Transcript A Publication of Bridgemark Solutions Six Keys to Generating More Sales Leads AND WINNING MORE MARKET RESEARCH PROJECTS TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1. Who Are You? 4 Steps.

A Publication of Bridgemark Solutions
Six Keys to
Generating More
Sales Leads
AND WINNING MORE MARKET RESEARCH PROJECTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
1.
Who Are You? 4 Steps to Focus Your Sales Efforts
2.
The Make-It or Break-It List: 3 Characteristics of a Good Prospect
Company List
3.
Contact Identification: The Importance of Accurate Contact
Information
4.
The Introduction Email: 8 Tips to Getting Read
5.
The Sales Presentation: 5 Ways to Make it Pay Off
6.
Being “Professionally Persistent”: 6 Keys for Keeping in Touch
Copyright © 2014 - Bridgemark Solutions, Inc.
Introduction
All Marketing Research
firms struggle with sales.
It doesn’t matter if you’re large or small, consumer research-focused or business-to-business, domestic or
multi-national. All marketing research firms struggle with sales, and the delicate balance of managing
their existing clients while attempting to bring on new ones.
Much has been discussed and written about this situation, and many hypotheses have been put forth. We
have been told that Market Researchers are introverts. That clients always come first for Market Research
firms using the “seller-doer” model, leaving little time for sales. Or that it’s just too difficult to get your
foot in the door in a new client company because end-clients are risk averse, and afraid to change their
current suppliers.
It doesn’t really matter why sales are difficult in the Market Research industry, because we still need to
regularly bring in new clients to keep our firms safe and strong.
The keys to generating more sales leads – and ultimately selling more Market Research services – are
simple…not easy, but simple:
- Figure out what you’re good at (and what you enjoy),
- Get a good list of companies to target,
- Identify the right people in those companies who are likely to be interested in your services,
- Get their attention in a polite, professional way,
- Make a good impression and introductory presentation, and
- Follow-up, follow-up, follow-up.
We wrote this e-book as a reference for you to identify the weaknesses in your sales process and to offer
some fresh ideas, tips, best practices, and solutions to help you improve. We recognize as well that you
might require some assistance in some of these areas -- and if so, the Bridgemark Solutions team is here
to help.
Thank you for downloading Bridgemark Solutions’ e-book on Generating More Sales Leads and Winning
More Projects, and I hope you find it beneficial. If you come across an idea that turns out to be
particularly helpful, have any that I may have not included, or have some questions that I could address in
another chapter or e-book, I’d love to hear from you!
Good selling…and here’s to professional persistence.
Larry Brown
President
Bridgemark Solutions
CHAPTER ONE
Who Are
You?
4 Steps to Focus
Your Sales Efforts
Our industry is full of awesome
marketing researchers, but when
it comes to marketing our own
companies and services, many of
us are very much in the dark.
How many market research firms
have you ever heard describe
themselves as “full-service”?
What does that mean, anyway?
We often forget one of the most fundamental truths about marketing:
it’s about the customer! If the customer wants a full-service marketing
research firm, that’s great. But I would bet that no marketing research
customer ever walked into his or her office saying, “By golly, I need a
full-service marketing research firm!” Further, I would bet that it would
be difficult to find a definition of “full-service” that our customers
would even agree on. So the first thing we have to do is figure out
what customers want from us.
Differentiation is a marketing fundamental that
“I get calls every
market researchers often overlook. Granted,
week asking me for
differentiation can be extremely difficult in the
a 30 minute
market research industry where many of the
introduction
products and services that we offer are
session; unless you
identical or very similar. Many companies offer
can tell me what
qualitative research, in all of its many
you have that
permutations. Most research firms offer several
differentiates you
varieties of quantitative research. We all
from everyone
analyze data, develop reports, and make
else, I will not
presentations and recommendations.
make the time to
Nonetheless, you have to find a way to stand
meet with you.”
out from the crowd. You have to give
- Bridgemark Solutions/Crux
Research 2013 Market Research
customers a reason to pick up the phone and
Industry Study
call you, rather than your competitor.
So even if we aren’t truly differentiated from our competitors, we still
have to carve out a distinction that we can talk about. It has to be broad
enough that there are sufficient target customers for us to pursue, but
not so broad that every other research firm can claim it. To get started,
here are some possible ways to differentiate your marketing research
firm:
• Make a list of all of the clients you’ve worked with in the past two
years. Highlight those that you’ve worked with multiple times.
