For telesales groups that target the SMB segment (Small, Medium Business), the dynamics are very different than in pursuing large mid-market or enterprise accounts.

In targeting the vast SMB market through lead generation, the challenge for telesales is to break into large numbers of accounts without the luxury of referrals or deep account insight.

The issue of minimal customer insight is problematic for both outbound cold calling and the telequalification of responders where limited profiling information exists. The issue is exacerbated by the demanding metrics set for telesales.

The recognition that the internet has enabled buyers to be in control of the buying process creates formidable challenges to telesales: how to be knowledgeable, consultative and bring value to the discussion.

For many organizations, the resources for telesales enablement may limited adding to the woes of telesales.

So what to do? How can you trade-off between efficiency and effectiveness?

Let’s start with an example of what not to do:

Hi Mr. Lesser, I am calling today after reviewing your website. Our solution is well-suited to your company. It will help you save at least 10% in costs…

The problem with this approach is that the sales rep is calling under false pretenses – hardly a way to build a rapport with a prospect. By their generic value proposition it becomes clear that the only thing customized about their pitch is the use of your name.

For fun, try this out: ask the telesales rep why he/she believes that their solution is a good fit to your company based on their review of your website.

In contrast, my suggested approach digs deeper but still allows you to work on a shoestring lead generation budget.

Segment your List & Segment your Messages
By segmenting your list based on criteria such as size of organization or preferably, industry/vertical market, you will be able to use the power of mass customization.

A message using industry vernacular to articulate how your solution addresses industry pain points can be an effective door opener.

Although not as effective, as communicating to account-specific pain points, it can build credibility and give you the ‘right’ to ask more detailed, account questions.

Fact-Find Low, Call High
A year ago, Paul McCord, sales trainer, consultant and author, blogged about how he prospected. Paul’s approach to sell his firm’s services was to call ‘low’ into an account to discover pain points and potentially generate an internal referral to a senior decision-maker.

Then, armed with account insight, Paul calls to the decision-maker with stellar results.

To economize, this approach can be well-adapted to high volume telesales by interviewing only one low level contact prior to approaching the senior decision-maker and limiting the number of call attempts.

Use Trigger Marketing
Just as consumers who move through life stages, the buying cycle for businesses can be triggered by milestone events such as changes in the executive suite, mergers & acquisitions, office relocations, the bankruptcy of the vendor of an installed solution etc.

Lists that track these triggers are broadly available and also with such tools such as InsideView.

Overlaying this data onto your database can flag accounts that then can be batched and targeted by telesales.

Telesales faces very different pressures than field sales. Some of the above approaches are used by field sales in a similar fashion but the approaches described here reflect the unique requirements of the world of telesales.

Photo credit: Balancing act by theDQT

Dan Maier’s title is as long as it is deep: VP Worldwide Inside Sales & North America Mathcad Sales, PTC (see Dan’s photo on the left that I snapped at the Sales 2.0 Conference in Boston).

Like many enterprise software developers, PTC has moved downmarket to sell to SMB accounts (Small & Medium size Businesses). The creation of a strong inside sales team structure complemented by sales through the channel, reflects the economics of selling profitably to this market segment. According to ChannelWeb, 21% of PTC’s revenue is driven through 400 global PTC partners.

At the Sales 2.0 Conference, Dan discussed how PTC has successfully targeted the SMB space by leveraging inside sales. With $1 billion in revenue and 62,082 customers, PTC’s average yearly revenue per customer, including services, is just over $17,000 (from SMB to Enterprise accounts).

PTC’s Siebel CRM system covers the universe of manufacturing accounts. According to Dan, PTC is only adding a couple of thousand net new accounts per year. However, PTC needed to broaden the list of contacts at each existing account. By choosing Jigsaw, PTC significantly improved their prospect conversion rate.

The PTC inside sales team’s objectives are to conduct 250 to 275 calls per week with talk time of 12.5+ hours.

After Dan’s presentation at the Sales 2.0 Conference in Boston, I asked: is Sales 2.0 an evolution or a revolution?

Dan quickly answered that Sales 2.0 is an evolution. However, he is concerned that his sales team will be inundated with technology. Dan maintains that there has to be a balance between the new facets of Sales 2.0 with standard best practices and core selling skills.

When asked about whether Sales 2.0 was helping to close the gap between empowered buyers and his telesales team, Dan responded that SMB buyers are more agile and conduct more online research than Enterprise buyers. Sales 2.0 has helped PTC to close the gap with SMB buyers. However, there is not as much a gap to close with Enterprise buyers.

With half of his team of 75 outside of the US, Dan is challenged in rolling out Sales 2.0 practices in countries that are well behind the US.

Dan mentioned that there are constant challenges in aligning sales and marketing. Dan is looking for a better framework for sales and marketing to evaluate the effectiveness of Sales 2.0

Finally, Dan talked to me about the biggest impact of Sales 2.0: the metric to evaluate his telesales team has moved from tracking the number of calls to talk time. For Dan, Sales 2.0 has enabled this transition.

To view more pictures of Dan and all of the other speakers in Boston, check out my 27 photos on Flickr.

Joining Dan on his panel at the Sales 2.0 Conference was Travis Fore of Network Solutions. For my interview of Travis, please see my blog post interview of Travis Fore.

Sales 2.0 Boston Conference Links

Sales 2.0 Conference website by Selling Power

Social Networking in Sales: Show Me the Money by Anneke Seley, The Sales 2.0 Advocate blog

The Sales 2.0 Conference Post by Geoffrey James, BNET blog

“Loose Talk” at the Sales 2.0 Conference, Boston, MA by Marci Reynolds, Sales Operations blog

Sales 2.0 Lessons from the Twitteratti by Parker Trewin, B2B Marketing for Faster Sales blog

Photos of Speakers and Attendees at the Sales 2.0 Conference by Robert Lesser

Network Solutions Levers Sales 2.0 for a 360 degree customer view by Robert Lesser, Acquiring Minds blog