Facebook Linkedin Instagram Tiktok Youtube
Talk to an expert

Category: Sales

How to decide what to spend your investment on?

Posted on by Doug Roots

Successfully securing investment can be daunting and those tentative early days spent working out exactly how to translate that winning pitch into a winning strategy that delivers, can be a daunting prospect. In our blog, You’ve secured investment, now what? we covered how it’s vital for businesses to work out the practical aspects of delivery, taking an honest look at in-house resource and scoping out where you might need to buy-in expertise or scale up. This is a vital process. Spending money and thinking later will only lead to regrets when investors need to see return on investment (ROI), and so it’s worth investing the time upfront to do this.

Once you’re happy that you have a solid overarching strategy, it’s time to get into the detail on the tactical plans, specifically where you’ll be spending your budgets. In an ideal world you could press pause for a bit, start to see the benefit of your campaign efforts and product development plans but we all know that’s just not realistic. You need to pay your staff and invest in reward schemes to ensure they stay motivated. You must continue to invest in your brand and your external marketing efforts to let the world know you have a new and exciting proposition on offer. You need to make sure that you’re across your target markets; not only understanding them but also proactively ensuring your business is a relevant contender in that space. To keep that cash flow well, flowing, you need to be confident that you can generate sales, consistently hitting the targets to power your growth and support your investment. Without those sales, things can spiral pretty quickly and there simply won’t be time to see your plans come to fruition.

In the SaaS industry, there’s a real challenge in refining the sales approach in a crowded marketplace where external service, maintenance and development factors can also impact the sales cycle, making it vital for any sales strategy to balance the inbound and outbound efforts, appropriately.

With outbound sales strategies you need to make sure that your sales team are targeting the right accounts, and having informed and tailored conversations that get prospects close to conversion. Even so-called ‘hot leads’ aren’t necessarily ready to buy. SaaS salespeople need to have knowledgeable conversations and ready-to-go sales enablement assets that readily and effectively showcase the benefits of their product.

It’s also vital to consider how customer profile impacts the sales processes; those high value enterprise contracts can take far more time to get over the line. They also need to be mindful of tailoring the approach to prospect, learning to navigate different organisations and their complexity without getting bogged down or limiting the pipeline, is a tough nut to crack. To get the ball rolling it can be worth looking at outsourcing a portion of your inside sales activity to get some of those big contracts closed. The key differentiator in this area is often exceptional relationship building and attention to detail. An inside sales professional can be trusted to nurture your most valuable prospects through the entire sales cycle, as a true extension of your team, adding value to your brand and reputation.

In the meantime, it’s equally important to ensure a healthy influx of leads into the pipeline. That’s where outsourced lead generation activity simmering away in the background can be of huge benefit to your sales team. Sourcing new leads is time-consuming and costly; by removing the burden from internal resource you can focus your efforts on where you need to succeed, confident that a consistent supply of high quality leads will be delivered over time.

At Air, we’re experienced in working with clients to design sales strategies that deliver value from the outset. We deliver value and expertise to our clients’ prospects, at any point in the buying cycle, removing the pressure from your in-house team whilst guaranteeing quality and premium customer experience on your behalf. 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. Hear more from our existing customers here.

Ask The MD: What Trends Are You Seeing In Companies Outsourcing Their Sales Function?

Posted on by Doug Roots

 

In the fourth instalment of our ‘Ask The MD’ series we ask the question ‘what trends are you seeing in companies outsourcing their sales function?’. Find out the answer in this video featuring our Managing Director, Owen Richards, and sister company Forrest Marketing Group’s Managing Director, Richard Forrest.

 

 

 

 

Ask The MD: What Should Stop You Considering Outsourcing Your Lead Generation?

Posted on by Doug Roots

 

In the third instalment of our ‘Ask The MD’ series we ask the question ‘what should stop you considering outsourcing your lead generation?’. Find out the answer in this video featuring our Managing Director, Owen Richards, and sister company Forrest Marketing Group‘s Managing Director, Richard Forrest.

