"Straight to the point - no nonsense - they say it like it is - just do it approach - simples..... a great team to support and it works very well - a very safe pair of hands for marketing that I highly recommend!"
Sales Director, Freedom Communications

"As the saying goes, 'does exactly what it says on the tin'. Heather and her team are brilliant to work alongside and truly make a significant difference for their clients. Heather's enthusiasm and drive is infectious and I would never hesitate to recommend her or Prospect Connect. I have observed first hand what she and her team deliver and how hard they work to achieve the results that they do. Where they truly stand out is that they treat other businesses and clients as if it were their own business."
Relationship Director, Barclays Corporate

Leading financial institution Lloyds TSB developed ‘Routemap’ – a solution bank designed specifically for their SME clients, offering assistance with a whole host of business solutions to determine how they could support their clients to achieve their strategic business aims. ‘Routemap’ determined that the majority of their SME client’s required assistance to achieve business growth, increasing their sales and attracting new and retaining existing customers. Following a due diligence process, Prospect Connect was selected as Lloyds provider of choice to offer sales and marketing assistance to their customers, providing advice and integrated campaign programmes to support them to achieve their strategic aims. The project was branded as ‘Prospect Finder’ which was launched nationwide via a TV advertising campaign.

Objective

Lloyds TSB required support in establishing a common platform for discussion on sales and marketing for the SME marketplace and appointed us as exclusive nationwide supplier of ‘Prospect Finder’. The aim was to strengthen the relationships with existing businesses – start-ups, companies experiencing difficulties and, ideally, those looking for growth of £1m per annum. The initiative was also designed to attract ‘switchers’ who were prepared to move their custom from competitor banks.

Approach

Our involvement encompassed three key elements. Primarily, we became a trusted advisor who delivered both strategic advice and tactical sales and marketing solutions. We helped their SME customers nationwide to establish individual growth plans and assisted in remodelling company turnaround. Subsequently, we provided the ‘delivery department’ in terms of sales and marketing offering telemarketing, lead generation, data management and marketing consultancy as a tailored solution to achieve their aims. Those businesses aspiring for growth were referred to Prospect Connect where we would arrange face to face meeting with each of Lloyds’ business clients and provide them with further advice on how they can achieve their strategic business development ambitions through our added value services. Prospect Connect invested in developing and transferring our knowledge to the Lloyds TSB bank managers/advisors to equip them with the skills necessary to provide advice for these customers at the initial stages of enquiry. As well as establishing the knowledge to promote the Prospect Connect value proposition in detail, they were also able to relate the outcome of the service to their client’s strategic requirements providing them with valuable guidance. To attract and retain custom for Lloyds, Prospect Connect invested in and delivered a national road show for existing and prospective customers to educate them on our value proposition and how we could support them to achieve their growth aspirations through a common sense, integrated approach to sales and marketing.

Outcome

The ‘Prospect Finder’ campaign was a great success. We supported Lloyds TSB and its SME customers for five years, assisting thousands of small businesses to realise their business growth ambitions, attract and retain customers and increase their sales and enterprise value. This campaign highlighted everything that Prospect Connect stands for – the provision of common sense sales and marketing consultancy, coupled with a strong ability to deliver a valuable outsourced solution.

Prospect Connect have been successfully supporting Lanes for Drains for several years. They specialise in reactive and contractual drainage maintenance whilst also delivering related surveying and excavation works, and delivering appropriate CPD training to the industry and it’s vertical markets. When we were originally approached by the client, they were looking for lead generation services to support various depots that were under performing across the group. They also wanted to consolidate their national sales pipeline database and were interested in partnering with a professional telemarketing company who offered a managed service and that had the credentials to remotely manage the sales people through to building an asset in their database.

Objective

The sales objective was to generate quality appointments for their sales teams to ensure they met their sales targets month on month. As importantly to manage the sales pipeline and engage with influencers and key decision makers at the relevant touch points within the sales cycle until such a time the opportunity would ultimately turn into new business.

A 360 degree sales process created a real value for the business. Building a long term asset in the database, creating quality sales meetings for good sales people and understanding where sales people weren’t performing the big question “WHY” was it skill? Training need? Or simply they weren’t the right sales person for the role?

Approach

Prospect Connect executed very focused campaigns. Whilst a core focus of the campaign and measure of success is delivery of fully-qualified appointments, the nature of the business is very much consultative. There are various phases to the sales lifecycle depending upon the projects identified and the vertical targeted e.g Architects, Housing Associations, Facilities Management companies. The order value can vary from £600-£ 100k + which could include a more transactional process such as training or reactive drainage maintenance but equally could include more complex and large scale developments or projects that incorporate a number of contractual partners or influencers such as Planning, Project Managers, Operations, Facility Managers etc, and also necessitates conformity to various procurement and planning procedures. The sales activity therefore demands a varied skill set with sector knowledge to converse at the relevant level and stage and to then identify and prioritise suitable opportunities in order to develop a quantifiable pipeline for the client. This included ‘profiling’ a particular target business or institution sufficiently in line with the client’s services to ensure we capitalised on all possibilities of work, thereby maximising the value created across individual accounts/sales generated.

What did we learn

One of the things that became apparent was that the messaging wasn’t resonating with the customer. In fact, their audience had a certain apathy for these type of services and so it was important to feed this back to the client and work upon creating a more personal approach based upon the feedback – specifically a focus on quality values as a core strength of our client. This enabled us to gradually change perceptions in the market. Another key aspect of the relationship has been to focus on value creation and work towards a criteria that ensures the ‘best’ opportunities are focused on as a priority, the objective being to increase efficiency, reduce the cost of sales and improve ROI by focusing attentions on better value opportunities. It was initially challenging to gain feedback from the various depots regarding the fresh leads generated and also the existing leads within the national sales pipeline database. Prospect Connect worked in conjunction with the management team at a local and regional level to develop a suitable feedback procedure and thus ensure a robust real time data management process. This would enable us to provide a follow-up or re-engagement service for quotation follow up, to support the client in closing business.

