Blog Archives - Page 8 of 19

Whatever you do, don’t stop selling

Posted on 26 May 20203 June 2025 by Doug Roots

It might be something of an understatement to say that 2020 has been a challenging year for businesses across the globe. It’s hard to believe just a matter of weeks ago (although for many of us it feels like much longer), we could work from an office and most of us were largely unfamiliar with the term ‘social distancing’. The impact of Covid-19 has been overwhelming – we’ve seen major changes to the way we work and relate to each other, both personally and professionally.

In times of crisis, it can be tempting to pull back and you may even question whether new business is a priority. Shouldn’t we batten down the hatches, hunker down and focus on the surviving rather than thriving?

The short answer is no. Sales is the lifeblood of your business, so resist that temptation to slow down and hold back and instead change the way you sell, so you can ensure future success. Ultimately, without sales, no future opportunity exists.

If you can sell today, great! If you can’t, prepare!

If you have major barriers to selling right now, get ready for life after. Those who plan and prepare and pay close attention to building their pipeline will have a running start as life returns to ‘normal’. They will be best placed to succeed in the immediate months and years post-pandemic.

Keep reaching out but change the message

People are understandably less contactable as they continue to work from home. But businesses are still operating and they still have a requirement for your products and services; it may just be less of an immediate priority. You need to change the messaging to resonate with the current climate and let people know you understand the challenges around Covid-19. Conduct your conversations with a positive but sensitive tone and don’t be afraid to be the expert and demonstrate the value you can bring to help, even in these anxiety-inducing times.

Keep going to market

Check out our recent blog, turning virtual – how to change your sales process from face to face to virtual meetings, in which we explore how you can ensure the virtual meetings you do have are as professional, prepared and focused as possible.

If you’re au fait with prospecting on the phone then integrate other methods into your approach, leveraging video and social to tell your brand’s stories. Use LinkedIn to connect with people on a more personal level, joining relevant forums where you can actively engage in solving customer challenges, and keep up-to-date with emerging conversations and themes that could help you tailor your approach.

Tell positive stories

Celebrate success where you can. Shine a light on the good things that are happening in your business and for your clients. People are seeking connection and positivity right now. If you can create content or stories that raise a smile, it will improve your sales relationships and spark conversations that could lead somewhere good.

For more insights on this subject, watch our recent webinar where our MD, Owen Richards, explores how businesses can respond to the crisis while continuing to set the stage for sales success.

Air Marketing are the leading outsourced sales agency in the UK. We design and deliver sales services to deliver the best conversion rates for our clients. To hear more about how we can help your business grow, get in touch today or call us on 0345 241 3038.

The importance of health and wellbeing in a sales team

Posted on 27 April 20203 June 2025 by Doug Roots

A car cannot be expected to run on the wrong fuel, drive endless miles without rest, never have an MOT and expect it to keep performing to the best of its ability – our bodies and minds are exactly the same. The unhealthy feelings of pressure, anxiety and stress wear us down and can cause us to become demotivated. Simply put – when we’re not feeling our best, we don’t perform at our best, and this is heightened during times of difficulty and uncertainty.

For sales professionals, while they may be known on the front line for their big personalities, confidence and ambition, more often than not there are underlying challenges that they face on a daily basis that are impacting their health and wellbeing.

What makes the challenges of sales professionals unique?

There are many of challenging jobs in the world – doctors, healthcare professionals, teachers, lawyers, the forces, the list goes on… but there’s something unique about the role of a sales professional. Outside of the careers of those saving lives, the sheer quantity of challenges that sales professionals are up against everyday is second to none.

