Magnus Marketing Blog

Here is another issue with Marketing illustrated with some stories:
Story 1: Boss insists on having admin do telemarketing. Uneducated in business, products, or offering, admin is to call validate decision-makers name, address, and contact details, send info. Marketing writes email or letter, sales follows up.
Story 2: Boss has admin compile list of decision-makers and names, validates the names.
Story 3: VP of Marketing has admin do research on companies, finding some key points and names.

What a waste of resources and opportunity!
Story 1: This is a two step process that wastes time and opportunity. The salesguy's effort is being wasted on unqualified suspects and needless follow-up, the admin's time is wasted on making calls that are fruitless. A good biz dev/marketing person will be able to cull a validated list with qualified leads in one shot.
Story 2: Having the admin research the names and contact info is OK, calling to validate the names should not happen unless the admin is prepared to pre-pitch or pitch the services.
Story 3: Is OK, unless you really want to get qualified information. One company I know of did this and called it "strategic account research", which it wasn't. If you want strategic account research you need people who can identify sales opportunities and fit.

What if your admin gets someone on the phone? In higher level decision maker cases, you have one shot - your unqualified prospector flubs and you may be out of the race for a while. The ability to recognize buying signals, listen for cues to ask the right questions, and engage in conversation are heralded to the experienced marketing, biz dev, sales person. That is where experience DOES make a difference. Think of the missed opportunity when someone misses an opportunity!

Admins play an important role. Doing strategic research and prospecting isn't part of that, save it for qualified professionals.