Outcome

• Thus far there has been a £1.6m of lead value generated.

• The client has a fully managed UK sales database managed in house by Prospect Connect.

• All data has been amended to ensure it is future proof and fit for purpose.

• All leads imported into the client’s own CRM system in real time by Prospect Connect to maximise management post-appointment by the client and minimise client admin time.

As full competency has been achieved (i.e. comprehensive objection handling, closing techniques and product knowledge were fully honed), nearly 6000 leads have been generated by Prospect Connect, of which 25% are face-to-face qualified appointments. The remainder represent the various phases of the sales prospecting pipeline from direct quotations, to presentations or quotations, depending upon the project identified. The relationship has demanded an holistic approach to telemarketing and lead management, which also needs to include an inbound service.

A great deal of resource and experienced expertise have been invested by Prospect Connect to client manage and also campaign manage the contract including created a consolidated data stream, effectively managing and interpreting core data with full time QA resource to ensure best practise. Prospect Connect also provide bespoke campaign reporting to meet Board reporting requirements given the scale of the contract. As the client’s ‘eyes and ears’, Prospect Connect continues to provide key marketing intelligence to the client on market trends and customer buying cycles to aid internal marketing efforts.

"We all get a huge amount of emails and phone calls from companies offering data and services; usually I am very sceptical of them and ignore the majority. But I am glad that I took the call from Prospect Connect and them five minutes to tell me what they could offer.

Following the conversation I decided to engage them on a specific project – collection of student destination data, which I am sure you will agree, is not the easiest of tasks. I was impressed how cost effective, efficient and detailed the resulting report was and have now used Prospect Connect on several occasions on specific projects such as – Employer engagement and applications tracking and have never been disappointed with the results.

The information and data provided is now used at all levels within the College from the Governing body and Senior Leadership Team right through to our Curriculum, marketing and support departments.

In May 2015 the College was inspected by Ofsted and visited by BIS and in both instances we were commended on the use of robust market intelligence which Prospect Connect and our other resources provided us with. Following our Ofsted inspection the college improved from Grade 3 to Grade 2. I believe the information that Prospect Connect provided me with certainly played a part in demonstrating the College’s ability to align our strategic priorities for improving learner outcomes’ and the College’s ability to respond to local demand by developing a curriculum that meets both the needs and interests of learners, employers and communities.

I would happily recommend their products to other colleges as I have found Prospect Connect to be effective, efficient and have never been disappointed by the services they have provided to my Directorates and the College. In short five minutes well spent and a great return on investment."

Vice Principal, Hertford Regional College

"I have the privilege of working directly with Heather Carter and her team. We engaged Prospect Connect when Toople.com were at an operational cross roads. They are not your traditional contact centre, they are truly unique. Through innovative methods of working, we have established a successful partnership that is enabling us to experience rapid growth and increase our sales.

As a trusted strategic growth and planning partner, Prospect Connect are delivering an effective, integrated and consultative sales and marketing managed service for our business. Over a short period of time they have achieved 100% of sales performance with just 20% FTE of the previous call centre we engaged with.

In challenging circumstances, Heather brings leadership, drive and does everything with real zest and enthusiasm. Her willingness for accountability provided us with confidence, and by insisting on real partnership demonstrated that Heather is a professional of the highest integrity that I am only too happy to recommend.

Heather, as part of the successful management structure at Prospect Connect, brings real insight and pragmatic integrated marketing techniques that bring real value and benefits. Heather is diligent and personable – two qualities that define her completely.

As a creative thinker who possesses a can-do attitude, Heather is a pleasure to work with. Our relationship with Prospect Connect and Heather is ongoing but the basis is there for a successful long-term partnership together. I have no hesitation in recommending their services to any business that it is looking to grow their sales revenues and increase their bottom line."
Head of Sales, Toople.com

"We have been inundated with leads and appointments some of which have led to orders being placed during the initial site visit."
Owner, Dyno Rod Franchise

"We recently worked with Prospect Connect to grow our business in specific sectors. I cannot recommend them enough, they are exactly what they say on the tin! We will certainly continue with this new found successful relationship."
Owner, Dyno Rod Franchise

"We started working with Heather and the team at Prospect Connect 4 months ago and have been really impressed with their support, knowledge and strategic approach in order to increase sales opportunities across our business.

In particular I have found the integrated digital and telemarketing service the most beneficial, which provides our prospective clients with relevant content prior to follow up contact being arranged. Their portal and reporting gives transparency and my whole team confidence that we are investing in the right partner. Heathers team have seamlessly integrated themselves as part of our business and we look forward to the future with them."
Commercial Director, Blue Castle Group

"I've worked with Prospect Connect on a couple of marketimg campaigns, and the value created has been excellent!"
Business Development Director, Kuehne + Nagel

"I worked with Heather and SMART on an ongoing telemarketing lead generation project in 2005 and 2006. Heather was a pleasure to work with and provided excellent client service at all times. I always felt that my business was important to her, and this attitude was evident throughout the team at SMART."
Channel Manager, Vodafone Global Enterprise

"We employed Prospect Connect to help us create a series of email campaigns as we were looking to break into a new market. One of the campaigns achieved over 80 new customer accounts which was over 400% of our monthly growth target."
COO, Ryman for Business