High expectations: Sales professionals are no stranger to targets. Not only does this impact their performance and therefore financial reward (commission), but also their company’s bottom line. There’s no doubt in that they’re expected to be consistent in bringing in X amount of revenue every quarter. As the saying goes, you’re only ever as good as your last month or quarter.
Lack of routine: For a lot of sales professionals, in order to meet expectations, the 9-5, Monday to Friday routine is non-existent. Acting as a brand ambassador, being available for events and networking opportunities and being flexible to prospects doesn’t always allow for ‘office hours’.
Managing potential rejection: It’s inevitable. Even the greatest sales leaders experience knockdowns and knockbacks from prospects who may not be ready to purchase just yet, or the product/service simply isn’t right for them.
Finding qualified leads: To avoid the possibility of rejection and potentially wasted time, it’s important to ensure that leads are qualified within the sales team (sales qualified leads – SQLs) or marketing team (marketing qualified leads – MQLs). But finding these takes time and effort so it’s a careful balancing act of spending time on this vs acting speaking to prospects.
Long sales cycle: It’s unusual for things to ‘just happen’ overnight. Building relationships and trust as well as the case for why the client should be interested takes time, consistency and commitment. Remaining empathic and patient when under pressure is a tricky skill to master.
Unpredictable markets: It’s difficult to predict when a market is going to be impacted, whether that’s from an economic downturn or a global pandemic like COVID-19 (Coronavirus). While this drives uncertainty through the supply chain, it’s important for sales professionals to remain calm and support prospects through what is likely to be an even longer than usual sales cycle.
Competitors: Standing apart from competition is a challenge for many sales professionals, especially when they’re competing against low cost providers. Having a strong relationship to make a ‘needs’ based sale rather than a ‘costs’ based sale is important here.
Maintaining a relationship with marketing: Ultimately working towards the same goal, it’s vital to set aside time to work with the marketing department to maximise opportunities and make sure that you’re singing from the same hymn book.
Building a personal brand: We’ve reached 2020 and there’s now more pressure than ever to be active and building your personal brand and network on professional networking sites such as LinkedIn. This is key to becoming a trusted advisor.

Why is this important for businesses?

In the workplace, health and wellbeing allows for sustainability of top-level performance. It’s important for sales professionals to keep motivated and believe in themselves. At the end of the day, your sales team generate revenue, and without revenue, there is no business. Should businesses be effectively making a positive impact on the health and wellbeing of their sales team, they’re likely to see a decrease in absenteeism and costs, as well as an increase in motivation, performance and employee retention.

As an increasing number of sales professionals are beginning to prioritise their health and wellbeing, there’s no better time for businesses to take a step back and review wellbeing policies. When looking for their next employer, will sales professionals be on the look-out for organisational cultures that champion employee health and wellbeing? We think so!

How can you help?

Conversation: In an office environment you would usually see visual cues or hear audio cues of people seeming unhappy or a bit low, and that might come across in the work that they’re doing and the sales conversations they’re having. Outside of the usual office environment, if sales professionals are working from home, you still have a number of cues and it’s just as important to still be looking for them. If you think someone’s not looking too good, just ask. If your team communicates together socially, then they will start to pick up on this as well. If you don’t have that conversation, then it’s more difficult to tell if people are struggling.

Normalisation: Good health and wellbeing is proactive. Leaders should be starting the conversation and driving it through the organisation to create a culture where talking about physical and mental wellbeing, how you feel and what’s going on in your mind is normal.

Trust: Management should lead by example and build trust by opening up about how they’re feeling and what they’re doing to keep their body and mind healthy. A lot of people will be having good days, but there will also be a lot of people who are having down days too. Be honest about how and why this is impacting your motivation. Showing vulnerability as a leader and being honest with your sales team will allow them to open up.

Initiatives: Support conversation, normalisation and trust by implementing initiatives to keep sales teams engaged and motivated. Help sales professionals build a routine whereby they’re able to get away and switch off. Do a team Joe Wicks workout or yoga class. Bring out the natural competitiveness of your sales team with a step or running challenge. Organise access to a 24/7 mental health support line. You would even go so far as to remove sales targets which are seen as unrealistic for the greater good of your sales team.

Tools to succeed: Drill back down to the basics and review whether your sales team have all of the tools that they truly need to succeed and hit their targets – regular training and skill sharing activities, a strong sales process, effective scripts, clear KPI’s and a way of repeatedly filling their pipeline with qualified leads. If lead generation is something that your team don’t have time for, we recommend outsourcing. Find out more about outsourcing lead generation with Air Marketing here. For marketing qualified leads (MQLs) we recommend our sister company, demand generation experts – Roots to Market.

Sales leaders and management – if you’re not investing in your sales team’s health and wellbeing, you’re missing an opportunity. With so many knockdowns and knock backs in the sales environment, being supported emotionally, physically and being resilient is incredibly important. It’s down to you to nurture this. Don’t just drive your team on numbers and targets but support them to be in the best shape possible so they can perform at their best for you.

If you’d like to hear more about how we at Air Marketing prioritise a culture of health and wellbeing for our sales team, get in touch today or call us on 0345 241 3038.

