Quick introduction
Hey everyone, it’s me Daniel, who is talking to you.
I am 22 years old, live in Germany and I am happy to have the chance to do a work experience for four weeks in England.

Usual friendly English people
After we arrived in the very beautiful city Brighton, we went to our host families and I think I do not lie if I say all our host families are fine. In the first week we went to the LTC – Language Teaching Centres and had very nice lessons to improve our English. All teachers were very cute and we had a lot of fun at school. But not only the teachers in school have got a nice character, it seems to be that all English people are very helpful, friendly and polite.

About multilingual lead generation and telemarketing company Qualifa!
This impression was also confirmed at the first day here at the multilingual lead generation and telemarketing company “Qualifa” (which is in the centre of the Brighton and is very easy to arrive at) too. Everybody at “Qualifa” helps you to assimilate you very fast and from the first day I felt very welcome. The atmosphere in the office is very nice, too. And if you have got a problem, I am sure there will not be one, because you find every time one person, who speaks your language, doesn’t matter Spanish, French, German, Italian etc..

Learn more than making coffee or tea
I did not really need to wait a long time to get my first exercise. It was maybe about five minutes after the nice introduction and walk around the company, when I started with my first challenge. I had to find out contact details of persons by phoning or Internet searching. It is interesting and exciting work, because of that you do not need to watch your clock all the time and think about when you are finally finished. So you are not at “Qualifa” to be exploited, in the opposite, everybody is happy about your work!

I never feel bored
Not alone working is very nice in Brighton. After you have finished work at “Qualifa” you have got only a five minutes walk to go to the beautiful beach. There you can relax after work, if the sun is shining, of course. Otherwise you can go shopping and do a lot of interesting things, so you will never feel bored!

For the future
Finally I can say it is a very nice time here in Brighton at the telemarketing company “Qualifa” and I would do this experience every time again. If you are thinking about a work experience, I can say to you “do it”, maybe at Qualifa, too.

A report of Daniel, Thank you!

Marcel’s time at Qualifa…

Let me introduce myself, my name is Marcel Meinert, I’m 21 years old and was born and live in Münster, Germany.  After finishing my A-Levels, I started an apprenticeship as an IT-specialist. In order to this I was informed about a scholarship from the EU, which helps apprentices to find a company in a foreign country which offers 4 weeks internships. The EU also financed the majority of the costs for the flights, the internship agency, and the accommodation. I decided to apply for the UK – Brighton, and after a long wait I got the confirmation. Soon the date of departure arrived and our group of 16 people started.

The first challenge in Brighton was to settle down in the host family. But don’t worry, the first experience you will have is how polite, friendly and patient the English people are. The first week you’ll spend in a language school, to refresh your English, become familiar with the differences in English people’s habits and behaviour, to learn more about the city of Brighton and to show you how working in an English company works. After all I’ve learnt more English in this one week than in 3 years of school English before.

In the second week you’ll start to work, in my case it was at Qualifa, a multilingual telemarketing service. I had actually no idea what kind of work waits for me, especially because I was provided for an other company, which refused just 3 days before I should starting to work and Qualifa stand in very spontaneous (what I really appreciate). First I was introduced to my colleagues and to Barbara, who supervised me in my projects.

From the first day I was given my first project which centres around contact research. In this project that means to call several companies and to find the Head of HR by asking. My colleagues were a great help and helped me with each problem and had good tips on how to call and get the right information. I was really positively surprised that I was used for the normal telemarketer work like everyone else here does, and not for typical boring trainee tasks like copying or making coffee! To summarise it I would say I got a really good insight in the business of Qualifa and a learnt a lot about telemarketing services.

I would like to thank the whole team for the support and possibility to work with them!

Marcel Meinert

How many different ways can you say hello? Well there is an estimated over 6000 languages spoken throughout the world, the majority of which are spoken by less than 1000 people. Nowadays most of us take communication for granted and the ways and speed in which we can do so is incredible.

Our multilingual telemarketing service allows companies to gain insight into perhaps previously unattainable markets and gain knowledge on what matters most to foreign companies. In my previous blog post I explained how multilingual telemarketing can help your business grow but I didn’t actually explain how we do what we do. So now I will give you a little insight into our multilingual telemarketing team.

