Find the Perfect Sales Outsourcing Partner With These Key Questions
Have you struggled to find a sales outsourcing partner that truly understands your goals and challenges? Are you frustrated by a misalignment leading to mistakes or issues that are hurting your brand? Or maybe you’ve partnered with an outsourcer that overpromised, only to underdeliver, leaving your sales team with fewer results than expected?
Unfortunately, these issues are all too common when sales outsourcers aren’t properly vetted. And by the time most businesses start looking for a partner, they’re already feeling the pressure—dealing with revenue shortfalls, a thinning sales pipeline, and the urgency to turn things around quickly.
What to Know Before Shopping for a Sales Outsourcing Partner
Imagine partnering with an outsourcer that not only understands your short and long-term goals but also offers a flexible contract that scales as your needs change. A partner who communicates transparently, tracks the KPIs critical to your success, and takes the time to truly understand your industry.
In this blog, we’ll simplify the process of finding the sales outsourcer your business needs by outlining the key questions to ask and what to look for in a provider. By the end, you’ll be equipped to make a confident decision, knowing you've thoroughly vetted your potential partner for the features that matter most to your business.
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3 Questions to Ask Sales Outsourcing Services Providers to Ensure Alignment
Your business has unique needs, and the right outsourcing partner is out there—you just need to start the right conversation. Here are three key questions to ensure the agency you are considering aligns with your business goals:
1. How do you align services with our business objectives?
Ask how the provider aligns their services with both your short-term and long-term goals. Will they customize their approach for lead generation, customer retention, and sales growth, or offer a one-size-fits-all solution? A good sales outsourcing partner will tailor their services to your specific needs.
Pro Tip: To get a clear picture of how your potential partner will customize their approach, ask to see job descriptions for the people who will work on your account, a sample of the personnel evaluation process, example sales collateral, and examples of proposals or contracts.
2. What steps do you take to ensure flexibility as our needs evolve?
Your business will grow and change, and your provider should be able to adapt. Ask about their historical activity with growing clients. How long did it take to fully staff for increased production? Can they scale services up or down without locking you into rigid, long-term contracts? An agency that can pivot quickly helps keep your business agile.
3. What is your approach to onboarding and getting up to speed with our industry?
It’s important to ensure the sales outsourcer understands your industry and product category. Ask about their onboarding process—how they plan to get familiar with your industry’s nuances, your target audience’s pain points, and the competitive landscape. A thorough onboarding ensures they’ll hit the ground running.
3 Questions to Confirm a Sales Outsourcer Will Help You Tackle Your Biggest Challenges
When your sales team operates efficiently, your business can eliminate wasted resources and reduce the chances of leads slipping through the cracks. Here are three key questions to ensure the provider can tackle your sales challenges:
1. How will you help us generate high-quality leads?
One of the main reasons to outsource your sales team is to stop wasting time on unqualified leads. Ask how the partner ensures leads match your ideal customer profile. Delivering well-qualified prospects helps your team focus on leads more likely to convert.
2. What processes do you have in place to improve lead-to-sale conversion rates?
Low conversion rates are a common challenge. Ask how the provider manages follow-up, lead nurturing, and handoff to your sales team. Their processes should ensure leads move efficiently through the pipeline, primed for conversion.
3. How do you handle sales appointment setting and minimizing no-shows?
Missed appointments and poor-quality meetings can frustrate sales teams. Ask the sales outsourcing provider how they set appointments and minimize no-shows. A strong outsourcer ensures your sales team is meeting with qualified leads ready to move forward. When the appointment is a no-show, they take responsibility to get that prospect rescheduled.
3 Questions That Ensure Flexibility
A flexible contract reduces risk and ensures your business stays agile. Rigid agreements can limit your ability to pivot. Here are three questions to confirm the agency you are considering offers flexibility:
1. Are your contracts flexible enough to adjust service levels as needed?
Rigid contracts limit your ability to scale. Confirm that the provider offers flexible terms, allowing you to adjust service levels based on evolving business needs.
2. How quickly can you adapt if we need to scale or shift focus rapidly?
Sudden changes in demand or strategy happen, and your sales outsourcing provider must keep up. Ask how quickly they can adjust to increased lead volume or a change in focus, ensuring they have the resources to pivot when needed.
3. What measures do you take to ensure minimal disruption during scaling?
Scaling should be seamless. Ask how the sales outsourcer ensures smooth transitions. A strong partner will have a nimble foundation, scalable technology, and cross-trained staff to minimize disruptions.
3 Questions to Ask Your Sales Outsourcer About Measurable Results
You want a partner focused on getting measurable results. Make sure you and your provider are aligned on KPIs, reporting, and addressing discrepancies between results and expectations. Here are three key questions to ask:
1. What key performance indicators do you track to measure success?
Ask which specific KPIs the team monitors, such as lead quality, conversion rates, or customer retention. This ensures they are aligned with your business goals and focused on the right metrics.
2. How often do you provide reporting, and what insights are included?
Regular reporting is essential for staying informed. Ask how frequently you’ll receive reports and what kind of data will be included. This will help you assess transparency and the effectiveness of the agency’s efforts.
3. How do you adjust your strategy based on performance metrics?
A results-driven sales outsourcer should have a process for adjusting their approach if performance falls short. Ask how they analyze metrics and how quickly they can pivot to optimize outcomes. As you set your benchmarks, ask your partner to indicate what thresholds warrant a change in strategy and be sure to get their commitment to provide those suggestions proactively versus requiring you to intervene and demand them.