What to consider when looking to outsource your marketing for the first time

Posted on 20 April 20203 June 2025 by dukadmin

This is an interesting question that came up recently whilst we were speaking with a prospect. Having never worked with a marketing agency before, it’s understandable that you don’t know, what you don’t know. If you’ve only ever had internal marketing resource before it can be difficult to know how that translates into an agency relationship, and how to outsource your marketing effectively? If you are not a marketeer yourself but you are responsible for marketing (we’re thinking of some roles such as MD’s, Commercial Directors, Sales Directors, Revenue Directors) being able to truly test and measure any marketing resource can become more challenging. Questions that have come up in these conversations before having been the likes of:

What makes you the right agency?

How will it work having an agency working with our internal marketing team?

What should my internal team work on, and what should I outsource?

Having discussed this in detail with prospects on many different occasions, we thought it would be really helpful to share this with you all. Now for us, sales and marketing are hand-in-hand functions. Ultimately, they are the revenue engine for your business and therefore they have to work together, not separately, for optimal effectiveness. For this reason, we find it is important to begin with your business aspirations and direction.

Do you know your direction?

The level of detail in answer to this question varies hugely amongst different businesses. The automatic response for many is, growth. A direction, but for us not a very clear one. What we’re looking to understand from your direction is:

What is your overall business looking to achieve? An increase in 20% revenue on last year? An increase in 30% profits on last year? Sustained 10% year–on–year growth? These are all examples, but by providing us something much more tangible to understand your level of business growth, gives us important insight into the mindset of your business.
Next up is sales. What are your sales team looking to achieve? What are their targets and how is this split up? What percentage is from retaining revenue, new business and customer upsell/cross sell strategies? This is more important information for a marketer. The sales targets will link back to that overall business target, and in the same way your marketing targets and activity should support your sales targets. If we know that more than half of your targets are focused on client upsell/cross sell strategies, then we need to work with your sales team to target this market. In that example, we may focus in on CRM focused email marketing, providing Account Managers with the sales collateral required to help upsell/cross sell conversations, and look at web traffic behaviour utilising practices such as re-marketing to your current customer base.

This all then comes down to understanding your direction with your marketing. As mentioned above, your marketing targets and activity should clearly align to sales, thus the overall business. But you need to clearly set out what marketing should be working towards. How many new business leads do your sales team need? So, what are the channels to be utilised to obtain these leads? Can you clearly see a conversion rate from previous activity of MQLs (marketing qualified leads) to SQLs (sales qualified leads) to then proposal and purchase? If so, what is that typical conversion rate? This will inform us of how many MQLs are needed to feed your sales team. If past data tells you that traffic to your website converts at x% depending on the channel, how much more traffic do you need to attract to the website to meet the targets your sales team have? If you have personas for your target audience and you know that one is lower value but required continually to help run rate and one is high value but longer term pipeline – you need to create unique strategies to be reaching both of these concurrently to maximise effect.

We’d recommend being prepared with understanding your direction before detailed conversations with an agency, as this will help the agency to really understand what you need from them. You can then move on to understanding ways of working with agencies.

Ways of working with agencies

Every agency will be slightly different when it comes to this, but we’re going to give you the example from us at Roots to Market.

We have clients who utilise us typically in 3 different capacities:

They look to us to create their marketing strategy and then to deliver it for them. This maybe the case if they have no marketers in-house and don’t wish to hire in-house, or if they have junior marketers who would really benefit from the support of an agency to work alongside.
They already have a marketing strategy defined by their Marketing Director or Commercial Director and they are looking for an outsourced team to deliver against it as they don’t have any other marketers in-house and don’t wish to hire in-house.
They have an internal marketing team who have defined and are delivering against the marketing strategy, but they have an element of the activity that they don’t have resource for or don’t have the specific skills in-house to execute themselves. In these cases, we slot into their marketing team to deliver an aspect of their marketing alongside the rest of the team.

Each of these examples will pull on different members of our team and their skill sets and will require different approaches. But from our experience we’ve found it vital to be as flexible as possible and cater for different client needs.

We’d recommend exploring what an agency can offer you in terms of ways of working from the outset to ensure that it will work with your current business set up and what you had in mind.

A final thing to then consider is…

Understanding how to measure the success of the relationship

Marketing is an investment after all, so although you may not get to the numbers within this conversation being able to understand the ‘how’ of the measurement is required.

We often find that within this part of the conversation we discuss KPI’s/targets that can be set before activity begins between us and the client, reporting methods and frequency, examples of other successes, ‘what good looks like’, how detailed and integrated the reporting can be, etc.

