Twenty years ago this month, Valerie Schlitt started her own call center business in the family room of her South Jersey home. With two close friends as her first employees and a local elder law attorney as her first client, the future of the company was anything but certain.
Two decades later, it’s safe to call her business venture an unqualified success.
VSA Prospecting now boasts more than 100 employees and is recognized as a best-in-class lead generation and appointment-setting firm, serving high-profile clients around the world.
“I’m floored that I’ve built something like this—I can hardly believe we’re 20 years old and going strong. It really is incredible to me,” Valerie says. “But there’s no way anybody does these kinds of things on their own. There have been so many dedicated, amazing people along the way who have helped grow VSA with their great ideas and commitment and passion.”
Leading VSA has been a win-win-win scenario for Valerie—she’s experienced personal growth, fulfilled the increasingly complex needs of clients, and created an employee-friendly work environment. She has especially loved learning so much about what drives the world economy.
To celebrate VSA’s 20th anniversary, here are 20 qualities we believe make us special:
1. We’re good people: VSA has always prided itself on retaining its “family room” culture. As one of our clients put it in a Clutch review: “VSA’s employees are super-happy, satisfied, and engaged.”
2. We’re officially a great place to work: Our employees have voted VSA one of the best places to work in the greater Philadelphia region multiple times in recent years. Happy workers make for happy clients!
3. We’re multi-talented: Whether its cold calls or warm leads or membership drives or market surveys or whatever else a client needs, there are numerous ways we help companies fill their sales pipelines.
4. We’re a loyal and reliable partner: We work with some of the largest companies in the world and have had clients stay with us more than 10 years.
5. We’re flexible: We specialize in setting sales appointments for clients with complex offerings—particularly those in the healthcare, education, manufacturing/logistics, and technology sectors. But we’ll work with any company that needs a hand; our clients run the gamut from local businesses to international corporations.
6. We’re collaborative: VSA treats each client as a teammate, a philosophy summed up by one of our core values: “Cultivate win/win relationships with every client.”
7. We’re detail-oriented: From creating a meticulously vetted target list to crafting a clear, compelling message, we definitely sweat the small stuff—which pays big dividends in the end.
8. We’re efficient: Our conversation accelerator advantage program dramatically increases the number of connections our business development representatives (BDRs) can make in an hour—a key reason our conversation rate exceeds the industry average.
9. We’re problem solvers: We know that not every program is going to run perfectly from the start. But our team is always quick to look for solutions.
10. We’re charitable: VSA has donated to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southern New Jersey for 10 consecutive years and contributed to other worthy causes. Valerie is also a member of Impact100, a South Jersey-based philanthropic women’s group.
11. We’ve made an international impact: Our offices are in South Jersey and Philadelphia, but our reach is global—we’ve got clients throughout the United States and the world.
12. We’re sophisticated: With state-of-the-art voice, data, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and other software capabilities, we’ve come a long way from the six phone lines in Valerie’s family room.
13. We’re adaptable: Sometimes, companies hire us to do one thing, and we end up pivoting to something completely different based on a program’s evolving needs. We’re never stuck in neutral.
14. We’re transparent: Our clients never have to guess how well we’re doing for them. We communicate regularly through weekly reports and status updates. No secrets here!
15. We’re professional: Our BDRs are among the most tenured and experienced callers in the business, with a wealth of knowledge and skills for engaging with prospects.
16. But we’re also a fun bunch: A little levity can go a long way. Just ask anybody who’s heard our COO Michele Plunket’s bursts of laughter echoing down the halls of our South Jersey office.
17. We’re thorough: There’s a reason our onboarding process with most new clients takes a few weeks. We always make sure we’re as prepared as possible before we start calling.
18. We never stop learning: Familiarizing ourselves with our clients’ goods and services doesn’t end when a program launches. We’re always open to new strategies and ideas to best meet each of their needs.
19. We’re still on the rise: Nobody needs to worry about us getting complacent on our milestone anniversary. Just the opposite, actually—our recent revenue growth has earned us a spot on Philadelphia Business Journal’s “Soaring 76” list of the region’s fastest-growing companies for a third consecutive year.
20. We’re experienced: We haven’t seen quite everything in 20 years, but we’ve seen enough to learn plenty about the art of cold calling, appointment setting and lead generation. We would love to share our experience with you.
Just give us a call.
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