A recent review from a long-time client highlights some of the features that make our outsourced inside sales teams such a great addition to growing tech companies. Among other things, clients often focus on our teams' quality ("their team brought a level of expertise and professionalism that increased our trajectory"), strategy ("they dedicated people, processes, and expertise to help us strategize how to do cold prospecting as a channel") and communication ​("their people are very attentive, and they’re amazing at that. We communicated through phone calls, Zoom, and Slack.").

Reviews like this help reinforce why our U.S.-based sales teams play such a pivotal role in helping tech companies get their inside sales efforts off the ground. We're proud to play a small part in helping them grow. 

Bandalier is pleased to introduce Ed Porter! Ed recently joined our advisory board to help us navigate our recent growth, and we wanted to take some time to talk about his journey.

Ed got his start in the outsourced contact center space during college. His experience was very much “sink or swim”, with little by way of training or guidance offered by his managers. After graduating, Ed focused on his education and professional development, building up his leadership skills in his free time. His hard work paid off and he quickly rose into a leadership position. By the time he was 26, he was overseeing more than a thousand employees across multiple locations.

Ed quickly realized that a “people first management philosophy” was key to his team’s success. Rather than embrace the closed-door policy of his past managers, Ed took the time to build relationships with his employees and coach them towards success. His teams continually delivered stellar results, and over the course of 20 years, helped shift a software company’s revenue from direct to channel, built an inside sales organization from the ground up amassing over $40 million in recurring revenue, and helped lead an organization to acquisition as the Chief Revenue Officer. Currently, he helps organizations as a fractional Chief Revenue Officer align marketing, sales, and customer success to help drive strategic growth.


“A lot of folks think about training and development as something that’s given, not taken. I think of salespeople more like athletes. You don’t just play when you’re required - you do other little things to build up your chances for success. Athletes go for runs, do stretches, lift weights; salespeople read, study, and share their education outside of the workplace.” 

With decades of sales experience and education under his belt, Ed sought out more opportunities to share his passion for professional education. He found it with the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals (AA-ISP). Ed initially discovered the AA-ISP while building up his own knowledge base, and opted to give back to the community by re-founding the Columbus chapter to support and connect local salespeople. Thanks to Ed’s efforts to build amazing content and bring in amazing speakers, they won “Chapter of the Year” several times. Ed also received awards from his peers for Excellence in Execution and Executive of the Year. Five years after kickstarting the chapter, Ed still leads it.

“The AA-ISP is a wonderful association. I’m glad to be a part of it, and I always will be.”

Ed’s dedication to professional improvement doesn’t stop with general education. Throughout his career, he noticed the gender disparity within the sales field, especially when it came to leadership positions. When Lauren Bailey, of Factor8 and the Phoenix chapter of the AA-ISP, founded #GirlsClub to help women excel in the sales profession, Ed joined the program as a mentor. Over the last three seasons of the program, Ed has worked with protegees to guide them toward success. Thanks to Lauren’s leadership and the efforts of mentors like Ed, this year’s program includes 400 people from 13 different countries! 

With so much experience under his belt, Ed decided it was time to go solo, and offer his expertise as an independent business consultant. He wanted to share his success with as many teams as he could - and with Bandalier’s focus on internal training, he knew it would be a good fit. Ed has known of our company for a long time. He met Jeremy before our Binghamton location was established, and the two re-connected with the advent of our Talent as a Service program. 

“The community that Jeremy is building is phenomenal. There’s evidence that these communities exist and thrive. There’s only one question - how can we differentiate value?”

We’re looking forward to finding out! We’re excited to continue growing with Ed. If you want to hear about Bandalier’s growth, you can follow us here and on social media. If you want to be part of our growing outsourced inside sales team, head over to our website to apply!
If you’re interested in connecting with Ed, the AA-ISP, or the Girls’ Club, you can visit their websites and LinkedIn pages to learn more. ​

There are many qualities that are key for a great outsourced inside sales team. For example, many would agree the success of a sales team can be determined by how its members assess, evaluate and improve their own performance. It’s a fickle thing though. As a sales rep, finding your groove with prospects is not easy; and learning to constantly adapt and evolve is what ultimately makes the difference. At Bandalier, we foster this behavior using the Japanese principle of kaizen. A literal translation of kaizen would equate to “continuous improvement”, however, kaizen can often take on many forms. A common practice that is imperative for continuous improvement in Bandalier life and client satisfaction is A/B testing.
    
