The CRAP Report

So you’ve gone ahead and spent money outsourcing your sales opportunity generation process.  Now what?  Speaking from experience, the one thing that I would tell each and every future customer is this:  invest in your investment. 

The most successful partnerships I’ve been a part of have been ones where my clients understand that they are going to get out of a campaign that which they put into it.  They understand that if I need them to fill out an implementation document because that is how we get on the phones for them faster, they do it.  They understand that my team needs to see a high level overview or sales presentation of the products that they’re calling on because it makes them more effective on the phone, and they do it.  They understand that if I don’t receive feedback from the messaging or scripting that I’ve put together on their behalf, we may not be as effective on the phones as they would like us to be.  You’ve got to put the time in on the front end of this process so that you can ensure it’s kicked off as best as possible. 

 “What else do you need?” should be your mantra throughout the implementation process.  If you’re spending good money (as ANY money is these days) on outsourcing, then in order for you to feel good about it, you’ve actually got to put in some more work.  Having someone else find qualified sales opportunities for you doesn’t work if you don’t do some grunt work on the front end.  Spend time with your vendor defining what qualifies an opportunity and what does not.  Spend time with them determining what types of collateral information make sense to send someone who may be on the fence.  Spend time with them explaining customer success stories, and why prospects need to hear those stories, too.  For goodness sakes, spend time with them explaining just what pains your solutions solve!

 As the renowned investor Warren Buffet once said, “Price is what you pay.  Value is what you get.”  You’ve paid for someone to generate qualified sales opportunities.  The value that you get from them is directly tied to the amount of time you invest in nurturing the relationship at the start of the campaign.