Let Their Fingers Do the Walking

Published in |
Business Profile – 2009
It takes a lot of work to reach a good sales prospect. You have to find the right phone number, circumvent the administrative gatekeepers and determine who wields power over purchasing decisions. It’s enough to sap the spirit of any salesperson, even the most driven. Companies that want their sales force to spend time making sales—instead of getting lost in voicemail black holes—have been dialing up MarketReach Inc. The company specializes in outbound telephone marketing, including lead generation, appointment setting, introductory call training and customer satisfaction surveys. “Salespeople don’t like—and often don’t have the knack for—those crucial introductory calls,” says Amanda Puppo, the company’s chief executive officer. “While it’s a task that many consider to be grunt work, it’s skilled grunt work. It requires a thick skin and a certain amount of time that hard-working salespeople often lack. Sales managers recognize that good salespeople belong in front of qualified prospects, not sitting at a desk grinding out prospecting calls.” MarketReach makes those calls for you, allowing your sales staff to spend time pitching your product or service in front of vetted prospects. As a result, salespeople stay more productive and more satisfied, Puppo says. “You’ll be able to keep good people when they have a full sales pipeline.”

MarketReach focuses on business-to-business lead generation, with an emphasis on tracking down hard-to reach decision makers and setting up personal meetings with a company’s sales force. MarketReach can also call on behalf of its clients’ current customers for surveying or for cross-marketing. Additionally, Puppo comments, “Companies often forget that there is a golden opportunity to call on lost accounts to win them back.” If a company currently has staff to initiate these calls, Puppo conducts training programs on prospecting. “Calls are very effective when we can present a common ground or affinity in making our introduction,” Puppo says. In other cases, MarketReach will purchase a list and do the necessary work to clean it up. But MarketReach is much more than the sum of its lists. The company advocates having the right strategy in place from the beginning, from the overall marketing message to the other components of the marketing campaign, which can include email, direct mail and fax. “Our goal is to spend serious planning time to get you the best bang for your prospecting effort,” Puppo says. MarketReach will work with clients to put together fresh lists based on networking contacts, relevant industry associations and other sources. The company employs an experienced team of callers who have a personal stake in their clients’ success, as they receive bonuses when clients renew. Once MarketReach makes contact with a prospect, the company collects all the information that a salesperson needs to close the deal. “We basically take over that arduous task and hand your salespeople a slate of meetings with prospects that we know are interested in changing vendors or suppliers,” Puppo says. “As a result, you don’t have to hire a ton of salespeople. You can hire only the best salespeople and feed them one solid lead after another.” MarketReach offers a regular newsletter full of tips on introductory calling and appointment-setting techniques. Email info@marketreachresults.com to join the list.