It may take time to agree and sign off on all this detail to your relationship but starting the conversation so that both parties understand where each other are coming from allows you to go away and further build on this.

We’d recommend being honest and transparent from the beginning on this measurement of success. It can really damage a relationship, if goal posts are drastically moved during activity because they were simply incorrect from the outset. There will be aspects of marketing which are still more difficult to measure such as offline advertising, but this should be discussed before the activity begins to ensure everyone is on the same page.

Get in touch

We hope that if you’re wondering what to consider when looking to outsource your marketing for the first time, then this has been helpful.

At Roots to Market, we offer tailored, blended services of inbound and direct marketing, automation and complete tactical campaigns, dependent on clients’ needs. If you’d like to talk more about how we can help you with your outsourced marketing activity, get in touch today on 01392 796702. You can also read more about our results here.

Turning Virtual – How to change your sales process from face to face to virtual meetings?

Posted on 20 April 20203 July 2023 by Doug Roots

Let’s face it, most businesses are now operating in a national, if not global, arena. This often means that part, or in some cases all, of the sales process is already carried out via virtual meetings rather than face to face. There are so many reasons why businesses do this including practicality and cost. For some business models, such as those selling SaaS products, keeping all communication virtual works effectively and seamlessly. There is no product to physically see, all benefits can be communicated virtually and typically your investment is likely to be a monthly subscription, so far less risky than other models.

But what if your business is providing a service, like us. We find it very effective to utilise virtual meetings at the beginning of the sales process, but as our conversations deepen, we find that prospects often look for a face to face meeting and a visit to our offices to put their mind at ease around our setup. Usually this works very well for us, as we are always happy to show people around our office, introduce them to members of our team, have lunch with them and discuss everything face to face.

Until now.

Having transferred our sales process to only utilise virtual meetings, because face to face meetings are not an option at present, we wanted to share this experience with you alongside some of our tips, to help you along the way.

Manage and prepare

Just because the call is virtual not face to face, doesn’t mean you should skip the preparation. If anything, preparation becomes even more important.

Ensure the meeting is in the diary with the correct virtual meeting information. Test this if you are at all unsure or if you’re using a new piece of software. There’s nothing worse than falling at the first hurdle and not being able to connect together.

Then think about background noise and background appearance. Important both in the office and when working at home. You need to be able to have a clear conversation without being distracted by extremely loud noise or something peculiar lurking in the background. This can’t always be avoided – if you’re currently isolated at home with your family people understand a little background noise, but if you can prepare to be furthest possible away from this or pre-warn at the beginning of the call, then this is likely to be easier to manage if any background noise is heard.

Avoid distractions

We’ve all done it in virtual meetings – you’re completely focused on what your prospect or client is saying but then an email flashes up or you receive an instant message from a member of your team, and suddenly you’re distracted. You didn’t mean to be, but it was that easy. You’ve then missed what your prospect or client has said, you need to stay composed as you’re on camera, but you need to ensure that you are up to date with the conversation. It’s easily done but can cost you a lot, in some cases even the sale if you’ve missed something vital.

Help yourself to avoid distractions in the first place. Turn off your email notifications, shut down your team instant messenger and only leave open what is required for the call so that you minimise the chances of this happening to you.

Accept the differences to your sales process

If you need to make changes to your sales process to shift to only virtual meetings instead of a mixture of virtual and face to face, accept it. This will change the sales process. For some it may change it for the better – you may see people making decisions quicker, as you can get multiple stakeholders on to virtual calls quicker, travel doesn’t have to be arranged and therefore your process becomes shorter. For others being unable to accommodate face to face meetings right now may extend your pipeline if your prospect simply isn’t happy to commit until they’ve physically met you or viewed your operations.

Either way it is about adapting to make the most of your sales opportunities. Is there the option for the prospect to virtually meet your team rather than physically? Does that get over a barrier? Do you have a video of your office or a virtual walk through that you could provide in the meantime to give them the taster of the operations that they request? It’s about adapting to how you can make the most out of virtual meetings, email communication and telephone calls so the prospect is fully informed, comfortable with the options available to them and heading towards the next steps.

If you’d like to hear more about virtual sales success get in touch today or call us on 0345 241 3038. Or hear more from our existing customers h ere.

Why you should have an overflow solution for your customer service team

Posted on 30 March 20203 July 2023 by Doug Roots

From managing unpredictable call volumes to making sure your staff are engaged and productive – running a customer service call centre comes with distinct challenges. Of course every business faces its own challenges, but a call centre is a unique environment with unique challenges. How do we know? Because essentially, we are one!

