Tip for a Fast and Easy Sales Win --> Answer Inbound Sales Calls and Create More Opportunities!

Every missed sales call is a missed opportunity. Marketing departments work hard to generate leads. FastCall helps marketing extract more value as leads flow through the funnel. More so, demonstrating "rock solid" inbound lead response demonstrates that marketing "gets" lead generation. Responding to inbound leads is the fastest way to lift sales. Its an easy win.

FastCall inbound call routing includes:

1. Inbound calls “pop” in Salesforce for immediate response 
2. Sales calls are routed directly to sales, avoiding the "main" IVR 
3. Routing to lead owner or round robin to next available user 
4. Routing by office, or team 
5. Overflow to mobile phone 
6. Overflow to call center 
7. Time-based routing 
8. Salesforce-native reporting of calls received, answered and missed 
9. Call recording is a great training tool 
10. Seamlessly logs a Task in Salesforce with call duration, call count, call disposition and call notes 
11. Convenient history of recent inbound calls 
12. Voicemail reported in Salesforce for easy follow-up 
13. Missed call notification (email and SMS) 
14. Powerful call scoring based on call history

Here is a sneak peek at the *** NEW ** FastCall Click-to-Call Application installed in Salesforce. The basic version of the application will be free in the SFDC App Exchange.

 

FastCall DOUBLEs Phone Presentation Rates

I love to share good news. Isn't that what sales is about? Calling prospects to share the good news about our products and services? The more leads we can successfully connect with by phone, the more good news we can share!

FastCall has data on nearly 1 million sales calls, and we have consistently found that the "presentation rate" of an inside sales rep hovers around 10%. The graph below is from a recent trial. Presentation rates increased from 9% to 21% in the first two weeks. FastCall DOUBLED sales productivity!

So why wait? Start a free trial of FastCall today, and DOUBLE your presentation rates by next week!

A phone in your shoe? No. But, we have an awesome phone inside Salesforce

20 awesome reasons to try BeLocal, our Salesforce-native "Smart Softphone" 

BeLocal includes these exciting dialing features!

1. Convenient calling from Lead, Contact, Account, Task and Lead View 
2. Local caller ID  increases connection rates
3. Call recording is a great training tool
4. Seamlessly captures call duration, call count, call disposition and call notes 
5. Sames time by logging all calls as a Task in Salesforce 
6. Inbound calls “pop” in Salesforce for immediate response
7. Convenient history of recent inbound calls 
8. Voicemail reported in Salesforce for easy follow-up
9. Missed call notification (email and SMS) 
10. Lead status updates based on call history  (New --> Prospecting - Contacted)
11. Powerful call scoring based on call history 
12. Deep, Salesforce-native reporting of total calls, total talk time, average talk time 

Inbound call routing:

1. Inbound calls are routed directly to sales 
2. Routing to lead owner 
3. Round robin to next available user 
4. Routing by office, or team 
5. Overflow to mobile phone 
6. Overflow to call center 
7. Time-based routing 
8. Salesforce-native report of calls received, answered and missed 

We install BeLocal in your Salesforce account; very easy to test. 

Don't automate old and bad processes!

Fantastic interview of Jon Miller, VP Marketing and Cofounder of Marketo.

"As the old saying goes, "don't pave the cowpaths." In other words, don't automate old and bad processes when you are introducing a new technology into your organization. Instead you have to quickly iterate, and be open to changing old habits. New technology will require a new way of doing things."

Jon tells Scott Brinker, CTO and President of ion interactive

"your [marketing] talent must be both technologically adept and analytical."

I would add the same is true for sales talent.

Speed of responsiveness builds trust

Research on distance communication from UC Irvine Professor, Judy Olson, has found that people judge the trust-worthiness of others over text-based communication largely by the quickness of their response. Because we can’t use the normal indicators, such as facial expressions or intonation, speed of responsiveness is the closest approximation we have.

What is the real size of the local SMB market?

MarketingSherpa: 37% of the companies have claimed their free local business listing on one or more search engines. About the same percentage will answer their phone when receiving a consumer phone call. Coincidence?

The Mythical VP Sales?

Bruce Cleveland, a general partner at InterWest Partners and an investor in Marketo, blogged about the Mythical VP Sales and Marketing. I dont agree that the VP Sales and VP Marketing cannot be combined.

The traditional VP Sales role is dying. Sales leads are generated by inbound marketing, and nurtured, not cold called. Marketo, Eloqua and Hubspot are three of the hottest companies in CRM.

