Is Your Teleprospecting Team Supporting Too Many Outside Sales Reps?
As a Business Development Rep for our clients, I’ve worked on a variety of projects in which I have had to support a variety of sales reps. For a few projects, I’ve worked mainly with a marketing point of contact and not directly with sales, while on other projects I speak with the sales reps on a weekly basis, if not more. It is important to have a strong relationship with the outside sales reps you are supporting to understand if the opportunities being passed are progressing down the pipeline and to get feedback on those opportunities.
I’ve found as a teleprospector that working closely with outside sales reps creates an easier environment for passing qualified leads. You feel more comfortable asking them for advice, getting feedback and keeping the open flow of conversation going, which is important. When working on projects that require going through a marketing contact and not necessarily ‘bonding’ with the sales reps, it was difficult to know the quality of the leads being passed over and if the transition to the outside rep went smoothly. When a marketing professional needs to distribute the qualified opportunities I’ve uncovered to the appropriate outside sales rep I lose visibility into that lead, spend more time trying to obtain feedback on that opportunity and I miss out on being able to use the sales reps as a valuable resource. Having weekly discussions with your outside sales reps is a great way to review hot leads, discuss objections you are hearing frequently and receive feedback from the more experienced sales reps on how to overcome those objections.
Currently, I speak with my outside sales reps and marketing contact at least once a week. I feel more comfortable emailing and calling the outside reps I support throughout the day with questions and information on potential leads. So far, this has worked out well with the leads passed over. It can be difficult trying to support more than two or three sales reps (or use a marketing contact as a distributor) because you will not have the time to build a solid relationship and get to know what the outside reps expect for a qualified opportunity. When supporting more than two or three reps it becomes increasingly difficult to separate the expectations of each and collect the feedback necessary for me to continually improve.
Getting feedback is important to the process of passing leads. Not having a connection with a sales rep can make this difficult and slow down the momentum of a qualified opportunity moving down the sales pipeline. It makes me, as a Business Development Rep, feel better when I get the feedback I need and when I get it quickly.
How is your teleprospecting team structured and what’s your rep to rep ratio?