Team performance

Overworked, stressed agents are more likely to make mistakes, staff absences increase, and staff retention becomes difficult. All of which puts even more pressure on your team to hit their targets. When you are under-resourced, it’s not just Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that take a hit; Customer Feedback Scores drop too.

Recruitment

Often there’s no quick fix for resource challenges. Sometimes a recruitment freeze means you cannot grow the team regardless of mounting call volumes. Perhaps you only need a part-time resource or can’t offer consistent or regular hours, therefore limiting your ability to attract and retain high calibre agents.

The bottom line

Do you care about the bottom line? Of course you do! An under-resourced team is a common challenge for call centres and the knock-on effects of this can have a negative impact on productivity, quality and therefore, profitability.

The solution? Outsource

If you need a flexible and scalable resource to provide relief for your team during peak demand periods, then outsourcing overflow calls to an external call centre partner could be the answer. You can choose to divert a set number of calls per day, or just specific call types, and an external partner will support you to improve all aspects of your call centre team’s performance.

Having an overflow solution offers a wide range of valuable benefits:

The gift of time: It gives your team back time and relieves pressure. You no longer have to recruit and manage all of the resources for your call centre team. You can more easily cover staff absences, even at short notice, without adding more pressure on your internal team. There is also the freedom to take the team off the phones and dedicate time to regular team briefings and training sessions.
Performance: Reducing the stress on your team will lead to higher wellbeing and better performance. This positive impact on team culture means reduced absenteeism and improved staff retention. More realistic workloads mean fewer errors and improved quality of service.
Improve service levels: In the customer service business, the ability to scale up at short notice is invaluable – whether in preparation for annual or seasonal peaks or in response to unexpectedly high call volumes. The external call centre team will provide dedicated agents, but they will also have a larger pool of quality staff they can assign to your calls at short notice, covering all bases. Imagine being able to maintain or even improve your service levels when call volumes hit a peak.
Retain control: You can choose to divert only specific call types, leaving your in-house team to deal with the higher value calls, or whatever works best for your business.

Why now?

Although you may not require an overflow solution for your customer service team at present, there may come a day in the near future when you do. As they say, prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

We have experience in managing inbound campaigns for clients across a variety of industries, and are trusted by brands such as Escape Hunt, Funding Circle and Eon. If your call volume has been impacted or is expected to be impacted by COVID-19 (Coronavirus), we can help. As one of the UK’s leading outsourced sales companies, our experienced, committed and motivated team are all based in the UK and are currently working from home, continuing to support our clients’ campaigns.

To find out how we could help you with your customer service overflow, get in touch today or call us on 0345 241 3038. Or hear more from our existing customers here.

Why it’s so hard to run a start up marketing agency but so worth it

Posted on 23 March 20203 June 2025 by dukadmin

I can personally attest that launching a start-up marketing agency is no picnic! The sleepless nights, the unrelenting hours and the sheer uncertainty are a rollercoaster not everyone is clamouring to ride. Like a new parent taking the first tentative steps out of the maternity ward with their precious cargo or a well-meaning volunteer for a charity skydive… you’re not quite sure what to expect until you’re in the thick of it, and at that point you just have to hang on tight. But like both the aforementioned examples, there are so many moments of joy, pride and exhilaration that make it all worthwhile, when you hit an unexpected milestone or bag a new client in spite of stiff competition from longer established agencies.

Businesses will always need marketing services, for a start–up the real challenge is getting them to choose you. Gaining the trust of new clients is not easy. At this point they’re taking a chance on you to deliver for them based on what you promise, but not necessarily a large track record. That’s why face-time (or virtual face-time) and a personal approach is so important, you can’t yet show them reams of high profile projects but you can show them exactly what they’re buying… YOU! And your word. Once a project gets underway you know they’ll enjoy dealing with someone who is passionate and hungry to achieve the best for them. They aren’t just another client on your roster, they can enjoy VIP status.

In 2020, business moves fast, people have high expectations and they need to work with a marketing agency that understands the challenges they face and can deliver a plan in line with that. Downside being that businesses under pressure are often looking for a silver bullet, so they experience a tough month and that marketing agency they were relying on to deliver can suddenly fall out of favour. Becoming the trusted partner is tough, it requires over-delivering, relationship building and quite frankly, the ability to be straight up about what will and won’t work. In those early days it can be tempting to deliver whatever the paying customer wants, but give them the benefit of your expertise and your listening skills if you want to be there for the long haul.

