Sadly, it often takes a bad experience with a telemarketing service to appreciate a good one.

One of the most constant pieces of feedback we get from new clients is the difference they experience working with us compared with their previous lead generation partners.

In our latest case study, Brendan Drury, Orbit World Travel’s Managing Director said: “From my perspective, the difference between using Hot Leads and our results from the previous two to three years is like comparing night and day.”

Here comes the sun again.

After outsourcing their lead generation services to a local company for several years, Brendan wasn’t happy with the results. A lack of quality information combined with a disappointing volume of appointments led them to pull the plug on their investment. Dark days, indeed!

And he’s not alone. We’ve won the hearts of many clients who have been just about ready to give up on finding a telemarketing company they can trust to deliver results.

So what makes us shine so bright?

1. We keep a tight focus on the quality of the data we collect – making sure it’s accurate, current and appropriate. As far as we’re concerned, near enough is never good enough.
2. We find the people you need to connect with – we’re great at tracking down those hard-to-find-and-even-harder-to-reach decision-makers. Yes, we’re rottweilers of the telemarketing world, smart, strong, tenacious and well-trained!
3. We make you look good – we’re professional, local, friendly, approachable and take pride in representing your brand and explaining your value proposition. We think on our feet and don’t use scripts, so the people we call won’t even realise that we aren’t your employees. Our consultants get rave reviews!
4. We help you break into new markets – we’ve delivered significant, high-value opportunities to our customers in industry sectors they’ve only dreamed of penetrating. We’ve literally seen jaws drop when our clients see who we’ve arranged for them to meet.
5. We generate detailed reporting – we collect a wealth of valuable information, so you always know what’s in the pipeline.
6. We give valuable advice – we can help you improve outcomes through our knowledge and experience.
7. And we do it all with a smile. Because we’re doing what we love.

Ready to walk into the light? Call us.

lisa@hotleads.co.nz

 

We are the best paying lead generation company in New Zealand. Our clients have high expectations of us, so naturally, we have equally high expectations of our people. It will come as no surprise that we’re super picky about who joins our team.

Why? Well, we recruit people who differentiate us from the big, impersonal New Zealand-based or offshore call centres, and help us achieve results our clients can count on. They are the ‘face’ of our business, so we can’t afford to settle for the wrong person. We also like stayers, people we can invest in.

Every time we place a recruitment advertisement we receive hundreds of applications. But volume doesn’t mean quality, so there have been times where we’ve hired no-one at all.

What do we look for?

Great communicators. Our people have impeccable oral and written communication skills. They talk clearly and very confidently, and are easy to understand. They enjoy engaging with prospects; it’s not forced. Their maturity and professionalism shines through – these are people you can trust. And when they need to send a follow-up email it’s always grammatically correct and professional (yet friendly).

Keyboard ninjas: As part of our work we collect a lot of contact names, email addresses, phone numbers, job titles, mailing addresses, etc. These can be for lead generation or database cleansing projects. Data accuracy is crucial in our business, so excellent alpha and numeric keyboard skills are a must.

Attitude adjusted: We don’t hire students. They may be bright, lovely and enthusiastic, but we prefer our team members to come ready seasoned with exposure to the world of business, and with the EQ you only get from years of successful adult interaction and negotiation. With that knowledge comes a natural confidence and genuine empathy that you just can’t fake. Our people usually have a background in business sales/telemarketing, so they have the skills and aptitude to hit the phones running.

Self-starters. Being self-motivated is a biggie. Our team members work from their own homes, so they are disciplined and focussed. We expect our people to be at the top of their game all the time, so our working week is just 25 hours. Traditional call centres operate 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, but you can bet that their efficacy in generating opportunities goes down the longer they are on the phone. We prefer to avoid burnout – fresh is best!

Flexible and fabulous: Sometimes we need to switch campaigns at short notice. Our team members have to jump on to a new campaign, or split the effort on a project someone else is working on. The ability to absorb information and get up to speed on the spot is critical. Our people not only need to act as motivated individuals but as supportive team players.

IT’s so hot right now: Many of our team have experience in the IT sector – the technology sector is one of our sweet spots. So, while not vital, IT’s nice to have!

As with anything in life, it’s people who make a world of difference. And our guys all have an awesome attitude. As a team we celebrate each other’s wins, share experiences and take on board lessons learned. We’re all about making every client campaign the best it can be.

PS: If you think you’d make the cut, feel free to reach out to me.

lisa@hotleads.co.nz

I know I blogged on this just a few weeks ago, but seriously, given the time of the year this is a topic worth revisiting.

The New Year period can be sluggish and stressful for many businesses. Staff holidays and shutdown time can take a big toll on company finances, so it’s always critical to get back to business-as-usual as quickly as possible.

With your sales team back in the office and feeling invigorated after a break, there couldn’t be a better time to have a pile of appointments ready and waiting for them to attend. Or a 100% accurate and complete list of prospects to start off your first lead gen campaign for 2018.

Dust off your data, now!

