed stable international connectivity. Finally, expanding internationally always requires substantial lead research. GTI’s target audience is global companies with offices in the US and Asia, so we had to look for hard-to-find businesses that fit the client’s ICP and create a channel with a steady flow of new quality leads.
What We Did
Once the Belkins team studied the market and the client’s pain points, they outlined the key directions they had to move to provide the best performance.
Forming the team
Belkins started the project having two team members whose task was to perform extensive lead research and pass on leads to GTI’s sales team. Initially, it was the appropriate number of members on the team. Still, eventually – when all the processes were set up, and both teams started working in sync – just an account manager remained in charge.
Juggling approaches
Referral selling is a standard and effective method of B2B outreach. Belkins started with a typical referral template that worked quite well and generated a steady flow of appointments. The client, however, didn’t close those quality leads right away because enterprise sales cycles typically take 7+ months to move the deal forward through multiple stakeholders.
Starting a conference campaign was Belkins’s next lead generation approach for GTI. We call “conference campaigns” those outreach tactics when we monitor the industry business events, pick the leads out of them, and remind prospects they visited these conferences to warm up our message a bit. There weren’t that many companies with offices in the US and Asia, so Belkins pulled up an attendee list and generated another wave of new appointments.
After identifying primary market directions, Belkins launched several campaigns to grasp as many leads as possible.
Bringing communication process to perfection
When an outsourced partner works closely with an in-house team, the two groups should work hard to ensure a smooth flow of communication. The GTI sales reps often asked Belkins teammates questions directly, neglecting to include the members of their teams in the group chat. To avoid miscommunication, Belkins tried to reduce the competition between GTI sales reps by allowing extra communication from the AM and SDR regarding technical specifications and operational processes. This ensured that each sales rep on the GTI team would get precise information about a prospect and an upcoming call.
Main Challenges We Faced
Despite the professional qualities of our team, some issues made us stumble on the road to success.
- Reaching out to enterprise-sized companies. The bigger the organization is, the less accessible a chief executive can be. However, Belkins still managed to reach out to those big companies and get them interested in the service.
- Miscommunication. Belkins saw right away that GTI reps compete for new leads, so clear communication must have been a stepping stone to the well-coordinated workflow and impressive campaign outcomes. After Belkins experts figured out how to communicate with a large team of sales reps, the rivalry was set aside.
- Systematization of data. When assisting the in-house reps with project organization and specific requirements, the Belkins team aimed to avoid confusion and chaos. The Belkins account manager learned to collect and put numerous points of view in order while sharing them with prospects and the client’s in-house team.
Results
GTI was impressed with Belkins’s ability to overcome the challenges and adapt the prospecting approaches. The company was also pleased with the quality of appointments booked by Belkins’s sales reps. Since GTI was a rather small organization, the chance to get meetings with massive companies became a real achievement for it. The client was delighted with Belkins’s communication approach and team involvement, resulting in these impressive KPIs:
- Total leads driven to the pipeline: 3,928;
- Appointments booked: 24;
- Open rate: 31.71%;
- Reply rate: 4.27%.
Key Takeaways
- Don’t do it alone. Even when a company has an internal sales team, it doesn’t mean that outsourcing any part of its business is unnecessary. Quite the opposite, hire whoever you need to make your job more effective. Many business owners wear many hats when their business is still young. However, you will struggle to scale if you refuse to delegate some business processes.
- Clear communication protects you. By guiding the client through everything you do and explaining the value you bring to their project, you will reduce disputes and increase the chances of a successful outcome. Communication is the key on your road to a sales boost if you involve outsourcing sales agents.
- Clear division of roles and responsibilities. Having several teams and numerous employees working on a project requires a clear division of duties so that everyone knows their purpose and uses resources effectively. You provide maximum productivity when you perfectly imagine the result and know how to achieve it.