• Next, add in some additional information about your clients. What is
their industry/micro-industry? Are they B2B or B2C? Is there a
particular technique or skill they come to you for? What is their
geography – local, regional, national, global? What kinds of business
problems are you helping them with (e.g., customer satisfaction,
innovation, brand positioning, new products)?
Then take a step back and see the patterns that emerge. What are most
of your clients getting from you? Or put another way, what benefit are
you delivering to them? Where do you have the most experience? What
are you really good at? This could be a successful distinction around
which you can build your brand – and then, your sales plan.
Another way to think about this that should not be overlooked is to
figure out what you love researching. What are you truly interested in,
personally and professionally? Are there certain product that you really
enjoy, or social causes that you feel strongly about? Anything that ignites
your passion can also become a distinction and a way to connect
effectively with new clients.
Anything that ignites your passion can
also become a distinction and a way to
connect effectively with new clients.
And remember – it’s a distinction. You should try
to pick one - and only one - for each audience
you are targeting and commit to it. If your
messaging communicates that you’re good at
everything, your target audience won’t know
what they should call you for. Having a
distinction isn’t limiting, it’s liberating.
Once you have your distinction, review your
marketing materials, digital assets, and even
your electronic signature to ensure that you are
committing to -- and optimized for -- that
distinction.
“
“While it’s nice to have a supplier who can ‘do it all’ and has lots
of experience in a variety of areas, what we’re really looking for
are experts…people that can do it better than we can. I find it
hard to believe anyone claims to be an expert in everything. So
when new suppliers approach me, I wish that they would just be
upfront about what it is they do best – and let’s get down to
solving problems.”
Bridgemark Solutions/Crux Research 2013 Market Research Industry Study
CHAPTER TWO
The
Make-It Or
Break-It
List
3 Characteristics of a
Good Prospect Company List
Now that you’ve decided how you’re
going to stand out from your
competitors, you need to determine your
best company-level prospects. Which
companies are going to be most
interested in your experience, expertise,
and what you have to say? Which
companies do you think you can help the
most? What companies are you
especially interested in and excited to
work with…and sell to?
Now that you’ve defined the list you
need, you need to get the list you need.
Easier said than done.
Actually coming up with that list is hard
work. Let’s start by defining what makes
a list great.
1.
Accurate and Timely. Your list should consist of
accurate and current information for each of your
target companies. Things change – your list needs to
change as well. Keeping your list up-to-date with key
facts and information about your prospects will make
your list work hard for you. You need to pull
companies off who you later determine are not good
sales prospects, and add in new companies that you
may have initially excluded. You also must be diligent
at keeping your prospect list separate from your client
list, so that errors aren’t made and someone
erroneously calls a client, thinking they are a
prospect. You need to demonstrate that your whole
organization is “buttoned-up”, and on the same page.
Size. How many prospect companies do you
need? It depends on you and the resources that
you plan on bringing to bear in your sales effort.
One approach is to think about your hit rates and
work backwards: How many proposals does it
take to generate a sale? How many sales
presentations does it take to generate a
proposal? How many people do you have to
contact to generate a sales lead/ capabilities
presentation? What sort of sales resources do
you have? In our experience, anywhere from
100-200 companies is generally in the ballpark.
You don’t want too many that it’s overwhelming,
but you also don’t want to have to go through
the process again for awhile.
2.
You only get one chance…
3.
Ranked or Tiered. Consider ranking the
companies on your list in terms of desirability,
from 1 to 5, A-F, or whatever works for you, so
you have a starting point. Some prospects will
always be ahead of others in terms of
desirability…so why not start there? With that
said, if you’re just setting up your outreach
effort, or testing a new service, it can be best
to “test the waters” with lower-tiered
companies to make sure you have everything
tightened up. “You only get one chance to…”,
well, you know.
Here are some “how to” steps for building your list of companies:
• Start with your current company prospect list. Are the companies on
your list still the ones you want to work with? If not, take them off
or give them a lower rating.
• Whenever possible, consider starting with a clean database. It can
be incredibly frustrating and time-consuming to clean someone
else’s list…and oftentimes it’s best to just start from scratch.
• To build your list of companies, consider using free market research
industry publications like Quirk's Marketing Research Review
(www.quirks.com); buyers guides such as Greenbook
(www.Greenbook.org); research conference attendee lists (including
CASRO, PMRG, ARF, etc.); paid resources such as Hoovers
(www.Hoovers.com), Data.com, or ZoomInfo (www.ZoomInfo.com);
and general internet searches.
