The Christmas season is a joyous time for retailers, who typically enjoy their most lucrative profits of the year each December.
For B2B companies, especially those offering big-ticket items with complex sales processes, the holidays seemingly aren’t so kind. Reaching prospects may be difficult, and getting them to squeeze in an appointment is equally challenging.
Or is it? Some prospects might have more time to talk during the holiday season, especially if they’re working during a time when their office is relatively quiet and there are fewer distractions. Increased access to cellphone numbers acquired throughout the pandemic means many prospects are easier to reach than during past holiday seasons. And with plenty of B2B salespeople taking time off this month, there’s not as much competition vying for prospects’ attention.
Often, it depends on the market you’re trying to reach, and the product or service you’re offering. Scaling down lead-generation programs during the holidays makes sense for some companies, while others may find it beneficial to ramp up their outbound sales efforts.
Either way, it’s imperative to have the flexibility to adjust. It can be difficult and costly to make those adjustments internally, but partnering with the right lead gen and appointment-setting firm can ease that burden.
At VSA, we’re able to customize your program to best meet your needs, even if that means altering calling hours from week to week. We’ve worked with companies who have paused calling campaigns around the holidays, and others who have increased their calling hours the week between Christmas and New Year’s. It all depends on what makes the most sense for you.
Here are some of the ways VSA ensures we’re able to accommodate our clients’ evolving needs around the holidays … or any time of year:
1. Flexible scheduling
Each week, our Business Development Representatives (BDRs) are assigned hours based on how much calling time our clients require. Thanks to the size and diversity of our client base, it is relatively easy for us to shift BDR hours as needed from week to week. This flexible scheduling model enables us to thrive where others fall short. Even if your campaign requires early-morning, late-evening, or weekend dialing (maybe you’re in a different time zone, or maybe your prospect base just works atypical hours), we can oblige.
2. Team-based calling
It’s understandable that our BDRs would want to take a few days off this time of year. Family time around the holidays is important. But our team-based strategy ensures that if a program requires a certain number of callers, even around holiday time, we’re able to provide them. Because each of our programs is handled by a team of BDRs working together, they’re not dependent on a single person’s schedule.
The team-based approach also means each BDR develops expertise on multiple programs. That policy is good for the BDRs, because it helps them attain a range of unique skillsets while avoiding the burnout phenomena that often occurs when calling on one program exclusively. Finally, it’s great for our clients, because it guarantees they’ll always have skilled and knowledgeable BDRs calling on their behalf, regardless of internal schedules.
3. Adaptable messaging
Just because we develop a calling script at the start of your campaign, it doesn’t mean that’s the script we’ll be using throughout our partnership with you. VSA prides itself on maintaining a true collaborative relationship with our clients, meeting weekly to ensure we’re taking whatever steps are necessary to achieve program excellence.
If you want to tweak your messaging to tie in with the holidays or any other occasion throughout the year, we can update the script to reflect the changes. One of our current clients is offering a special December promotion, and we were able to quickly work that into the start of the script. The adjusted messaging can also apply to emails we send out and voicemails we leave.
4. Customized campaigns
No two client programs are exactly alike, which means no two calling schedules are exactly alike. Many of our clients have times of the year that are significantly busier than others—immediately before or after webinars, for example. Or maybe there’s a new product launch on the horizon and a need to quickly gather market intelligence. That’s why we give our clients an opportunity to request changes to the calling schedule on a weekly basis and are always willing to accommodate.
Sometimes, suggested changes to the schedule come from us, when data we’ve accumulated throughout a campaign reveals new insights into a client’s prospect base, such as the best times of the week to call. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure you’re getting maximum productivity from your calling hours.
Conclusion
Generating leads around the holidays can be a double-edged sword. You don’t want to waste employee hours calling seemingly unreachable prospects, but you also don’t want to leave yourself short-staffed for the prospects who are not only reachable, but genuinely interested in what you have to say.
Partnering with VSA helps you avoid both extremes. By collaborating closely with you, we’re able to deliver exactly the number of hours that make the most sense for your campaign.
If you’re looking for new ways to build your sales funnel in 2022, give us a call and let us help you develop a program that’s right for your business.