Your team are everything. In a big corporate there is the luxury of time and resources for formal team building, long recruitment processes and testing and even retreats. In a start-up marketing agency the only retreat your team are getting is a post-office pub sesh (when allowed due to Covid-19 guidelines) where you’ll probably end up talking shop. You have to take a chance on the people you employ just as they have to take a chance on you, and it’s about so much more than just credentials, you need to know they’ll have the humour and resilience to deal with those challenging early months. You will look back on these early campaigns and wonder how you pulled it off, and you’ll laugh a lot and maybe even cry a little but it’ll be worth it.

In the end when clients start coming back for more and you can see your plans coming to fruition, your team gaining new skills and your client base consistently growing, you can calmly exhale safe in the knowledge that you weren’t a misguided glutton for punishment, rather someone with a sensible vision. When you can see the impact on your client’s business through the projects you’ve delivered for them and the collaborative efforts of your team, you know it was all worth it.

Roots to Market are nearly two-years old and I’m yet to find a grey hair (yet), I can’t lie and say it’s been easy but I can be honest and say it’s been a blast to work with such a fantastically talented team and be entrusted with some incredible global brands. We’ve seen our clients’ businesses and our own business grow thanks to so much hard work and enduring dedication.

Want to know more?

At Roots, we build intelligent marketing capabilities using a mixture of proven marketing tactics to reach your target audience and produce marketing qualified leads for your sales team. We offer tailored, blended services of inbound and direct marketing, automation and complete tactical campaigns, dependent on what you need. If you’d like to talk more about how we can help you see results, get in touch today on 01392 796 702 or fill in our form here.

Opinion piece by Verity Studley-Wootton, Associate Director.

How important is traditional sales prospecting in today’s digital age?

Posted on 23 March 20203 June 2025 by Doug Roots

There’s no denying that the digital age has changed the way businesses connect with their buyers. In the past, face–to–face sales or cold calling were the only way to reach prospects and talk them through the benefits of your products. Social selling and content marketing have changed the customer journey; buyers are far more empowered with product knowledge ahead of purchase and for low value purchases, most don’t feel compelled to speak to a salesperson at all. But does traditional sales prospecting still have a place? The short answer is yes, and here’s why.

Never underestimate the power of a conversation

A personal human connection is ultimately what chatbots are trying to replicate – in 2020 nothing comes close to a real conversation. If you want to build trust and rapport with a prospect, a friendly and open approach can go a long way. The more insight you gain into the specific challenges, the more personal and tailored your sales approach can be in a face-to-face meeting.

Digital isn’t always scalable and more suited to a transactional sale

Calling someone to extoll the virtues of a power bank or a lipstick is wildly different from talking to them about an integrated marketing or sales campaign. The fact is people don’t buy high value programmes of work online. Your website is vital to a first impression, and you need to ensure you have engaging, relevant content available, but to get under the skin of a project your prospective customer needs to be able to ask you detailed questions, beyond a comprehensive online FAQ. Research suggests that the earliest part of the buying process works most effectively, with 71% saying they want to hear from salespeople when they are looking for ideas to drive strong business results (Resourceful Selling).

Don’t limit your customer base

The people, who would benefit most from your services, might not even know you exist. If you’re relying on prospects who find you online and engage with your content to reach you via a web lead, then you’re ruling out a potentially lucrative market of businesses with money to spend, a relevant challenge that your product or proposition can solve who are ready to buy. There is strong evidence that the C-Suite buys differently; with 57% of C-level buyers prefer salespeople to call them above anything else (RAIN Group).

Traditional sales prospecting can work brilliantly with complementary technologies

This isn’t old school vs. new tech; all methods have their place. In fact leveraging powerful systems to enhance your data and effectively map your customer journey will make your sales campaigns much more viable. Using social selling and content marketing along with targeted calling campaigns will align and strengthen your approach, your brand and make it easier to deliver relevant follow-up materials during promising calls.

Check out our video where Owen Richards, MD of Air Marketing and Richard Forrest, MD of Forrest Marketing Group, discuss the role of traditional prospecting in a digital age.

At Air Marketing, we work with clients to create a tailored, blend of services that will deliver the best conversion rates in their desired market. If you’d like to hear more about how we can help your business grow or show you how we’ve helped businesses from all sectors achieve success. Get in touch today or call us on 0345 241 3038. Or hear more from our existing customers here.