We have a team of full time multilingual telemarketers and also some part time employees, that work as and when we get new campaigns and contracts. Our clients dictate which foreign languages we have flying around in the office and currently we have around 10 but this changes almost every day! It is great working in such a multilingual environment and learning new things every day, not many offices have those kinds of surroundings.

With each language and country that we work on, different challenges arise, especially when it comes to time differences and how our telemarketers find solutions. French, Spanish, German and Italian Telemarketing involves working around smaller time differences, yet they are still significant and rely on an understanding of the countries hours of work and when will be the most effective time to call and actually speak to the right people as its different for every country. As well as working on Pan-European contracts we work on Asia – Pacific and American time specifications. Our Japanese telemarketing relies on our dedicated telemarketers to work from the early hours of the morning to ensure that we can achieve our daily Japanese contact quotas for our clients, that kind of dedication and commitment sets us apart from other telemarketing companies.

Our diligence means we can span the entire globe and ensure that customers have complete country coverage and they know that we can be flexible when it comes to starting a new campaign or contract. Our multilingual telemarketers do initial contact research and refining then it is on to calling. The variety of languages and telemarketers that we have working for us means that we always have bilingual speakers on standby to cater to our clients needs, the fast reaction that we have to changes in demand make us unique. Our level of flexibility means that we can keep up with day to day changes in demand and client needs to guarantee that we give the best service possible and 100% quality leads.

Our multilingual telemarketing service is based upon the hard work of our telemarketers who not only speak a multitude of languages but who are extremely hardworking and dedicated to Qualifa and our client needs. Why not contact our Head of Sales James Lewendon to find out even more about our Multilingual telemarketing services on 0203 195 0001 or email james.lewendon@qualifa.co.uk .

However I’m going to look at a different angle to view sales lead generation. Not just through emailing and cold calling but through targeted calls with a sharp and smart pitch that gets straight to the crux of companies sales problems. With our long list of telemarketing services for example event attendees, profiling, market research and BANT research there is an area of telemarketing that would benefit any company. I mentioned BANT just then and this is an anagram for…

B = Budget
A = Authority
N = Need
T = Timescale

For many of our contracts we use BANT to make sure that all of our clients requirements for a particular lead is fulfilled. Im going to expand them a bit further and explain why they are key considerations when conducting and managing sales lead generation telemarketing campaigns.

Budget

Does the company your calling have a budget for what your asking? Would they be able to justify the amount of budget that you are looking for in a lead? Many people would be extremely reluctant to give information on budget to someone over the phone but with a few succinct questions it is possible to indirectly get the information that you need regarding budgets. Some of our databases also have the amount of people that work for any given target company and this is also a key consideration when debating a new call, would a company with 25 employees really have the need for major new IT network development?

Authority

Are you on the phone to the key decision maker when asking the qualifying questions? This is very important as our clients use the contact information that we find to build up their own database of key decision makers. It is also important so that you can get a direct answer from them so as to update your own notes and give more information to your own client.

Need

The need is more subjective, it is your own analysis after taking into account all other factors of whether this company would realistically have a need for the product or service that your client is offering. Need also links to…

Timescale

As if they say ‘we are not interested now but call us back in 6 months’, you can note it down as a positive lead as they have expressed a future possible need for your clients service, they have also given you a timescale which is good for managing your call backs and follow ups. Again this links to Authority as if you have found the correct point of contact getting a hold of them again will be a lot easier.

BANT is important when doing more in-depth profiling and lead generation but these four things are just a more specified view of what sales people should look for when developing and discovering leads. There are other factors that you can look at, but the above are, in my opinion, the most significant. There is going to be a part 2 of this blog where I shall be outlining more of our services and ways in which telemarketing can help you that you may have not thought of before. Until then why not get in touch and let us help you with your telemarketing needs.

So on Monday I came into work and the first thing I was told by my Manager was ‘Phoebe, I have some exciting news for you!’, he then proceeded to disappear to a meeting. So I sat at my desk working and wondering what the news would be, a new heater, a new client, a new office!?!

When he came back he said that we had been given a major sales campaign, by one of my clients to work on. At first I was extremely excited, thinking about the commission and prestige that went with managing such an important campaign. Then I started to think about what they had asked of us… 48 meetings in 2 and a half months, fully qualified with top brands…. and I started to panic.