 

 

 

 

Ask The MD: What Should You Look For In An Outsourced Partner?

Posted on by Doug Roots

 

In the second instalment of our ‘Ask The MD’ series we ask the question ‘what should you look for in an outsourced partner?’. Find out the answer in this video featuring our Managing Director, Owen Richards, and sister company Forrest Marketing Group‘s Managing Director, Richard Forrest.

 

 

 

 

Ask The MD: How Important Is Traditional Sales Prospecting In Today’s Digital Age?

Posted on by Doug Roots

 

In the first instalment of our ‘Ask The MD’ series we ask the question ‘how important is traditional sales prospecting in today’s digital age?’. Find out the answer in this video featuring our Managing Director, Owen Richards, and sister company Forrest Marketing Group‘s Managing Director, Richard Forrest.

 

 

 

 

Growing a team of Sales Development Representatives (SDR’s) Vlog #4

Posted on by Doug Roots

 

In the fourth instalment of our series we ask the question ‘what are your challenges in growing a team of SDR’s in a tech company?’. Find out the answer in this vlog hosted by our MD, Owen Richards featuring Air’s Sales Director Simon Scott-Nelson.

 

 

 

You’ve secured investment, now what?

Posted on by Doug Roots

You can still hear the echoes of the champagne corks popping but you know the real work lies ahead. Any business that’s been through rounds of investor pitches, meticulously prepared presentations and hundreds of handshakes to successfully secure investment, knows that feeling of celebratory relief. When you’ve been focussed on securing the money for so long it’s hard to shift to the next phase. Your strategy is clear…in theory. And now someone else believes you can do it too, which presents a new pressure, living up to the pitch.

How do you ensure you make your budgets work as hard as possible, so you can deliver the profitability your investors need to see and achieve your predicted growth?

Start with a solid self-appraisal

You’ve likely got a very strong idea or product to sell, some great market insight and a formidable sales strategy. What do you think will be the hardest part of your strategy to get right? Are you struggling to distil the benefits of your product into a targeted marketing strategy? Maybe you need help reaching decision makers. It’s worth thinking about this at the outset. If you’re in the SaaS industry, for example and the bulk of your time and expertise has been focussed on developing your software, it’s going to be a steep learning curve for your team in areas where your strategy demands immediate excellence in sales or marketing. Look at your budget and make some decisions about buying in expertise. Working with experts who can nail your brief and give it the time and attention it deserves, will save you money in the long run.

Don’t limit your own success

Maybe you really are the best person to do it all, but think of the scale of the opportunity. Do you have time to do everything? Or, will you free up valuable diary space if you carefully outsource elements that you believe you could oversee with a guiding hand? Think about where your money and your time are best spent. If you’re the face and the voice of the business, you’ll eventually need to relinquish some of the day-to-day.

Build your supplier network

A trusted supplier is genuinely worth their weight in gold. They can give you a steer on where to allocate budget and where you’ll get the most return on investment, provide a valuable sounding board for any ideas or concerns you may have and genuinely look out for opportunities on your behalf. Good suppliers are an extension of your team, bridging that gap in knowledge and expertise and working with you collaboratively to achieve mutual success. They won’t sell you anything you don’t need but instead make even the tightest budget align with your business aims.

You can be ambitious and realistic

When it comes to your business, there’s nothing wrong in thinking big. We’re living in an age of business insight, if you’ve got an ambitious target in mind you can work out what your conversion of leads needs to be to achieve your goals. A trusted supplier can advise of typical conversion rates and how they’ve achieved this for their other clients, giving you an educated idea of what’s realistic for your business and your timescales.

At Air Marketing, we’re experienced in working with clients 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 for budgets that need to deliver 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, call us on 0345 241 3038. Or hear more from our existing customers here.

My 5 Tips to Personal Development

Posted on by Doug Roots

I started my journey with Air Marketing back in 2018 as a Business Development Executive. I really enjoyed the role, the culture and the opportunities that were clearly available from this position. But I was hungry for growth and I knew I wanted to develop my career, within the first year I quickly excelled and was rewarded with the management of my first account. I was thrilled by this opportunity to really show what I was made of and also to give the client the best experience of working with Air.

