By Allan Maurer
SALEM, NEW HAMPSHIRE—Good Leads, which helps other firms ramp up their sales and marketing via its services, expects to open an office in the Research Triangle, NC, Atlanta, or the Potomac region this year, says founder and CEO, Robert Good. “They’re all rich areas for us.”
Good explains that his 40 person company provides outsourced business development. “We try to act as a company’s inside sales people,” he says. “The average age of my callers is 40. Most have college degrees and ten years of phone experience. We couple them with a lead management system and calling methodologies.”
People over 40 are comfortable being inside sales people, says Good. “The trouble comes when you hire young bucks to build an inside sales team and they really want to be outside sales people. So you get turnover.”
The company offers several programs, Contact Builder, Prospect Builder, Sales Builder, Portfolio Builder and Event Builder, all aimed at systematically saving time, increasing efficiency, and getting results. They combine advanced customer relationship management tools, including those that aid Web collaboration and sales for automation with team members who use best practices phone techniques.
Good Leads customizes its services to each client’s particular needs.
The programs work so well, says Good, that the company guarantees the quality of its leads and after a pilot project, the quantity as well. “Chief marketing officers love that,” Good notes. “They’re so used to getting burned by call centers.”
In addition to setting appointments for Web demos, “We actually close business on the phone if it’s tele-sellable,” Good says. The company’s staff makes 3,500 calls a day.
Good notes that his company already has clients in the Southeast, such as McLean, VA-based Parature, which he met at last year’s Southeast Venture Conference (www.seventure.org). “That shows the power of being at a networking event where you think your customers are,” says Good.
“Two-thirds of our customers are outside of New England and we want to do more in the Southeast,” he adds. “So we’re looking for a Southeast representative.”
Good, who has been nominated for Entrepreneur of the Year recognition by the New Hampshire Tech Council, founded Good Leads in 2002 and bootstrapped the company he says began in earnest in 2003. Previously, Good led sales and marketing organizations to success at four Fortune 500 companies and one venture-funded emerging-growth firm.
It sells its services primarily to technology companies, including software, hardware and services. It has broadened its client base and now also does life science firms and energy abatement programs in which it gets large power users to come off the grid at peak power periods in return for energy credits.
Good says another reason he attends events such as the Southeast Venture Conference is that talking to venture capitalists often results in business. “I say to them, ‘You like this company enough to invest, but what is their sales and marketing plan? Do they really have a sales plan?”
Good says he’s fine when companies come to his firm even if they’re just trying to get some traction and test the market and may then want to bring their sales in house.
Most of the company’s clients sign up for six months to a year, but they can contract on a project basis, says Good. “What makes us different is that we warranty the quality of everything we do.”
Online: www.goodleads.com
Southeast Venture Conference, February 29 – March 1, 2012 at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner, VA – Where Smart Money Meets Smart People.
www.seventure.org
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