However, this blog post is all about what you can do to fully prepare for a new campaign and how to make sure you don’t run out of data and consequently sit there twiddling your thumbs. As I have stated in previous blog posts, Sales Lead Generation is invaluable to every single company that operates, if no one will buy their product or service, then they are rendered obsolete. That is why I have the important task of finding these opportunities for our clients to go into a meeting, show them what they can do and how much they can benefit their company and hopefully they will leave the meeting with a new client opportunity.

So to start, it is imperative that you look at the data that you have, you need to have the right contacts within the right companies to target. You do not want to be wasting your time booking meetings with companies that your client does not want to see. Obviously with the brief you are given you should know the sectors to target, the seniority of the contacts to target and the qualifying questions you must ask. As we have a large database of contacts we can sift through them quickly and make large sub-databases full of people and companies to email and call. The problem with many databases that you can buy from the Internet is that the contacts are out of date, the emails may be wrong and they just are no use. That is why the data you use is very important to the success of a campaign, ensure that if you buy data in, that it is from a reputable seller, also do not underestimate the use of LinkedIn and Jigsaw for finding contacts.

So once you have a large database what is the next step? In my opinion it would have to be the pitch, a salesperson is only as good as their last pitch! It is essential that the Lead Generation pitch is eloquent, punchy, full of information and includes a call to action. Personalisation is also advantageous as it makes the reader of the email consider that it is not just a mass email marketing mail-out. So by adding the contacts job description and company that they work for, it can make people feel that we have taken the time to research the company and genuinely recognise that we can help them in some way. If your client has case studies you must also include them, so that the pitch is more interesting and engaging.

Lastly it is important to plan your activity down to the last detail, here is a list of how you should plan your time:

1. For your own use, plan how many emails you can send a day and set yourself goals, so that you stay focused for the duration, repeatedly sending emails can be tough!
2. Focus on a specific sector and then sub-section it so that you can mould the pitch exactly to fit each sector, for example for the retail pitch tweak it slightly for men’s and women’s retailers and department stores etc.
3. If you are doing the campaign with other members of staff, start some friendly competition and perhaps offer small prizes or bonus commission for the person who obtains the most meetings during the campaign.
4. Keep correspondence with your client, ensure that they are up to date with progress on a weekly and even daily basis. This allows the client to adjust the process if needs be and feel confident that you are doing all you can to reach their goals, as they want these meetings even more than you want the commission!
5. Use a mixture of targeted emails and calling to make sure that you get as much information as possible, some people do not get a chance to reply to emails and sometimes calling and speaking to the person you are trying to get hold of actually renders more information. After all they may not be looking for your service now but in 6-12 months time you could organise a meeting, you must always log these possibles as you will be grateful for them when the time comes!

To conclude as a Business Development Intern I have learnt just some of the ways of lead generation, but I am certain there is a lot more to learn! I hope that these tips help you in your own pursuit of new leads, however always remember that Qualifa is here to help, if you have an amazing digital media product or service and are not sure how to go about letting people know about it then send an email to james.lewendon@qualifa.co.uk and we can show you just how beneficial outsourcing Sales Lead Generation is.

All in all it has been an eventful few months with the ever present Qualifa drive and determination, we are continuing on in our never-ending search for new business opportunities and Leads for our growing client rosta.

I previously mentioned that my position at Qualifa is the first full time role that I have ever had, therefore starting my working life in a start-up company that was only around a year old when I joined has been an invaluable experience. I have witnessed first hand the growing pains that start-ups go through and the key decisions that are made when considering expenses like bigger offices or more staff, which taken at the wrong time can push a company under the profit margin. Qualifa has expanded and moulded its service portfolio around gaps we can see in the market, I know that Lord Alan Sugar started selling cigarette lighters under his Amstrad name and it is now a Global Telecoms company turning over Millions of pounds.

I feel that I have grown with the company as I continue to learn not just about Sales Lead Generation and marketing strategies, but also working environments, my own work ethic and what my own ambitions and plans are for the future.

So I am going to enjoy the ‘Dungeon’ whilst I can as in the next 6 months who knows where I will be writing this blog post from!

Multilingual telemarketing is therefore essential in providing a link between you and markets you may have thought you could not access. Each telemarketer we employ can contact key decision makers within foreign companies and discuss your service or product in an informative and eloquent way, so that your company can be represented impeccably to prospective clients in Europe and around the world. It is also important to recognise the different business cultures that exist not just in Europe but globally, our telemarketers are speaking their native language and so have the experience of working and living in these countries and know the most professional way to address prospects. We offer not only professionalism but an opportunity to expand your business in a way you may have thought impossible, and access markets that may prove to have a great need for you product or service.