Whether you have a dedicated outbound sales force, depend on emarketing, or are just doing it yourself, the quality of your company
target list is paramount to your sales success. If you have any questions,
need a fresh perspective, or just want someone else to do the work,
the team at Bridgemark Solutions can help.
CHAPTER THREE
Contact
Identification
The Importance of Accurate Contact
Information
It’s not really a secret.
Everyone hates cold calling, no matter
which side of the phone you are on.
An, according to our data, once you get to
the sales presentation, no one likes those
very much either.
Let’s look at the numbers (from the 2013
Crux Research/Bridgemark Solutions
Marketing Research Industry Study). Only
28% of the market research firms
surveyed have a dedicated sales staff. When you look at all market
research firms, they are making 3.3 sales presentations per month on
average. Only 40% of market research firms rate these presentations as
“very” or “somewhat” effective. And, not surprisingly, the
Crux/Bridgemark study showed that 72% of market research suppliers
do not enjoy sales presentations, and 60% consider them “not very
effective” or only “somewhat effective”.
On the client side, the average market research prospect takes 2.8 calls
per month (and on average one of those is from a supplier they already
use, usually about expanding their existing relationship). Market
research buyers don’t seem to think that these sales calls are very
effective - only 4% rate them “very” or “somewhat” effective!
In an open-end question asking how
sales cold calls could be better, here are
some typical client responses:
“Don’t call.”
“Don’t cold call.”
“Don’t call so often.”
60% of market research
suppliers polled describe
their sales efforts as
“inconsistent”.
So is it any wonder no one likes cold calling to generate sales
presentations? In my experience, especially in market research shops
with a “seller-doer” model, market researchers will do just about
anything to avoid cold calling. For staff responsible for both sales and
client work, client work trumps sales every time. So it’s no wonder 60%
of market research suppliers polled describe their sales efforts as
“inconsistent”.
Nonetheless, every market research firm needs sales prospects – real
people in target companies – in order to reach out and introduce their
services. But when you consider the costs of getting an accurate
prospect’s name, title, email, phone number, location, etc. – including
the professional time spent looking for the prospect, employee
frustration, and time wasted due to a lack of accuracy – it’s natural to
question whether it makes financial sense to have your staff look for
their own sales prospects.
So here are some tips to help you get more out of your time spent
reaching out to new potential clients:
1. Email Verification services – which can quickly check the emails in
your list to make sure they are still valid – are a fast, effective,
inexpensive way to weed out prospects in your database whose
information is no longer valid.
2. There are a seemingly endless number of list brokers who say they
can deliver a good list (as defined in the last chapter.) But, to-date,
we have not found a broker able to deliver even reasonably good
sales contacts in the market research industry. When considering a
contact broker, here are a few critical questions to ask…
 Have you worked in and understand the research industry?
 Do you offer a guarantee on the “bad” contacts that will

inevitably be included in the list provided?
Will you provide only net-new contacts, avoiding the ones I
already have? You probably have at least some contacts
already, so the ones you are buying should be incremental
to your existing contacts…right? Why should you pay for
contacts you already have?
Most list brokers are not interested in developing customized lists, based
on your specific needs. They make their money on volume, selling a
given list over many times to generate revenue. So, they want to sell you
the contacts they already have…not necessarily the contacts you need.
Wouldn’t it be interesting
to know how many other
companies (including your
direct competitors) those same
contacts have already been
sold to?
3. One of Bridgemark Solutions’ most popular services is providing
highly-targeted sales contacts to sales and research staff in market
research firms looking to develop new business. You determine
which companies you are interested in selling to, and Bridgemark
can deliver accurate and timely information on those companies
and contacts, including names, titles, addresses, phone numbers
and email addresses of your target prospects within those
companies. By providing a list of the contacts you already have
(and that Bridgemark Solutions will avoid), a fresh list of new names
is ensured. Using a variety of sources like Hoovers, LinkedIn, Zoom
Info, Data.com, TheList.com, etc., Bridgemark can take a lot of the
drudgery out of the contact identification process by delivering
hand-developed prospects for you or your sales team.
Now, having contact identification done for you certainly isn’t going to
make any one like cold calling, but at least when they do get around to
making those calls, they will be calling the right people. Reducing the
time wasted with calling contacts no longer employed in your target
companies can save you real money and significantly increase the
likelihood of success.
CHAPTER FOUR
The
Introduction
Email
Tips to Getting Read
How many emails do you receive each day? And how many of those do
you delete without reading more than a few words, the subject line, or
anything at all? What it is that gets you to read the few you do actually
read?