Fast forward to today, just over a year later and I’m stepping into one of just three Account Manager roles, with my sole focus to deliver ROI for our ever-growing client base.

I wanted to share with you how I got here, so these are my 5 focus areas:

Training

I’m a huge believer in achieving anything, if you’re willing to learn and open to change. Within my time at Air I’ve had the opportunity to learn from various senior team members and taken part in some fantastic training sessions. These have been vital to my progression as it doesn’t feel like I have ever stopped learning. My favourite training was a Time Management session run by our in-house Learning and Development Co-ordinator. It taught me how to balance my workload and keep stress levels under control, which is vital in a fast pace, high performance environment like Air.

Feedback

I may be a Gen Z; however I don’t agree with snowflake culture that the generation has been tarred with. I value and really take on board feedback from those more knowledgeable both inside and outside of work to aid my professional development. Sometimes the feedback has been negative, but I always feel you can take learnings and constructive criticism from these moments. Being in sales I have a tough skin anyway!

Honesty

Yes, honesty. I’ve always taken the approach of transparency with my colleagues and clients. It’s something that fits well in our culture and something we pride ourselves on at Air. You can’t lie when it comes to statistics and data. If you’re honest with clients this will create a strong and respectful relationship for the future.

Creative thinking

A large proportion of my role is process driven, with this we see consistency of delivery and of results. However, you need to be one step ahead in account management. This means you need to be thinking of new ideas all the time to keep things fresh. Nine times out of ten your original strategy is going to change, and you will need to adapt to this to keep on the front foot.

Passion

I believe that passion is the biggest thing you need to get to the next step. I love what I do, and I am lucky to work in a culture that nurtures that passion and ignites it even further. Being dedicated to reach your goal is important and it is this drive and dedication that will see you become successful.

I’m looking forward to everything 2020 has in store in my new role, working with more fantastic clients and achieving great results for them. If you’re interested in joining Team Air, visit our careers page or call 0345 241 3038.

Opinion piece by Gracie-May Bryan, Account Manager at Air Marketing Group

The real differences between telemarketing, telesales and inside sales: could this be the key to a winning sales strategy?

Posted on by Doug Roots

Even the most experienced sales professional might struggle to pin down a comprehensive definition for each discipline and others might not differentiate at all; so it’s not hard to understand where the confusion arises.

The sales and marketing landscapes have vastly changed in the past decade. Digital marketing, content marketing and sales enablement specialisms have emerged alongside the advent of marketing automation and analytics tools. As a result, businesses are closer to their customer data than ever before, meaning campaigns can be focused and personal, and sales and marketing professionals can become laser-focused on their target market. You might ask what does this have to do with telemarketing, telesales and inside sales? The answer, absolutely everything. 75% of companies say closing more deals is their top sales priority, yet 40% of salespeople say getting a response from prospects is getting harder (source: Hubspot). It’s these solutions that help bring businesses closer to the decision maker, generating meaningful leads and supporting your overarching sales goals and objectives. Here’s how.

Telemarketing – a vital part of your outbound strategy

There’s a huge difference between a telemarketer reading a tired, poorly thought out script in an uninspiring environment and outsourcing the job to a professional and dynamic agency who can demonstrate genuine return on investment through happy clients. Highly trained telemarketers are skilled sales professionals, adept at staying on brand and message whilst nurturing a conversation. They are focused on building rapport with your desired targets and delivering detailed reporting that helps you inform and shape your future campaigns. The best agencies offer you full transparency, connecting you to the team making the calls, live reporting and a dedicated campaign manager. They will provide you with a true extension of your in-house team.