Lingual and cultural diversity in telemarketing

Posted on 19 March 20203 June 2025 by Doug Roots

In the words of Paulo Coelho: Culture makes people understand each other better. And if they have a deeper understanding of one another, it is easier to overcome the economic and political barriers. But first they have to understand that their neighbour is, in the end, just like them, with the same problems and the same questions.

The days of selling our items to each other village to village (think the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker), face to face, are long past us. In my opinion, today we are selling our “technoproducts” and services via the digital superhighways to people all around the world. In this more tech focused world we work with “turbomachinerie” with “flashcapacities”.

Despite the fast changes that have happened and continue to happen in our selling culture, the culture of individual human beings who are ultimately the end users being sold to, are slower to change.

Culture within individuals heavily influence their choices – how to cook, speak, act, dress etc. These cultures are as diverse now as they were centuries ago, but they are changing and need to be kept up with. For example, the English culture of 1782 would not be the same as the one we experience in 2020. This is the same for all cultures French, German, Dutch etc. Culture is a living and changing thing.

So why is this relevant?

As a company we embrace this cultural diversity (including languages) as it enriches not only our teams and our methodology to solve problems and challenges, but it also benefits our clients and prospects. We find that a diverse team will find many solutions to a problem – whether that is within our business or within a client’s business.

At Air Marketing, we celebrate the German Karneval, we celebrate the Oranjekoorts during Koningsdag, we welcome the tartiflette and merguez on our lunch or BBQ and embrace the culture and language of our clients and prospects. By speaking their mother tongue we understand certain cultural differences (for example the directness of the Dutch Dutch-speaking market in comparison with the gentle tone of the Belgian Dutch-speaking market). All this out of respect of our clients and prospects and of course to do business together.

Wouter Vanaelst Background

Wouter was born and raised in Belgium, right on the linguistic border. His mother tongue is Flemish/Dutch and from a very early age he also learnt French and German. After studying in Brussels and gaining 2 academic degrees in Educational Sciences and Art & Cultural Andragogy, he then went on to work for 7 years as an Educational and Client Services Officer for the Centrale Culturelle Bruxelloise. In this role his focus was monitoring and researching the social and economic climate alongside organising and delivering marketing and recruitment campaigns

Wouter also spent 2 years in Africa conducting research on the educational & socio-economic challenges, whilst learning to overcome many logistical and cultural obstacles. Wouter moved to the UK in 2015, his first role in the UK was teaching French and German classes as an associate lecturer. Alongside this he worked with international companies analysing business to customer (B2C) communication in Dutch, French and German.

Wouter is now heading up the Multilingual offering for Air Marketing Group, helping businesses open up opportunities within strong economic countries such as Germany, France and Holland.

Wouter is fascinated by cultural and linguistic differences, how people choose to act, speak and work differently and in understanding this looking at how to make bridges in between cultures and languages. Wouter does not believe in uniformity, he believes every language, culture and client have different needs that require a bespoke approach. This includes adapting to cultural manners, working with native speakers who have native accents and cultural knowledge.

“Every language you speak is another market that opens up to you.”

Interested in talking to me about our multilingual offering? Contact me directly on 01392 575282 or complete our contact form here.

Wouter Vanaelst
Senior Business Development Executive Multilingual, Air Marketing Group

The benefits of outsourced sales for start-ups

Posted on 16 March 20203 June 2025 by Doug Roots

When you’re starting out, it can feel like you’re running uphill on a treadmill. Clients are hard won, you never have enough resource and it’s difficult delivering everything on your desk, let alone focussing on the 6 month, 12 month or 3 year plans for growth.

In 2016, the UK registered the equivalent of 70 new businesses per hour – that’s 660,000 annually; data shows us that more than 50% of these businesses will not survive beyond 2021 (The Telegraph, 2019). So why are businesses that start out so promisingly, failing to see their 5^th birthday?

An Entrepreneurs Network report reveals that nearly a third of the differences in productivity between the UK and US start-ups are linked to management practices. Businesses that are properly managed and benefit from expert advice, are able to drive better sales and recruit better talent.

A healthy pipeline is essential to every business, especially when you’re starting out. Making sales at the right price-point leads to long-term success and ensuring cash flow back into the business, to invest in marketing and product development. If there is market demand for your product, there is absolutely no reason why you can’t achieve the sales targets necessary for growth. Unfortunately, the reality is somewhat different, when companies are in their formation stages; it’s all hands on deck. Resource and headspace to focus on delivering an effective lead generation strategy and wider sales strategy seems like a pipe dream.