Let’s face it. Sales is a volume game: you’re going to have to spend
some time fishing before you catch a fish. But if you’ve got an empty
hook, you’re very unlikely to catch anything.
Here are nine tips to sending emails that
actually get read:
1. Use a reference whenever possible. Did
someone internally refer you to them?
That’s optimal, but not common. Have you
previously done work for their company, or
even their industry? This creates immediate
credibility and significantly increases your
chances of getting a response.
2. Personalization. Personalizing both the
subject line and the greeting maximizes the
prospect’s likelihood of recognizing that you
are a person, not a machine, and are
sending this email to them directly. If you
are sending emails en masse, personalizing
the email wherever you can is critical – as
long as it’s done in a natural, conversational
way.
3. Keep it short. That’s all.
KEEP
CALM
AND
GET
READ
Bonus Tip:
Did the
prospect
respond and say
they weren’t
the right
person? Always
thank them and
kindly ask them
to redirect you
to the correct
person if they
can.
4. Keep it simple. Try to avoid any confusing jargon,
acronyms, or too many internal abbreviations. You want
to convey your firm’s services in a way that the prospect
will easily understand, while giving them the sense that
you are prepared and knowledgeable. And keep in mind
that, while this may have been initially intended for one
specific audience (i.e. researchers, marketers, brand
managers), different companies manage their research
in different divisions and under different umbrellas, and
you never know who might actually end up receiving
your email. Don’t make it difficult to understand you or
what you can do for them!
5. What’s In it for Them? This is your guiding principle.
They don’t want to hear about you; they want to hear
what you can do for them. How are you going to help
them answer their difficult business questions? How will
using your firm make them look good among their
managers or peers? How can you make their work
easier? That’s what you need to convey.
6. Personality. A little, but not too much. You want to
remain professional and credible, as well as
knowledgeable and nice. Your introductory email is an
opportunity to show them how well you can write
(perhaps related to how smart you are?), how easy it is
to understand what you’re trying to convey (perhaps
related to how clear your reports will be?), and all the
while being polite and pleasant (perhaps related to how
enjoyable it will be to work with you?). This is definitely
more of an art than a science, but anyone can do it.
Double Bonus Tip:
Have some fun! When you’re doing your lead generation work and come across a funny
name, title, etc., keep a whiteboard in the office (or a shared document) and share it with
the rest of the team. A little humor makes a tough assignment a lot more fun.
7. Avoid attachments. Most companies
won’t let emails with large attachments
through, and the ones that get through
will have scary-looking warnings all
around them. Hyperlinks are good, but
not more than two or three, including
any in your e-signature.
8. Avoid attention-makers. Italics,
boldface, and exclamation points – all of
these can get your email stuck in the
junk filter. Be careful about getting too
cute with subject lines…a little intrigue is
OK and can pique curiosity, but they are
closely scanned for certain keywords
that are likely to indicate a non-work
related email. And be careful with esignatures; they account for a
surprisingly large amount of
undeliverable emails, probably because
so many of them include pictures,
hyperlinks, bolding, underlining,
and italics…all the things you should be
avoiding in the body of your note.
Should you start with the most senior contact and then work your way down? Or will you
have more success if you start with the junior folks and work your way up? There is no
hard-and-fast rule about this. Sometimes, the senior person will forward your email to a
more junior person, asking them to contact you and “screen” you. This is good, because
the junior person is less likely to ignore the request from their boss. Other times, the
senior person is less likely to respond, and you are better off starting with the junior
person and working your way up the seniority chain. It really depends on the company, the
size of the research organization, and the individual, so do both until you start to see some
trends emerge.
9. “Professional Persistence”. Getting emails read is also
largely a matter of timing and persistence. If your prospect
is slammed, he or she may just delete your email because
there’s too much work to do. Or it may seem somewhat
interesting, but shipped off to an unread mail folder,
waiting for that elusive day when there might be time to
read it. So to increase the chance that your email will be
read, follow-up…and be professionally persistent.
Bridgemark Solutions recommends sending a follow-up
message about four or five business days after the initial
email, by forwarding the initial email and appending it with
a new, short message reinforcing the points in your original
note. After that, follow up on a similar schedule for a total
of three or four weeks. Don’t create a new email every
time…forward the ones you’ve already sent so that a.) the
prospect knows you’re a real person, not a blast email
machine, and b.) our conclusion is that junk mail filters tend
to allow more emails through that are forwarded, as
opposed to new.
