26 Questions to Ask a

Understand the differences in the outbound telesales industry and what vendor business model is the best match for your company:

ThereThere are three primary business models to choose from when looking to outsource sales appointment generation and lead generation. (1) Telemarketing Firms who offer a scripted cold call strategy to find prospects who will agree to a meeting or to receive more information from your sales rep. This is a one-call-close guided by a telemarketer who is paid on each occurrence of a prospect agreeing to a meeting or to receive more information; (2) Call Centers who also offer a scripted cold call strategy but the call center agent has a customer service profile meaning their sales skills are lite to non-existent; (3) DemandDemand Generation Firms involve a Lead Nurturing approach which includes a multi-touch process blended with marketing activities including outbound calls, follow-up nurturing, email, whitepapers, and web. This process supports appointment setting, lead generation and event attendee generation programs.

Key questions when interviewing vendors:

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LEAD GENERATION VENDOR

1. How many reps do you have? How many managers and non-reps? (Beware a top-heavy organization.)2. What is your employee turnover rate for reps and managers? 3. What is the average tenure of your reps? 4. What is your reps' experience in my industry?5. How are your reps paid?6. Will I be able to talk to and train the rep assigned to our campaign?7.7. Do your reps use email? If so, how?8. How is qualification criteria developed? 9. What makes a billable meeting? 10. How do we reject a meeting and why would we?11. How do you assist your clients in measuring the success of the program?12. Can I have an example of a campaign that failed, and why?13. Can I have an example of a campaign that succeeded?14.14. Do you have Case Studies you can send me today?15. What is your pricing model? Pay for performance? Monthly fee?16. Do you outsource or offshore any of this program?17. How is messaging created? Do you work from scripts? 18. Can we come for a site visit?19. Where do you get contact data for campaigns?20. Is there a fee for contact data acquisition?21.21. Are there campaign set-up fees?22. What guarantees do you provide?23. Who are your closest competitors?24. What is your client onboarding process?25. When will our first leads show up?26. When we get a lead/meeting, what exactly do we get? Can you provide us a sample?

On some level, every business fuels their sales pipeline with leads. However, not all business are able (or willing) to do it themselves – perhaps based on size, cost, scope, etc. In which case, they may choose to employ a lead generation company or an appointment setting firm... and there are lots to choose from. B2B lead generation companies can significantly decrease your time to revenue – but choose wisely. A poor choice could result in a wasted time and resources with unqualified prospects, so it is important to know what to look for when deciding on outsourced lead generation.

For more information on SalesStaff’s award-winning demand generation programs, visit For more information on SalesStaff’s award-winning demand generation programs, visit www.prosalesstaff.com or call 888-591-8022 Ext 333.

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