Qualifa is however at its heart a lead generation company and we are proud to announce the launch of our multilingual telemarketing capabilities. This means that we can offer our skills in lead generation to companies who are again looking to expand abroad and access perhaps previously unattainable markets.

Multilingual telemarketing is therefore not just about speaking a different language or learning how to say ‘one coffee with milk’ in French, but its about making British companies successful in global markets and giving them the opportunity to do so. For companies to reach their full potential steady growth is key. However, like I said in a previous blog post, lead generation is the engine room of a company, maintaining growth and success at home is key, we can now provide the service to ‘turbo charge’ that engine and generate sales leads across Europe and beyond, all still on the Pay on Results model. So next time your in Europe on holiday or in a business meeting trying to secure a new deal, consider whether its more economical and smart to delegate the job to Qualifa so that you can worry about other aspects of your company yet be safe in the knowledge that we are doing all we can to get across your companies product or service and most importantly your values, ideas and company mission across to a wider more multilingual audience.

Just in case you were wondering how to say one coffee with milk in french…

‘Une Cafe au lait si’l vous plait’.

A sales lead, is the identity of a human or entity potentially interested in purchasing a product or service, and represents the first stage of a sales process.

Well that’s the easiest part of this blog post done.

The hard part is trying to unpick the word ‘lead’ and establish what one is. After having been working at Qualifa, the smart sales lead generation company, full time for just over 2 months, I can safely say that between different people the definition of ‘Lead’ differs greatly. What some people see as a speculative opportunity, others see as a waste of time. So how can you make sure you don’t waste your time going to bad leads? Answer? Qualify Qualify QUALIFY! I have learnt this a couple of times now and it is hard when you are excited for a client as you believe you have got them a meeting with a top branded UK Company, only to find out that the service or product that your client provides is not quite what they want.  As much as you want a lead to be 100% perfect with the right budget, right size and right ‘name’ at the right time, all this is 100% unrealistic. If you want to utilise the services of Qualifa, a lead generation and telemarketing company, you have to be prepared to go to meetings with prospective clients who you know may not be looking right at this point for your product or service but realise that this is invaluable contact building and relationship building with key members of a company, an opportunity you are unlikely to get otherwise. If you go into that meeting knowing everything there is to know about your company and how your product or service could benefit the prospective client, then there is no reason that you cannot come away from the encounter and have another meeting booked for a few months time to discuss terms of a future contract.

Would you really go to a meeting if the company we had found a lead for, had practically decided on an agency to go with for a process that your company fulfills? No? Well one of our clients did go to one such meeting and really impressed the huge UK company, so much so that they decided to go with our client and consequently won the deal and signed a 6 figure contract. They have also expanded into other sister companies of the same group. So it just goes to show that us ‘Qualifites’ are constantly trying to extend the opportunities of our clients, we want to get them the best meetings that we can and we become an extension of that companies sales team. We also become rather fond of our clients and truly believe in the value and quality of the product or service that they provide.

In my opinion a lead is exactly the entity that I stated at the beginning of this post. Finding them is much like fishing, you have to have lots of patience, lots of hard work and time. Sometimes you might catch an old boot, but other times you can catch a huge Carp and then all the hard work makes it worthwhile. Companies need new sales leads to keep them running and as a company can never have enough sales leads there will always be a need for intelligent Sales Lead Generation.

As an intern I had never worked in a professional business environment before and it was quite a nerve-racking prospect. But with the help and amazing support of the team I started to secure meetings for our clients with major high-street brands and grew to love the sales buzz. There is nothing quite like it and I also adore the friendly competition that exists within the office not to mention our weekly table tennis tournaments, it’s a great place to work and us ‘Qualifites’ are a lean mean sales lead generation team.

Before starting my intern-ship I had never really considered a career in sales, I had not done any business units in Sales throughout my academic life and I am greatly disappointed that more people do not get the opportunities that I have so far experienced in my role here. As Qualifa’s Managing Director James Burton says, “Sales is the engine room of a company”and ultimately Qualifa are helping businesses keep their ‘engine’ running by generating qualified new business sales leads. Sales is generally seen as an extroverts career with the stereotypical sales person knocking at your door trying to sell you cheese graters or something. But I can assure you at Qualifa it is nothing like that and I have learnt so much about the methodology behind sales lead generation. Simplicity is key and I have realised that if you have a good product or service and know a lot about it, then you will be successful in a sales career.

