The CRAP Report

Yesterday I shared with you the first of a four part series on how your BDR Manager should have characteristics from each of the four members of the hit ’80s TV show The A-Team.  I talked about how the manager of your teleprospecting team should be like “Howling Mad” Murdock, the A-Team’s pilot; they should be able to pilot your team, be a little over the top, and quick thinking.  In addition to those qualities, your BDR Manager needs to also be someone who can (obviously) wear many hats, has their focus on their client, and can be clever when the job calls for it.  Today, I want to talk with you about how the person who runs your teleprospecting team needs to be like the A-Team’s resident smooth talker, Templeton “Faceman” Peck.

Though dubbed so because of his way with women, Face, played by Dirk Bennedict, was the man to go to when The A-Team needed some undercover work done.  They needed to get a vehicle to go here? Face was sent in to get it.  They needed equipment for a particular job?  Face was the one to acquire it for them.  Whatever The A-Team would seem to need from episode to episode, Face was the one who would come through and deliver.  I believe if you’ve got an in-house team of sales prospectors or maybe you’ve partnered with someone to find you sales qualified leads, that you need to have someone a little bit like Face leading them.  I can see three specific areas in which your BDR Manager needs to be like Face, and they are: 

1. They need to be a “master of disguise.”
2. They need to be resourceful.
3. They need to focus on the customer.

The first way that your BDR Manager needs to be like Face is that they need to be, to some extent, a “master of disguise.”  Now, I’m not speaking from a deceptive stand point here, but rather, look at what “masters of disguise” tend to do.  They tend to resemble their surroundings and try to be all things to all people.  In a similar fashion, your BDR Manager needs to be able to wear many hats.  On some days, they’re going to need to be a motivator, on some they’re going to need to be an application specialist, and yet still on other days, they’re going to need to be a disciplinarian (I’ll talk more about that next time).  The bottom line here is that the person who manages a group of teleprospectors is going to have to multi-task, and they’re going to need to do it well.  Take it from me as someone who’s spent many years managing teleprospectors – no two days are ever the same.  There have been days when I’ve been able to focus on other “management level” priorities, and then there are days when I need to be able to inspire people to pick up the phone and make five extra calls, because those five calls, when added up over the course of a week, then a month, then a year, may mean the difference of just hitting your lead goals or crushing them.  The person who is running your teleprospecting team definitely needs to be able to wear many hats.

Additionally, and kind of riding on the coat tails of being a “master of disguise,” your BDR Manager also needs to be resourceful.  Face always knew how to get what he wanted, whether it was information or equipment.  In a similar light, your manager should be just as resourceful.  Whether its extracting extra effort from a team of BDR’s who’ve had a grueling week, or whether its quickly fixing the problem to a less than successful lead generation project, the manager of your BDR’s should be able to find a way to get it done.  Being resourceful also comes into play in terms of training your BDR’s.  There are a lot of folks out there who think that making teleprospecting calls is as simple as just “smiling and dialing.”  Then, when those same people start working, they realize it’s not as easy as it sounds.  Now, try managing those folks.  BDR Mangers need to be resourceful in finding ways to make teleprospecting easy for new hires to grasp.  There is a lot to teach, especially to those newbies, and you need your manager to be able to pull the “inner” teleprospector out of those rookies and get them producing at high levels as quickly as possible.  Without a doubt, your BDR Manager needs to be resourceful.

Lastly, your BDR Manager needs to be customer focused.  I’m speaking to both in-house folks and vendors here.  In-house BDR Managers, your customers are both your sales and marketing teams, and obviously for the vendors, your clients are your customers.  Regardless of who your customer is, though, your BDR Manager needs to be focused on them.  For Face, his customers were the rest of the members of The A-Team and whoever’s hired them.  He made sure that he came through for them when they needed him to, and in the same, your manager needs to think that way, too.  This quality is probably pretty obvious, but it goes without saying that if you’re going prove your worth, be it to your internal customer or your client, you’re going to need to provide them with excellent customer service.  Be there when you say will, provide what you say you’re going to provide, and deliver it all with a smile.  The best thing that could ever happen from excellent customer service, and I’ve seen it first hand from my colleagues, is that customers refer you to a friend, and thus you bring in more business.  More business means more money, and more money means everyone makes out in the end.

So there you go – if you’ve got yourself an inside teleprospecting team or maybe you’re thinking about building one, or maybe you’re partnering with a B2B lead generation firm, you need to make sure that the person managing those sales prospectors is a little bit like Face from The A-Team.  Stay tuned for Monday’s entry, when I share with you why your BDR Manager needs to be like B.A. “Bad Attitude” Baracus.