Plan for Success
While the email is important, it must be supported by a consistent process, or
it will just be a random activity. Set aside a time for lead generation, and stick
to it. In addition to being consistent, the process must be repeatable, or it will
not be efficient. Create a set of emails that work for different services and
under different conditions, and customize them for each prospect. Use a CRM
tool (like www.Salesforce.com) to keep you and others honest in following the
lead generation schedule. Keep track of, publicize, and reward your team’s
lead generation metrics (emails sent, follow-up’s made, leads generated, etc.),
so that you have accountability to yourself, as well as others in your company
who are involved in these tough-but-critical business development activities.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Sales
Presentation
5 Ways to Make It Pay Off
It worked! Your list making, contact identification, and outbound
prospecting have paid off. The prospect wants to learn more about
your services. Like a first date, this is a chance for both you and your
prospect to get to know a little more about each other. Unlike your
prospect, though, you have the responsibility for making a great
impression and leaving the door open for building a relationship.
Here are five ways to make your sales presentation outstanding:
1.
Be prepared! If you want to make the most of
the relatively short time that you will be given
for your sales presentation, then you need to
be prepared. And that preparation takes three
forms:
 First do your homework and gather all the
information you can about your prospect
and their company. Look them up on
LinkedIn, review their website, and check
your internal records to see if any work has
been done with their company (or a
competitor’s) in the past.
 Second, check your tech. Make sure that
the technology you are using in your sales
presentation is working properly – and
make sure it’s still working about 10
minutes before the sales presentation, so
you can avoid any last-minute tech
emergencies.
 Finally, your presentation. This is the time to focus on what you
bring to the table, including the distinction you established back in
Chapter 1. This is what got you in the door, and this is what the
prospect is interested in. So focus on your distinction and how you
stand out from the crowd.
The “Sandwich Technique”, applied to sales
presentations. The goal is to get as much
information about what the prospect is looking
for as possible. The more information you have
about them and their needs, the better you
can tailor the discussion to their role and
interests, and how you can help them. So,
after you have secured the presentation, try
asking for more information in order to have a
more efficient and productive discussion.
Often, prospects will not give you this
additional direction or will say they want a
“general capabilities” presentation…probably
because they just don’t know much about you
yet, and you haven’t established much trust.
So, the first five minutes of your presentation
should be used to establish credibility and
rapport. Briefly talk about your industry
experience, interests, and any former
employers or colleagues you might have in
common (from the prep work you did on
LinkedIn before the call). Then, ask the
prospect about their role in the company,
issues they are dealing with, the types of
research projects they most often get involved
with, what they think they envision needing in
the future, etc. Consider asking the prospect
what they saw in your emails that struck them
as particularly interesting. Any information
you get at this point is critical to helping you
tailor the rest of the presentation to the
prospect’s specific situation.
2.
Have a modular presentation. Creating a
modular presentation lets you customize your
sales presentation in advance – or on the fly
for those situations where you’re not sure
what interests the prospect. For example, if
your distinction is customer satisfaction
tracking research, you might include modules
on customer satisfaction tracking, loyalty
research, lost customer or win-back research,
employee satisfaction research, etc. Keep each
section relatively short so you can skip through
the irrelevant sections, but be prepared to
expand on each slide that seems to meet your
prospect’s needs.
4.
3.
Have a POV. Have a point-of-view. Be
prepared to take a stand on critical issues in
your specialty and to defend them
appropriately. You don’t always have to
agree with the prospect; great market
researchers will be willing to entertain
alternative approaches to accomplishing
their goals, especially if they offer a benefit
over what they are currently doing. Your
opposing/different viewpoint will often be
considered a positive – a way for a company
to look at things from a different perspective,
hopefully to ultimately help them derive
better insights and make better decisions.
Be professional. Remember to follow the basic
rules of personal and professional etiquette:
be on time (or better yet, a couple minutes
early) and respect time limits. Be sure to listen!
If you feel you are talking too much, you
probably are; stop and check in with the others
on the call or in the meeting. Ask them how
your presentation is resonating with them, if
what you’re discussing is relevant, and if they
have any questions so you don’t veer too far
off track. Think of the sales presentation like a
date; to learn more about the other person
you need to get them to talk to you…and when
you’re talking, try to keep it interesting!
5.
