Appointment Setting for Seamless: Productivity, Pipeline and Faster Time to Market
A scalable inside sales partner that instantly enabled a busy sales team to focus on what they do best – closing deals.
An instant inside sales organization to support the existing sales team and the ability to move up market with immediate access to enterprise accounts.
Seamless lacked an inside sales team and, as a result, field salespeople were “doing it all” themselves. Between closing deals and nurturing existing customer relationships, these seasoned reps didn’t have the time needed to identify and navigate to the right contacts within large, untapped enterprise accounts.
Nick Worswick, Vice President and General Manager of Seamless Corporate Accounts, knew that his reps could be much more productive and successful if they could focus on closing deals. With someone else doing the “heavy lifting” – applying the time, dedication and perseverance necessary for successful prospecting – reps could concentrate exclusively on the contacts and opportunities that represented real revenue potential.
“Building an inside sales team is a big commitment,” said Worswick. Faced with a classic “build vs. buy” scenario, he considered his options. Slowing down to build an inside team seemed counterintuitive, especially with aggressive sales numbers staring back at him. Worswick knew that the company didn’t have the budget – or the time – to hire, train and support a full inside sales team before proving out the model.
Ultimately, Seamless decided to engage with an expert partner that could get an inside sales function up and running quickly – and then scale, up or down, to meet on-the-fly priority changes. That partner was BAO.
Working with BAO gave us the opportunity to very quickly ramp up an inside sales function. They have the resources and processes in place to very quickly create and manage an appointment setting program for us, which was something we just weren’t in a place to do in an effective manner – so we’re thrilled to have found a partner that gets stellar results, is flexible with our needs and can scale as necessary.
Seamless knew there was a huge opportunity to sell into large enterprise accounts – professional services businesses, law firms, financial services companies and other organizations spending many tens of thousands of dollars annually on food. The challenge was navigating to the right contacts and generating interest in meetings.
The combination of BAO’s experienced staff of Inside Sales Representatives (ISRs) and an unmatched database – complete with key line-of-business contacts – proved to be the ideal solution to quickly move Seamless up market. Armed with the Seamless value proposition, the ISRs hit the phones – making more than 25,000 calls into the enterprise market over the course of 12 months – and immediately began getting reps in front of the right decision makers.
“Of course, securing high-quality meetings is our primary goal,” said Worswick. “But the information that BAO gets from targets is also extremely helpful. If we know there’s no budget or opportunity at a particular company, we know not to go back to them in a year. It saves our reps time on the prospecting side and keeps us focused. Plus, it’s data that we can use to understand those companies specifically and the market as a whole.”
BAO quickly demonstrated the ability to secure a large quantity of high-quality meetings – jumpstarting Seamless’s pipeline.
“BAO was incredibly flexible and fast when it came to ramping up and implementing changes along the way,” said Worswick. “The relationship between our reps and the ISRs that support them is so important – it’s what makes the program work.”
I recently moved from New York to LA – and the situation really highlighted the power of BAO. Instead of having to start over in a completely new territory, I was getting in front of new prospects on day one – walking into meetings vs. getting on the ground and having to figure it out on my own. That was critical to my success in a new market.
The program has been received enthusiastically across the company – from sales and marketing up through executive leadership.
“Bottom line – we want our reps to have packed calendars,” Worswick said. “Whether it’s one of our veterans trying to get into a specific account, a rep that’s new to the company or a rep working an unfamiliar territory, we want everyone in front of as many qualified prospects as possible, as quickly as possible. The more time reps are out in the market and in meetings, the bigger their pipeline and the better our business. BAO has been able to do that for Seamless.”
To date, the program has generated $7 million in pipeline and nearly $900,000 in closed business – and is still going strong.
Worswick cites BAO’s speed, flexibility and pay-for-performance model as some of the biggest benefits of the engagement. He said, “There is constant, real-time communication – what’s working, what might need to be adjusted – from both sides. We’ve found that BAO is always looking for ways to optimize and improve the program, which has been critical to its success.”