The CRAP Report

So I’ve been thinking lately about something that those of you looking to outsource your B2B lead generation efforts should look for in a vendor:  transparency.  You’re going to be paying good money to someone else to find qualified sales opportunities, so make sure that you get access to all of the information that’s important to you.  You’ve contracted with someone to maybe take your tradeshow attendance list, your webinar attendance list, or maybe even a cold call list (because cold calling isn’t dead!), and create sales qualified leads (SQL’s) for you.  Obviously it’s great to get the SQL’s, because that is what you ultimately want, but there are some other things that you should be getting out of the engagement, and the overarching theme you should keep in mind is transparency.

When I think of transparency, words like “see-through,” “clarity,” and “clear” come to mind.  That is just what you want in a sales prospecting organization.  There shouldn’t be anything that happens that you’re not able to have access to from a lead gen stance.  Specifically speaking, I see three areas of a partnership that you’ll want access to:  the Business Development Rep making calls on your behalf, quality conversations, and the list accumulated during the project of companies not interested in your product/service/solution.

You need to have access to the BDR making calls on your behalf because they’re the ones that are actually speaking to your target audience.  Hopefully you’ve done your due diligence by getting the best list possible (my colleague Craig Ferrara talks about his thoughts on lists here, and you can see mine here), and now you’re going to put that list into the hands of someone outside of your organization.  Sometimes that can be a scary thing, but not if you’re working with a lead gen company that is transparent.  A sales prospecting organization that provides you access to the person making dials for you knows this, and by allowing that level of contact, you’ll have the ability to make sure your message gets to your market the way you want it to.  A lack of transparency here should raise red flags for you.  You WANT to talk to the BDR calling for you.  You WANT to make sure they convey your message to your satisfaction.  For goodness sakes, you WANT to sit in and listen to the calls they’re making FOR you!

You need vision into all of the conversations (real conversations folks, not ones that end with “yeah, call me back later) that your BDR is having because you want to make sure nothing is missed.  At the very least, on a weekly basis, you should be getting reports sent to you detailing all of the conversations that your BDR has.  This level of clarity ensures that an opportunity that, on one hand may not be completely qualified but on the other may be with one of your dream accounts, doesn’t get lost because again, it isn’t totally qualified.  You’d be surprised at the number of leads I’ve sent over to clients that weren’t as qualified as a typical SQL just because the organization in question is one that they desperately want to sell to.

Lastly, you want some clarity into the companies that have told your outsourced BDR that they’re not interested in your product/service/solution, and more importantly, why.  This information, surely, is often seen as just as valuable as the SQL itself.  This type of information allows your marketing team to build new campaigns around the objections that have been collected.  This type of information is critical to amass if for nothing but sheer market intelligence value.  Wouldn’t you like to know what your audience’s reasoning is for NOT doing business with you?

Transparency is important folks.  You want to know your BDR, you want to know what their conversations are like, and you want to know why your prospects aren’t interested in you.  Make sure you’re getting what you pay for, especially if you’re outsourcing your sales prospecting.