Telesales – professionalism and scalability

Telesales is a slightly different focus. Homing in on the sale of a specific product or service, it’s ideal for businesses that might need to scale up their sales resource around a product launch or campaign. Done well, this approach is far cry from the high volume, light touch methods some might associate with telesales; it can help you increase conversion rates and boost your brand in the markets you need to be known. These skilled telesales professionals can build valuable customer relationships without the hard sell.

Inside sales – turning interested prospects into active clients

Inside sales teams target prospects and customers through email, phone conversations or online through LinkedIn, business groups and forums. These professionals are not only skilled in the art of identifying opportunities for upsell and nurturing conversations through a sales pipeline but a valuable support to traditional ‘outside sales’ identifying key opportunities beyond the scope of their role. Converting a sales lead into a valued customer can be challenging to say the least, this is where inside sales comes into its own, taking greater ownership for nurturing this valuable conversion process.

We understand the reasons driving the decision to outsource are often complex. You might want to save time, protect your internal resource, or bring in the expertise you need, when you need it. Whether you have a project in mind or if you’d like to explore how our services could support your business and sales objectives, we’d welcome the opportunity to take this forward and 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.

Myth busting the ‘disadvantages’ of telemarketing

Posted on by Doug Roots

It’s common knowledge that the telemarketing industry carries with it strong stereotypes. The word ‘telemarketing’ has a negative connotation for many and this has resulted in an abundance of myths becoming associated with telemarketing.

This is extremely unfortunate for one of the most direct routes to market with incredible case studies to back it up. As a company that sees our clients get great results out of telemarketing campaigns, we’ve set out to debunk these and explore why they really are just myths.

FALSE: Telemarketing diallers always have to stick to scripts
Sticking to strict scripts does not result in conversations that are tailored to each and every individual on the phone. Although there may be some structure to the calls, a strict script is not adhered to. This enables real conversations that adapt to the prospect’s needs, build a relationship and trust in your brand.

FALSE: There’s no emotion – each call is just a number
If our diallers had no emotion and didn’t care, we wouldn’t have achieved what we had in the last financial year. Each call isn’t just a call. It’s a conversation which looks in to pain points and reasons why a service or product might help someone. This therefore requires a deeper and emotional understanding that goes way beyond statistics.

FALSE: Complex products or services can’t be sold over the phone
This all comes down to training. We would agree that without the right training, no product or service can be sold over the phone. If you’re looking to work with an outsourced telemarketing supplier, it’s important to understand that full training is carried out in order for telemarketers to be confident in what they’re talking about. At Air, we work on a vast range of products and services, which means we have to be seriously clued up on the details of each and what they could potentially offer a prospect. In the last financial year, we conducted 534 hours 45 minutes of training focused on our clients’ products and services.

FALSE: Telemarketers are inexperienced staff that don’t stick around
The phrase ‘call centre’ brings with it connotations which surround the idea of young and inexperienced team members who leave not long before their seat is warm. At Air, our diallers are ex-directors, business owners and sales professionals from a variety of backgrounds, spanning a wide age range. We take pride in nurturing all employees who wish to build a career with us – read Yasmin’s story here.

FALSE: Dishonest or aggressive methods are used to win sales
The belief that telemarketers hammer the phones, they’re aggressive and their practices are dishonest is one that is far from true. Before any campaign, we ensure that our data is as clean as possible with the right information and that we adhere to any TPS registers. Ethical selling and quality assurance are at the top of our priority list.

FALSE: Cold calling is dead
And this is the biggest myth of them all! There’s an ongoing debate which is based on the concept that cold calling just doesn’t work anymore. This simply isn’t true. Moreover, the results from both telemarketing and multi-channel marketing campaigns are proving this ideology wrong every year. In fact, our clients make an average return of £18 for every £1 they spent with us.

At Air Marketing Group, we don’t throw mud at a wall and hope some of it sticks; we look to nurture leads to encourage conversions. Read our top 10 tips for successful telemarketing blog here.

We’re passionate about the way we work with your business. We’ll ensure that any questions or uncertainties you may have surrounding a campaign with us are answered.

To arrange a free consultation with one of our Sales Directors, get in touch today or call 0345 241 3038.