Cleveland writes: "Sales and Marketing are vastly different functions that require substantially different personalities, skills, and decades of experience to master. "

That's was true 10 years ago. Today, the skills required of a VP Sales have changed. The decades of experience developed by many in sales are decades of inefficient sales habits. Sales cannot operate today without marketing. Marketo and Eloqua bring the sales function and marketing function together. Do the same for the leadership role. I'd argue that in today's sales environment, sales and marketing leadership must be combined.

Cool new feature: "SMS me the Lead"

Cool new feature: A sales prospect calls you. FastCall sends you SMS w lead name, company, phone, email and link to the Salesforce record!

FastCall Adds "ISR Availability" to Our Call Routing Applications

I’m so proud of our development team for making a big step forward in helping FastCall serve companies that are selling to local businesses.

This week we introduced Inside Sales Resource (ISR) “availability” into our call routing applications.

That means we can now serve our customers two ways:
1) FastCall is providing sales leads to the company’s inside sales force when they are available, and
2) Allowing our clients the option to offer THEIR customers a “reach me when available” service

The option of offering an automated process (the calls our system makes or routes) based on ISR availability is a big help to any customer that is trying to reach out to large numbers of businesses with a limited number of inside sales people.

Coming next: integrating ISR availability with email and Google AdWords

Whenever you can provide leads when your sales team wants them, and reroute during peak times or when the team isn’t available, it means your sales costs go down and your revenue goes up. And because the FastCall system can discern availability, companies can turn up the ‘cold calling’ that FastCall is doing for them when they have sales reps available.

BACKGROUND
FastCall clients double (very possibly triple) the number of sales presentations it makes thanks to FastCall.

FastCall triggers the first call in seconds, then automates a series of follow-ups sales calls until the business that requested information is served (whether that is by closing the sale, receiving the information requested, asked for a later follow up, etc).

We call this application BeFast (because it’s the fastest way to reach potential customers once they’ve shown an interest) and we’ve found that it takes those 20,000 calls to generate about 1,000 ‘connects’ when the prospects have time to receive a sales presentation.

If you’ve ever run an inside sales operation you know costly it can be to try to connect with someone … even someone who is interested. You get voice mail, people who are too busy to talk when you call, and frequently phones that aren’t answered.

The FastCall BeFast application has doubled monthly sales presentations compared to “dialed by hand” sales efforts.

Because FastCall can now work with ISR availability, we can also maximize connections to the sales reps using call rotations, overflow routing, email / SMS notification, etc. A CORE PART OF THE FASTCALL VALUE PROP IS CONNECTING THE HOT PHONE LEAD TO SALES W MINIMAL BREAKAGE / LEAKAGE.

Our system now learns when the ISR is available and adjusts itself.

This integration will enable FastCall to DOUBLE OR TRIPLE inbound lead presentation for clients by more evenly distributing the inbound lead flow through out the day and week.

FastCall will soon add “ISR Availability” to AdWords, email, etc.

Imagine how efficient it will make a sales process when we can turn up or down an AdWords campaign based on a sale org’s need for leads in near real time.

A few more notes about the recent release
FastCall will move a lead through the sales funnel from campaign to campaign so that we can touch the lead month-over-month. Just like a drip email campaign.

We also improve ISR reporting - logging “total talk time” and “total log in time”

A big congrats to the team!

FastCall411 Presents at Twilio Conference and Announces Second Round Financing

Twilio Fund Alum demonstrates powerful sales automation system on stage

LOS ANGELES, CA and SAN FRANCISCO, CA, September 22, 2011 - FastCall411 was one of three Twilio Fund alumni firms to present at the Twilio Conference on Thursday, where they also announced their second round of financing from 500 Startups, the fund created by Dave McClure. Twilio Fund is a microfund also created by 500 Startups.

FastCall411, an intelligent sales automation and analytics company built on the Force.com platform, works with marketing and sales organizations to optimize conversion from lead generation to inside sales. As one of the first companies to use Twilio’s cloud-based telecom API integrated into Salesforce.com, FastCall411 increases sales lead conversion up to 10x and is used by the leading firms working with local SMBs.

In addition to the second round funding from 500 Startups, FastCall411 received an investment from noted entrepreneur and angel investor, Gerry Campbell, who said the funding is a continuation of his ongoing support of FastCall411. As former GM/SVP for AOL’s Search and Directional Media Group, Campbell knows firsthand the difficulty in selling to SMBs.

