When you work with early-stage companies, you learn quickly that flexibility is key. Ideal customer profiles, pitches, and even overall company strategy changes quickly – and vendors need to, also. Though our primary focus on most campaigns is appointment setting / top-of-funnel SDR work, we’ve had to adjust our focus for several clients. Fortunately, our kaizen culture, which prioritizes autonomy and creativity, helps us adapt quickly when necessary.
In that vein, lots of prospective clients want to know just how flexible our outsourced inside sales teams can be: put another way, are we just cold calling robots, or can our team members adjust to different needs as they pop up? Below are three examples of how our teams have adapted.
- Surveying / Profiling. Particularly when they’re experiencing challenges crafting a compelling pitch, a number of earlier-stage clients have used our teams to refine their marketing approach or get a better hold on what the market is looking for. A lot of the skills necessary for inside sales are deeply relevant to running effective market research campaigns (for instance, reaching decision makers and asking open-ended questions).
- Bottom-of-Funnel Sales and Proposal Follow-Up. Particularly where we’ve seen a lot of success booking appointments for in-house decision makers, our teams are regularly asked to jump in and help push deals along or even close them. We recommend using our teams in this way after several months of a campaign, when we’ve gained deep product knowledge and market awareness. Because of our hands-on approach to client communication, our teams tend to learn quickly.
- Customer Success / Account Management. Our teams are regularly asked to jump in and perform check-in calls with existing customers, handle upsell / cross-sell opportunities, or simply solicit feedback from them. The in-depth product knowledge we obtain in the training process helps our teams connect with existing customers and build strong relationships with them.
