Dan McDade -Do You Love or Hate Cold Calling

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Kevin Price, Host of the Price of Business on Business Talk 1110 AM KTEK (on Bloomberg’s home in Houston) recently interviewed Dan McDade.

About the interviewee

Dan McDade is President and CEO of PointClear, LLC, a prospect development firm that helps B2B companies drive revenue by nurturing leads, engaging contacts and developing prospects until they’re ready to purchase. The Sales Lead Management Association named Dan one of the 50 most influential people in sales lead management for the last four consecutive years. He was named a 2012 Top Sales Expert and one of the Top 50 Sales & Marketing Influencers for 2012 and 2013 by Top Sales World. Dan’s book, The Truth About Leads, is a practical, easy-to-read book that helps B2B companies focus their lead-generation efforts, align their sales and marketing organizations and drive revenue. In addition, Dan hosts PowerViews, a video interview series featuring sales and marketing thought leaders and writes a popular blog: ViewPoint ll The Truth About Lead Generation

Tell me about your firm (number of employees, location, type of companies you work with, etc.).  

Lead Management: Prospect Development™ from PointClear
PointClear is an Atlanta-based B2B prospect development company providing the strategy, analytics and execution services needed to drive revenue. Client companies are assured 100% of leads delivered are sales-qualified … and up to 5 times more deals are closed. Founded in 1997, PointClear instills the cross-functional collaboration and operational excellence c-level execs need to increase sales and marketing effectiveness, decrease costs—and achieve optimum results. PointClear’s president Dan McDade has authored a book, The Truth About Leads, available on Amazon and other online sources.
 
Employees: 50

Headquarters
PointClear, LLC
6470 East Johns Crossing, Suite 160 
Johns Creek, Ga. 30097 
678.533.2700 (voice)
877.582.9909 (toll free)
www.pointclear.com

What type and size of companies do you have as clients?

PointClear clients are large enterprise B2B companies such as Microsoft, OptumInsight, SPI Solutions and Verint who engage PointClear to help them achieve more predictable forecasts and significantly higher revenue results. Industries include technology, healthcare, financial services and others. Clients typically have revenues ranging from $100M – $1B.

 
What comes to mind when you see this topic?

I hate cold calling.  I love proactive, intelligently researched and targeted outbound market contact.  It is hard to pick up an industry publication these days that does not shout “Cold Calling is Dead”.  The reality is that a majority of executives pick up the telephone, and call someone they don’t know, as a routine part of their job each and every day.  And these days, everyone is in sales – whether their title says so or not.  So, I recommend that you not buy into the belief that outbound marketing (including cold calling) is dead.  Revenue – Inbound Leads – Nurtured Leads = THE GAP.  The gap is filled with proactive outbound activity and a lot of that activity is making proactive, intelligently researched and targeted outbound market contact.  

What are the best practices when it comes to this issue?

Multi-touch, multi-media, multi-cycle processes multiply results.  Multi-touch: optimize the touch-cycle for each program based on the size and type of prospect, the level of decision maker AND the relative value of the solution you are selling.  An average number of touches per cycle is between 8 to 12.  Multi-media: use voicemail, email and in some cases direct mail to get the attention of the prospect.  About 30% of all of the leads we turn over to PointClear clients are as the result of a returned telephone call or email response.  In fact, some years ago the CFO of the nation’s fourth largest utility called us back after the 42nd touch and that deal closed for $1 Billion.  Multi-cycle: after you exhaust the touches on the first cycle, you rest the prospect and then begin a second (and third… in some situations) round of contact.  This approach triples the return as compared to what I call “one and done” campaigns.   

 
Contact information:

www.pointclear.com