Innovative companies operate in a challenging competitive environment. They must continuously face new challenges, question themselves, and enter new markets. This pursuit requires a tailored and distinct approach to prospects. For years, Leads Provider has supported them, implementing proven secrets and methods for effective B2B telemarketing, serving the innovators in the industry.
A New Telemarketing Technique for the IT and Communications Sector
The main challenges faced by companies in the innovation sector are:
- Intense competition;
- Product improvement;
- Recruiting and managing human resources;
- Bringing to market products unfamiliar to prospects;
- Customer acquisition.
Their success logically hinges on this essential point necessary for selling their products. To find clientele and position their innovative solutions, relying on the proven method of B2B telemarketing appears to be the most effective approach. The question is: is telemarketing suitable for the market of new technologies and innovative products?
Telemarketing is effective, provided that new rules of the game are applied.
To optimize its own telemarketing approach to better serve the objectives of its clients in the IT and Digital Services sectors, Leads Provider monitored competing IT and digital companies for several months. Two key conclusions emerged:
- Success is linked to a proactive approach that combines telemarketing with seasoned field sales representatives.
- Companies in difficulty are those that, despite having high-performing products and significant technical investments, wait for customers to find them.
This observation is compounded by outdated methodologies that are ill-suited to the technology sector.
Leads Provider has therefore drawn inspiration from a new B2B telemarketing method Based on transforming salespeople and telemarketers into challengers, this new approach—essential for many companies in the USA and inspired by the work of Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson—focuses primarily on field sales professionals. Leads Provider has applied this "Challenger Sale" methodology to its telemarketing operations and recommends it to its clients. The results were not immediate; it took time and experimentation with our team to refine this innovative method.
Transitioning to the "Challenger" model indeed requires a shift in perspective, organizational capabilities, company mindset, and skill enhancement for both salespeople and telemarketers. Like any effective telemarketing method, this approach demands perseverance, but the results are proven. We have successfully enhanced the productivity of our telemarketers, and this technique has proven to be exceptionally effective for innovative companies.
Skills of a Challenger Telemarketer
A Challenger telemarketer must master and implement three specific skills.
- Educate prospects
The primary role of a telemarketer is to inform potential clients about innovative products. They must be able to explain to their prospect how the product can help them save or make money.
- Adapting one's pitch
A telemarketer must know how to adapt their pitch based on their interlocutors to better address their needs.
- Taking control
A Challenger telemarketer knows how to take control of the appointment-setting process and motivate prospects to move to the next stage of the sales process. This helps avoid their inertia and indecision, which many salespeople face.
The New Secret Rules for an Effective Telemarketing Campaign
What is your primary goal in telemarketing? If, for you, it boils down to selling, making a business proposal, scheduling a meeting, or giving a presentation, think about it more deeply. All telephone prospecting professionals will tell you: telemarketing is a goldmine of opportunities and information.
Certainly, the fundamentals of Telemarketing
- Making a presentation or a business proposal
- Selling
- Presenting the benefits of products or services
- Making a pricing offer
- Scheduling a meeting
- Encouraging the prospect to try the product for free
- Recommending products or services
- Inviting to a webinar, completing a survey, making a donation
- Etc.
Although this may seem contradictory, focusing your efforts on one of these outcomes contributes to the failure of prospecting and ultimately wastes your sales time and efforts.
At Leads Provider, our definition of B2B telemarketing is as follows:
"Effective prospecting is defined as an activity or telephone conversation you engage in with a potential client with the intent to educate, assess, gather information, and discover. The goal is to determine if your products or services are a good fit for the prospects and if it is worthwhile to continue the business relationship to provide added value and close the sale."
Does your approach to B2B telemarketing reflect this definition and achieve this main objective?
Instead of putting all your energy into trying to make sales or focusing on the results mentioned above, make sure there is a real alignment between your company, your prospect, and what you are offering.
Don't sell: The secret to successful telemarketing
Don’t stop at the primary goal of telemarketing (selling, giving a demonstration or business proposal, scheduling a meeting, highlighting the features and benefits of your products and services). Identify the alignment with your prospects' needs to determine if it’s worthwhile to continue the business relationship or move on to the next prospects.
This paradigm shift changes a telemarketing strategy. While the traditional approach to telemarketing focuses on delivering measurable results, the new primary objective is to determine if your company, your prospects, and what you offer are in good harmony and if you can progress together to the next stage of the sales process.
Constantly trying to move to the next stage in the sales process demonstrates:
- the mismatch of your offer;
- that your prospect may not be ready;
- that you are too focused on your goals and not enough on understanding and respecting the prospect’s buying process.
If you do not identify this compatibility, you immediately create tension with your prospects and set the stage for a poor business relationship. Effective telemarketing aims first and foremost to encourage prospects to reflect and consider a fruitful collaboration by providing them with concrete solutions or addressing recurring problems.
Leads Provider is composed of a team of 'Challenger' telemarketers. They are trained in this new sales strategy, and the results are compelling: we have significantly increased the revenue of our clients, IT professionals facing a constantly evolving competitive market. ESNs, digital agencies, software publishers, integrators, and specialists in Cloud, AI, and cybersecurity have all benefited from our approach and techniques of effective B2B telemarketing. Contact us for more information.