"FastCall411 is in production and revenue with meaningful strategic clients; public companies with significant inside sales forces trying to reach the SMB market,” said Campbell. “I am impressed with the team - they are reinventing phone sales automation inside the CRM. And their association with the Twilio team is smart and timely.”

FastCall411 is the vision of three-time entrepreneur, Richard Rosen, the company’s CEO, who saw a need to add efficiency to the very difficult task of selling to small businesses over the phone.

"I am honored that 500 Startups participated in our current funding round, along with other notable angel investors,” said Rosen, who will be among the speakers at TwilioCon where he will present FastCall411 sales automation and analytics powered by Twilio. “With the Twilio voice API and Salesforce.com, we’ve put the sales phone system where it needs to be: inside the CRM. FastCall411 helps sales and marketing organizations drive efficiency into their small business acquisition efforts.”

About FastCall411: FastCall411 is a sales automation and analytics company that incorporates patent-pending intelligence to qualify sales leads quickly. FastCall411 integrates into existing sales funnels (i.e., website forms, AdWords) and triggers a call to each potential lead through Salesforce.com, scoring it based on any previous inbound or outbound call to that number. The leads, once they are ranked, are distributed to the client’s sales organization, making the process highly efficient. The software also contains a self-learning system to recognize phone records that have changed numbers, been disconnected or frequently do not answer a phone.

About Twilio Fund: The Twilio Fund (www.twiliofund.com) is a microfund created by 500 Startups and launched in September 2010 to provide seed capital to startups built on the Twilio cloud communications platform. Twilio Fund has made 10 investments to date in Callyo, FastCall411, KnockKnock, Magnolia Prime, Order Mapper, Proven, Qwipd, Textaurant, Voicendo, and Volta. The microfund is managed by 500 Startups founding partner, Dave McClure, an investor with experience managing platform funds. Dave previously managed the 2009 fbFUND Rev on behalf of Facebook, Accel Partners, and Founders Fund. 500 Startups is also an investor in Twilio.

Contact:
For press information contact:
FastCall411 CEO, Richard Rosen
323-799-4777
Richard@fastcall411.com

If you want to sell fast, you better call fast. Hello? Hello? Anyone there?

FastCall411 triggers immediate, automated sales calls to leads created within web forms, and other online events. The secret of inside sales is to touch the lead frequently and often. Our response rates on a call within seconds of lead creation is 10%. We place a second call an hour out; response falls by more than half to under 5%. A fifth and final call is placed one week out; response is 1%.

If your awesome sales team calls all your leads within the hour, we could double your sales presentation rate.

A so-so sales team? FastCall411 could lift inside sales presentation rate 10X.

Hello? Hello? Who doesn't love those results?

Harvard Business Review: Wait 24 Hours to Contact a Web Lead? Conversion to Sales Presentation Drops 60X

A Harvard Business Review study explored 1.25 million sales leads received by 29 B2C and 13 B2B companies in the U.S.

Firms that tried to contact potential customers within an hour of receiving a query were nearly seven times as likely to qualify the lead (= meaningful conversation with a key decision maker) as those that tried to contact the customer even an hour later—and more than 60 times as likely as companies that waited 24 hours or longer.

FastCall411 contacts a lead within seconds. One hour out, the lead is already half as likely to convert to a sales presentation.

"Call Fast - Sell Fast"

Most marketing organizations simply hand-off a huge list of names, then sit back and expect sales to call them..

Lead Scoring: "Most marketing organizations simply hand-off a huge list of names, or upload them to the sales database, then sit back and expect sales to call them all. After a few calls, most salespeople give up, deriding the leads as 'junk.' And so the finger pointing begins."

As your sales reps work furiously to stay afloat, they're becoming inefficient in their daily tasks... undermining the goal of doing more with less."

...hot leads are being thrown away simply because they're on the bottom of the pile of "junk" leads.

The key to effective lead scoring is formulating a way to capture information, score it, and measure it.

BANT: Budget, authority, need and timeline. - But, info gathering starts sooner.

Assign values by weighting actions based on their recency.

Benefits of lead scoring - decrease volume of sales ready leads.

FastCall411 funded by Dave McClure's 500 Startups Twilio Fund. Great validation.

Here's some pick-up:

socaltech
FastCall411 Gets Funding

programmableweb
Twilio Startup Fund Announces Seven More Winners

mashable
Emergency Hotline Service, Sexting App & More Find Funding via Twilio Fund

500 Startups
7 New Twilio Fund Winners: Fightin’ Crime, Helpin’ Seniors, Bringin’ Sexting Back.

Twilio blog
The Twilio Fund Adds Seven More Companies