What exactly is A/B testing? Whether it’s making that initial cold call, attempting to follow up through email, or scrubbing data prior to outreach there is never one single strategy that will stick across the board. No matter how good your work is, it is largely circumstantial. You need to account for how your outreaches will be perceived across different industries (Engineering vs. Insurance), different points of contact (CFO vs. Office Manager), and even the personality of the prospect regardless of their business affiliation (introvert/extrovert). Thus, by taking your status quo strategy (A) and challenging its effectiveness with a slightly different approach (B) you’re proactively and continuously improving, leaving no stone unturned. Think about it this way, would you use the same exact words and phrasing for every single job interview in your life? No, of course not. Your strategy will not only evolve according to your mistakes but it will reposition itself to coincide with factors that will ensure the best competitive advantage. Being able to report these A/B test findings to clients not only benefits your sales results, but helps them strategize on a higher level as well!
    
Using this technique with marketing and sales outreach through email means the world. Not to say that A/B testing your cold calling strategy isn’t just as important. However, you arguably have more opportunities to act on the fly, improvise and steer the conversation when you have a prospect talking to you directly. In other words, however little it may be, you have some semblance of the prospect’s attention as long as they pick up the phone. Whereas that initial introduction over email is almost like the end all be all. If your subject line doesn’t catch their eye or the body is too long, that’s it. Message deleted, they might not even read past the first two words. While you still have the ability to follow up, your chances of a successful close slowly diminish with each attempt after the initial outreach. Which is why you’ll want to take every advantage and don’t be afraid to experiment. Take for example the current socio-economic climate. The effects of COVID-19 are universal and ripe for unique personalizations that will apply everywhere because what’s happening to one prospect is happening to every single one. Case and point why A/B testing your subject line and email bodies will noticeably bring your competitive advantage to new heights. 
    
So A/B testing your emails seems like a powerful tool; but realistically there’s only so much one sales rep can do to reinvent their strategies. Here’s the thing though, part of what makes inside sales so effective is a team environment. By continuously improving your own strategies you are consequently discovering new insights that your teammates may very well have not thought of. At Bandalier, we are constantly sharing our successes and failures with each other all in favor of fostering the power of sales as a service. These methods and ideas are old news to anybody who is experienced in sales. However, by employing them each a little bit everyday, it really makes a huge difference. So next time you’re about to press send, take the extra minute and challenge that subject line, that body paragraph and most importantly, yourself.

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As our team adapts to working remotely, we’ve been reflecting on what it takes to keep each other motivated. Here are a few tips and tricks we’ve picked up to keep on trucking!

• Consolidate meetings
  • When we transitioned to working remotely, we didn’t immediately think to change our pattern of meetings. In the office, teams were constantly communicating and catching up throughout the day. We moved those micro-meetings onto Zoom without a second thought. By the end of April, most of our team was suffering from Zoom burnout. In response, we shifted the structure of our meetings. Rather than catching up across so many brief meetings throughout the day, our ASMs led longer, less frequent meetings. Even though our team members spent the same amount of time in Zoom meetings, everyone preferred the new structure.
• Build a better community
  • It’s a tricky thing to do - how can you help your team stay connected when they have to be physically distant? At Bandalier, we started by splitting our existing teams into smaller groups. Our re-organization mirrors the in-person experience of sitting at a table with your co-workers. 
• Focus on fun
  • Folks rarely have the same organic opportunities to converse with their coworkers now that we’re working remotely. A well-connected team is a happy one, so we started exploring options for our employees to stay in touch. In addition to encouraging casual Slack conversations, we host digital events for our team. From monthly game events to weekly post-work happy hours, we encourage our team members to enjoy their time together without discussing work!

At the end of the day, planning has been key to maintaining our outsourced inside sales team’s effectiveness. What steps has your team taken to stay productive while working from home?

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