Part of the reason start-ups founded in brilliant, creative ideas then fail comes back to the fact that their leader, who is likely already wearing several professional ‘hats’, is not a sales specialist. The founder might be the face of the business and certainly needs to be hands on in all aspects of day-to-day operations, sales presentations and investor meetings. There is a myriad of benefits to outsourcing lead generation and sales prospecting to an expert provider. The main one being they have the expertise and resource to hit the ground running and start generating sales for you that will help secure the future of your business. The right provider will help you refine your target markets; your sales approach and build your brand awareness. And you can have some breathing space to focus on the here and now, knowing that activity that will benefit you down the road, is being taken care of by a trusted partner who will deliver for you and your customers and help you build a healthy pipeline.

Why Air?

At Air Marketing, we’re experienced in working with start-ups in all sectors to maximise their outsourcing budget to achieve their business objectives. We’ve worked with businesses at every point in their journey to leverage the best return on investment (ROI) for budgets that need to deliver real results.. We work with clients to create a tailored, blend of services that will deliver the best conversion rates in their desired market. If you’d like to hear more about how we can help your business grow or show you how we’ve helped businesses from all sectors achieve success. Get in touch today or call us on 0345 241 3038. Or hear more from our existing customers here.

What Should You Look For in An Outsourced Partner?

Posted on 27 February 20203 June 2025 by Doug Roots

The 7 questions you need to ask.

Choosing an outsourced partner to handle your lead generation and telemarketing activity is more than a transaction; it’s a trust exercise and a leap of faith. It’s hard to know if you’re making the right decision and like in any tender process where you’re planning a large investment, you’re likely to see a veritable beauty parade of suppliers promising to change how you define success. How do you know if their claims are genuine? Research shows that just 53% of supplier collaborations are successful (Forbes, 2017). What should you be looking for when choosing a supplier to support you with such fundamental elements of your brand and sales strategy?

1.Do you trust them to guide your decision-making?

Trust is vital in any partnership, especially one where the expertise you’re buying is vital to your future success. There is arguably a low point of entry for setting up a telemarketing agency. Good agencies will offer genuine expertise and work with you to develop a strategy that considers every element of your brief and the challenges in your market. They will be a sounding board offering advice and guidance throughout the life of a campaign, working with you to continuously improve results.

2.Do they understand your business?

A provider that’s committed to understanding your business, from your daily operations to your grandest aspirations, has the best shot of being able to deliver genuine results and act as a true extension of your team. They should be experts in lead generation but value your insight and knowledge of your own business and the market you operate in – a partner with a collaborative approach is more invested in your success.

3.Can they represent your brand the way you want?

If you’re one of the 31% of businesses outsourcing to improve service quality (Deloitte, 2016), a provider that not only understands your business but also can articulate your messages as well as you can, is essential. Their agents will have much more meaningful and engaging conversations with prospective clients. You can rest assured that your brand awareness is growing in a way that reflects your values.

4.Who’s making the calls?

Any business can put forward a slick presentation and a confident sales pitch, you need to look beyond this to the people who will be working on your campaigns and calling on your behalf. Transparency is king, if you’re not welcomed with open arms to their offices to meet the team working on your campaign, can you be confident in their expertise and working practices?

5.Are they promising the world?

As much as you might want to believe bold, world changing claims. The old adage is fitting, if it sounds good to be true, it probably is. A much better sign is a partner that talks in realistic and achievable terms and will work with you to create a programme with every chance of success.

6.Is their pricing model too reductive?

Price is important but don’t be taken in by convoluted cost models, that promise to deliver fantastic value for large volumes, ultimately poorly delivered work reflects poorly on your business, and is not worth the investment, even if it seems like a great deal. Working with a supplier that can deliver the quality you want is a far better guide.

7.What do their customers say?

Investigate their case studies and testimonials; enquire about what they’ve delivered for other customers. Long-running customer relationships that have extended from an initial project are a positive sign, satisfied customers speak volumes.

Check out our video where Owen Richards, MD of Air Marketing and Richard Forrest, MD of Forrest Marketing Group, dive deeper into the challenges of outsourcing:

At Air, we work with clients to create a tailored, blend of services designed to deliver the best conversion rates in their desired market. If you’d like to hear more about how we can help your business grow or show you how we’ve helped businesses from all sectors achieve success, get in touch today  or call us on 0345 241 3038. Or hear more from our existing customers here.

Category: Blog