Another key part of my job at Qualifa involves Social media. Social Media is defined by many, but one definition that caught my eye was ‘social media is the use of technology combined with social interaction to create or co-create value’, the creating value part of this definition is ultimately what businesses want to achieve when using social media yet many over complicate what really is quite simple. I feel that I have personally learnt through the opportunity of writing Case Studies for Qualifa and posting them on Twitter and Facebook, that Social Media is unique in its ability to reach so many people in such a short amount of time. My case studies were viewed 35 times within the first half an hour, by using my relatively small network I still had the power to reach out and communicate with people my ideas and work. Even if only 5 people had read it, it’s still a pretty amazing feeling!

SEO and PPC is another aspect of Digital marketing that I had never encountered before and I have read a number of resources on how to create a successful campaign. I have also worked on behalf of iCrossing which is a multi-million pound Digital Marketing company, which has allowed me direct access to the different case studies and analysis on what aspects of Digital Marketing that they have researched. Not to mention been given the opportunity by Qualifa to compile a PPC and SEO strategy in which I learnt so much about a world of marketing that I did not even know existed.

I also think I should mention football as it is a frequent topic of conversation between the guys in the office I can now say that I am up to date on all Seagulls team activity and also enjoy the regular rants on Twitter about the guys’ respective teams.

In conclusion there are indeed too many topics to write about what I have learnt, because I am in fact still learning… a lot! So as a parting note I will endeavour to update you on what I am learning and pass on the knowledge of ‘Qualifa’ to those not yet enlightened in the world of Pay on Results Sales Lead Generation.

Here’s a simply DIY prospecting guide to sending targeted letters via email…

When writing introduction emails to potential new clients, think about how much time the recipient has to read what you are sending. Has a Marketing Director got time to scroll through a page of text? Has an IT Manager got the spare 30 minutes to read that 10 page pdf? No – and you knew that already.

So, make what you draft succinct, punchy and scan readable.

If the decision maker can take a quick squizz at it in 10 seconds, they’ll make a swift judgement on whether they are interested or whether to pass it along to some one who will be. If they have to read too much information they will most likely file it away for another day (so never read it) or worse still delete it.

Follow this format:

State who you are

State what you do/who you work with

State what it is you’d like to talk to them about and why

Provide a ‘call to action’ to close a telephone call or meeting

It really should only be a maximum of three short sentences. Any longer and they can no longer scan it – so cut it down as far as you can.

Some other must do’s are:

Make it personalised

Make it relevant and researched

Don’t cut and paste ‘blurb’ (it stands out a mile when you do)

Don’t attach large files that won’t get opened and might even mean the email gets blocked.

This isn’t email marketing, its electronic personal letter writing and less is most definitely more.

With growing technology and digital media businesses (and some larger companies) there is often a recurring issue post initial client meeting. First meeting done, follow up email or proposal sent – sit back and wait for the order…. Sound familiar? Well perhaps that’s an exaggeration but its certainly the case that companies are not doing all that they can and should to move the sales cycle along and progress their opportunities.

But what can you do if you’ve seen the decision maker, submitted a proposal and been told to ‘wait to hear back’? Lots actually.

Consider that selling is not a linear process. In fact, picture each opportunity as a sort of Venn diagram attached to multiple satellite nodes – that would be a more accurate representation of how a sales actually looks when you consider the perspective of all those involved. Put your main contact in the middle of the diagram and start to consider who the other major players are in the decision making process:

Etc etc.

The next task is to map out each of these contacts and with the help of your prime contact establish who has a say in the decision (relating to your sale) and what influence they have. Once done its time to think about how you will start to build a relationship with these people to begin the process of educating them about your offering and how it will impact them personally/their department.

Of course, invariably you’ll require the permission of your prime contact to start selling to other people, however even if they say ‘all communication must come through me’ there are ways in which you can start building your information to hit the right notes with the extended organisation.

Let’s assume you’ve submitted a ‘creative’ proposal:  You should also consider:

I have a saying that there are at least 100 separate things to do in every sale before you close it. You’ll never know which individual point helped sway it in your favour so you better get on and do them all. Manage the minutiae and the bigger picture will look after itself