At the end of the presentation, which was hopefully more of a
discussion than a speech, before the call ends, you want to
establish some next steps. Was there something you agreed to
follow-up on during the call? Remind the prospect that you will be
doing that. Ask the client for their reaction to what they heard.
Would they be comfortable inviting your firm to submit a proposal
for their next research project? Is there anything preventing them
from working with you? The purpose of the sales call is to open
the door – so make sure you leave it open.
Bonus Tip: Reach out to the prospect via
LinkedIn after the call; if they accept your
connection, you’re probably in good
standing – if they don’t, well, at least you
know where you stand!
CHAPTER SIX
Being
Professionally
Persistent
5 Tips for Keeping In Touch
The sales presentation went great, you think…so now what? As with
a first date, here’s where the hard work of relationship building kicks
in. Once in a while, the sales call will result in an immediate or very
short-term opportunity, perhaps to deliver a proposal. That’s terrific,
but it’s much more common that you will need to reach out to that
prospect again before they will invite you to bid on an upcoming
project. In fact, the average sales cycle in business has increased
22% in the past five years, due to the greater number of decision
makers that are now involved in the process, according to
SiriusDecisions.
But how do you follow-up without feeling like a pest? Here are six
tips for being professionally persistent:
First things first. Immediately after the
call, send a thank you email and fulfill
any promises you committed to during
the call. What is immediate? Within 24
hours – not much later. Any longer and
the prospect may feel as if they weren’t
very important. And even if you didn’t
promise a specific follow-up, send the
prospect something – a white paper,
case study, an article, the sales
presentation modified to focus on the
relevant parts – or even just a mutual
friend’s contact info to reinforce the
sales call and get your contact
information in their files.
1.
2.
Deliver value. During that sales call, make
notes about the prospect, their company,
industry and competition. Write down their
challenges, the types of research they do, and
anything else that might let you help them in
the future. So when you do re-contact them,
you can deliver information that is relevant to
them. Maybe you read an article about their
industry – send the link. Perhaps you learned
about a relevant new technique for data
analysis – send them an email. As long as you
are being helpful and the information is
relevant, you won’t be perceived as a pest.
Timing is everything. In the
Crux/Bridgemark research study,
respondents on the client side were asked
how market research companies should
stay in touch. Without fail, email is
preferred over telephone calls, and the
timing suggested is about once per
quarter.
4.
3.
Lead nurturing automation. Sending your company’s
newsletters, blogs, LinkedIn updates, informational
articles, etc. – anything to stay relevant and top-ofmind – is critical to sales success. But doing this
individually to a large volume of contacts is time
consuming. Lead nurturing automation can provide a
more efficient, consistent and measurable approach
to this task.
The Personal Touch. Whenever possible, learn
more about your prospect as an individual. What
are their career aspirations? Do they have any
hobbies or interests? Are they traveling
anywhere? Any time you can step outside the
purely business mentality without compromising
your professionalism, you can build on your
relationship. Especially if you use lead nurturing
automation, balancing automated contact with
the personal touch can maintain the optimal
balance of high touch and low cost.
5.
79% of marketing leads never turn into sales due to lack of
follow-up/nurturing. When you think about all of the
resources you put into your sales effort to get to this point,
that much waste is certainly not something that research
firms of any size can afford. So it’s critical that firms learn to
excel at follow-up if they want to generate more sales.
You’re so close…don’t quit yet!
About Bridgemark Solutions
In 2001, Larry Brown began his business-to-business, solutions-based sales career
with Harris Interactive, formerly a Honomichl Top 15 global market research
company. Beginning in lead generation, he developed sales leads for senior staff,
eventually moving into direct sales, sales operations, and sales management.
Under Larry’s leadership his sales teams grew new, incremental sales from $7.1M
to $15.9M in 3 years (+224%), with the lead generation team yielding 1800
individual leads and 500 client opportunities/proposals in a single year, generating
over $22 million.
In 2008, Larry formed Bridgemark Solutions to share his successful lead generation
sales model and approach with market research companies in their quest to grow
their sales and deliver world-class services and insights to their clients.
Today, Bridgemark is a boutique lead generation and sales support firm supporting
market research companies across the United States, Canada and Europe. We
understand the sales process and the unique nature of customized, consultative,
high-value services…and as a small business ourselves, we know how critically
important it is to market one’s services to the right potential customers, with the
right message, at the right time…and in the right manner.
We hope you’ll give us a call sometime to see if we can help you find your next
favorite client.
Here’s to professional persistence!
Larry Brown
President
Bridgemark Solutions
585.413.0090
[email protected]
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