Magnus Marketing Blog

Recently, I took my company to market meaning that I am now actively seeking new business from unknown customers in a more mass way. I am using a combination of RTD methodology and outright telemarketing which is scripted. In fact, the results have been 20X better through RTD than calling down a script. Remember, I did say telemarketing is good for broad awareness generation and low hanging fruit - so I am not being hypocritical. My biz dev guy is doing a great job, he is not a 10/hr guy either and knows the company very well!

Here is a story with some lessons I learned. I get a meeting/appointment with the CEO of a technology firm to discuss prospecting services. She meets with myself and my biz dev guy. It was made clear that my biz dev guy, who is more the appointment setter/rote type, will be handling her job. My role is oversight, messaging, coaching, and client liasion. She explained that the firm (a 20 year old company) is offering Managed Services locally and she is going to market with this new service. There is a full-time telemarketer who has worked there 5 years, but whose performance is dwindling - on a good month she may set two appointments. She wanted to meet with us because the outsourced firm she used which had $8/hr telemarketers did OK, but didn't meet her expectations. She wanted 10 qualified appointments per month for this new service. Her close rate was 30% for new business (very low for a salesperson). She did very little to no marketing. I explained that my biz dev guy would do the work, we would shoot for 10 appointments, but it would take time to ramp up to that (learn the market, perfect messaging, understand market needs, and competitive info analysis). She says great, give me a proposal and references.

I hear nothing from her for two weeks and call after I learn she spoke to references. She says the following: "I called your references who had nothing but wonderful things to say about you - you are a great person, smart, super at research....but you don't get appointments. You aren't as great as you say you are, you don't close, you push it off to the next person (sales) to handle it. When I asked how many appointments you set in a month - the answer was not good. I need to think about this more...". I was shocked! I am not as great as I say I am and don't get appointments? What the hell do you call faciliating a con-call with the VP of HR at IBM and my client? Or getting a multi-billion dollar reseller to talk to the sales rep of another firm which resulted in a facility tour? I have averaged about 1 Fortune 1000 contract/meeting a month, not including call backs from names that circulate in the industry! AND, I help DRIVE the marketing strategy for my clients!

I checked with my references as to where she would get that unfounded and ridulous impression. One said - I told her that you don't CLOSE business - don't do SALES, but transfer the opportunity to the salesperson or myself. Maybe she heard that. Both were incredulous.

I wanted to say, lady - the fact I make only a few calls to senior executives at Fortune level accounts and get callbacks, meetings, RFP's, etc. is nothing short of outstanding in today's competitive market. You also need to look at the industries I am operating in and for whom I work, success goals differ. A job can be secured without the benefit of a meeting.

The net was all she cared about was getting 10 qualified appointments and expected this to happen right away. Her inside telemarketer couldn't do it, she evidently doesn't make any calls, and her outsourced firm couldn't do it. Her database is stale, her messaging is probably irrelevant, and lord, if she talks to prospects and clients the way she did me - who knows how much business she lost! I guarantee that whomever she does work with will produce similiar results. She will find herself running to appointments that are merely that - nonessential, booked by a $10/hr person compensated on quantity. Let me tell you what would need to happen on a quantity basis: a telemarketer would have to make in excess of 80 - 100 calls per day or 500 calls a week for 3 months to get 10 appointments on average using a script and a good list.

If I wasn't producing for my clients, the relationships would have ended months ago. If I didn't "close" appointments, then why was she one of three meetings I had in week for my business? One was for another firm that...yes, was offering managed services! Actually, I had done coaching and calls for a $250+million reseller for Managed Services and even oversaw the effort for a short while - a meeting happened with the CIO of a very well known company.

Folks - it is not about QUANTITY OF APPOINTMENTS. Quality. I may have been able to get 2 or 3 qualified meetings in a month or so, maybe more - that could be worth $150K+ per year or more annually. The deliverable - the right messaging, list, customer profile, and strategy to repeat the process.

I wish her success regardless of whether she does work with us or not. Somewhere out there are the clients that will get what I do and how I do it. I look forward to working with them!