Many of our clients provide us data which has, to be honest, seen better days. For example:

  1. Existing client and prospects lists that haven’t been consistently loved and maintained. People change jobs, businesses move, expand or even stop trading. If you did an audit on your CRM today, how accurate do you think your data will be?
  2. Purchased lists. OK, we know you paid good money for this, but how long ago? And was it a ‘good’ list to start with? Does it have the right contacts, are the companies the right size and sector to make great prospects? If the data is full of holes you need to make a hard call – will your investment ever pay off, or should you walk away and start afresh?

While I may sound like a broken record when I talk about data, it truly is the star on the top of the Christmas tree, (or the Central Otago cherry on top of the trifle). It’s just likely that it needs a good polish up before it pays off!

Existing lists

This is a great example of how to do it right!

We maintain a fund-raising list for one of our not-for-profit clients. When we run the telemarketing component of their annual corporate sponsorship campaign, they realise a $15 return for every $1 they spend with us.

That makes them very happy. And our team love working with clean, up-to-date lists.

We’re not wasting precious campaign time on cleaning up their database. When we start calling it’s all business – and it’s paid off big time for them and the New Zealanders they support.

Purchased lists

List buying is an art.

There are plenty of options, and the quality of information ranges dramatically from one source to another. (Tip: Only use highly reputable list procurement companies who invest in maintaining their data – that way you get a higher ROI. We can help you with this).

If you’re unsure about whether it’s worth pouring more money into a list you’ve purchased, spend an hour doing random calls to check on the quality of the data. This will give you an overview of how much work is required to get the list to a useable standard before committing to using it. You may decide to dump the data, but that’s a decision better made at the beginning of the process than the end.

Quick tip

Don’t put off dealing with your data until after Christmas, do it now.

Start 2018 as you plan to continue, with a strong pipeline well fueled with accurate data. While you may not be keen to work over the traditional Christmas holiday period, we are – and experience has taught us that the people we call at this time are more relaxed and chatty. We have better conversations with them, which leads to better 2018 pipelines for you.

lisa@hotleads.co.nz

We get it. It’s tempting to bring your lead generation activities under the one in-house umbrella to help drive down expenses and maintain control. But before you race out and start recruiting, there are two things you should consider:

1. What is the actual cost of having internal resources that you pay week in, week out?

2. What is the measurable value of building up an in-house lead generation team?

Cost – an internal resource vs. outsourced resource $ checklist

The table below identifies all those costs that are easy to forget about. It’s never just about salaries. Anyway, do the math for yourself.

 

 

INTERNAL RESOURCE IN-HOUSE COST (PA) OUTSOURCED RESOURCE
Recruitment costs, including training, and initial downtime until resource is up to speed $ None. Included in hourly rate.
Benefits load (average of 17% of salary) $ None. Included in hourly rate.
Facilities – rent, power, furniture, internet, kitchen, and bathroom, cleaning, etc $ None. Included in hourly rate
Training and certification $ None. Included in hourly rate
Management overhead – including time taken by managers and sales teams to coach and improve the performance of team members (often at the cost of other sales opportunities)/td> $ None. Included in hourly rate
Hardware – phone, computer, monitors, etc $ None. Included in hourly rate
Software licensing – CRM, productivity software, telephone system $ None. Included in hourly rate
Sick leave and company healthcare schemes $ None. Included in hourly rate
Paid parental leave $ None. Included in hourly rate
Annual holidays and paid public holidays $ None. Included in hourly rate
TOTAL COST PER YEAR $ None. Included in hourly rate
TOTAL COST DIVIDED BY 2000 WORKING HOURS A YEAR $ PER HOUR $ PER HOUR

 

 

Once you’ve run through this checklist, we’re pretty confident that you’ll find running an in-house team is going to cost you more.

You may be paying for 2000 hours of lead generation activity a year, but can you guarantee that each and every hour is spent on driving sales and nothing else? What if only 75-80% of those hours are productive? How does that impact your cost of sale and bottom line?

But focussing on just costs can be misleading.

Let’s talk about value

Value isn’t about cost. It’s about the return on investment (ROI) you get for all the hard work that goes into building a successful, motivated and high-performing team who generate consistent and predictable telesales results.

It’s about the times between campaigns when there’s not a smooth transition to the next project, and your team is sitting around, trying to look busy and keep morale up. And the wasted hours you’re paying for when they aren’t working.

Or the effort of ramping up your full-time and part-time resource recruitment programme to tackle an extensive long or short-term campaign, and the expense and heartbreak of downsizing your team if you change sales strategies.

And then there’s the boredom factor. While you may find your own company and products endlessly fascinating, focussing endlessly on the same subject can be exhausting for staff, and burnout in these circumstances tends to be high. The results of burnout include increased absenteeism, waning commitment, falling productivity and effectiveness, more conflict with co-workers, and even disruptive behaviour. It’s not surprising that recruitment is a constant activity for some companies!

In a nutshell

We recruit, train and manage lead generation professionals, so you don’t have to.

Due to the variety of projects we undertake, our people are continually learning, so they remained challenged and interested – and stay longer. We provide real economies of scale, so you can run a campaign that spans weeks months, or even years without increasing your own staff overheads.

And most importantly – we make every dollar count. If you pay us for 2000 hours of effort a year, that’s exactly what you get.

lisa@hotleads.co.nz