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Understanding Promises From Your Sales Outsourcing Provider
Sales outsourcing providers may promise big results, but it’s important to understand how they define and ensure these outcomes. Here’s what to ask about different types of guarantees:
Performance-Based Contracts
Some outsourcers offer performance-based contracts, where payment is tied to specific results like lead conversions or sales growth.
What to Ask:
How are performance metrics structured in the contract?
What happens if the agreed-upon kpis are not met?
Service-Level Agreements (SLAs)
SLAs define service expectations, such as response times or lead quality, and guarantee certain standards.
What to Ask:
What specific SLAs do you guarantee, and how do you measure compliance?
What are the consequences if service levels aren’t met?
Money-Back or Satisfaction Guarantees
Some providers may offer a refund or satisfaction guarantee if they don’t deliver the expected results within a specific timeframe.
What to Ask:
Do you offer any money-back or satisfaction guarantees, and what are the terms?
What criteria must be met for the guarantee to take effect?
The Rewards of Finding the Right Sales Outsourcer
Imagine feeling empowered to focus on core competencies while an efficient outsourced team handles crucial tasks like lead generation, customer retention, and sales support. Imagine the resulting higher-quality leads, improved conversion rates, and a more streamlined sales process.
Imagine sustainable growth.
Whether you're scaling up for a busy season or shifting focus to a new product line, the right sales outsourcing partner will provide the agility and expertise needed to keep you competitive. In the long run, finding the right outsourcer isn’t just about filling a service gap—it’s about creating a strategic sales partnership that fuels your business’s long-term success.
How Incept Solves Your Biggest Challenges – Empowering You to Lead the Story
At Incept, we understand that your business needs more than a one-size-fits-all solution. That’s why we put you at the center of everything we do, guiding you through challenges with solutions tailored specifically to your goals.
The Full Circle Process – Customized for Your Success
Your business deserves a sales outsourcing partner that solves real problems, not just symptoms. Our Full Circle Process begins with asking the right questions to identify the root of your challenges. We capture and analyze data, collaborate with your team, and implement a 60-90 day testing period to refine our strategy.
This ongoing process of adjustment ensures we deliver results that are perfectly aligned with your goals, turning us into a true partner in your success. With Incept, you’re not just another client; you’re the hero, and we’re here to guide you.
Why Being Privately Owned and US-Based Matters
As a privately owned, US-based company, we operate with a focus on long-term relationships, not short-term gains. Our Ohio location allows us to work in sync with your business hours and culture. Plus, our flexible 90-day evaluation period lets you assess our impact without the pressure of a long-term contract.
This flexibility means we can adjust quickly to your evolving needs, ensuring our services always align with your business’s growth and goals.
30 Years of Experience – Trusted by Businesses Like Yours for Proven Results
With 30 years of experience, Incept has seen and solved nearly every challenge in lead generation and appointment setting. Our expertise translates into reliable strategies that work. Additionally, we boast high employee retention, ensuring consistency and quality service for you.
This experience means we’re prepared to guide you through any obstacles, offering the stability and proven methods you need to succeed.
Flexibility and Satisfaction – Your Success is Our Priority
Our flexible terms, starting with a 90-day engagement, allow you to see results without the burden of a long-term commitment. If you are not 100% satisfied after the initial 90 days, we offer the flexibility to back out of the engagement at any point with just a 7-day notice—no strings attached. Our short-term contracts, along with our 7-day cancellation guarantee, mean we’re not just here to provide services—we’re here to ensure your success, every step of the way.
Incept – Your Trusted Sales Outsourcing Partner for Driving Results
With our Full Circle Process, US-based operations, decades of experience, and commitment to flexibility and satisfaction, Incept delivers solutions that directly address your business’s biggest challenges.
An Explanation of Lead Generation ROI
Are you under pressure to justify every dollar spent on supporting your sales team? You may believe that enlisting a lead generation partner would significantly impact revenue growth, but preparing a clear case for ROI probably feels like an uphill battle.
Convincing stakeholders to allocate budget towards lead generation means proving measurable returns—and the stakes couldn't be higher.
Potential ROI for Lead Generation: A Guide to Demonstrating Value
When explaining the return on investment for B2B lead generation, there is no one-size-fits-all formula. Your lead generation ROI depends on several factors, including:
Average customer value
Length of your sales cycle
Conversion rate
For instance, if your average customer value is $50,000 and your conversion rate is 10%, generating just 10 qualified leads could result in $50,000 in revenue.
In this article, we’ll break down how you can frame potential ROI for lead generation, demonstrating clear value to stakeholders. We’ll examine the cost of doing nothing, compare the cost of in-house lead generation, and evaluate different pay structures most common among lead and demand generation partners. In the end, you’ll be equipped to present a clear case for value when discussing lead generation ROI with the decision makers in your organization.
How to Present Lead Generation ROI to Decision-Makers
Demonstrate the value of lead generation to decision-makers by focusing on a few key points that resonate with their priorities. First, highlight measurable outcomes by showing how lead generation directly impacts revenue growth, using data or projected ROI to back up your claims. Next, emphasize the cost of doing nothing—explain how missed opportunities and stagnant lead flow can lead to lost revenue and reduced market competitiveness.
It’s also important to compare the cost-efficiency of outsourcing lead generation versus managing it in-house. Discuss how partnering with experts can deliver higher-quality leads while reducing overhead and mitigating the long-term risk of additional staffing.
Finally, align your pitch with the company’s long-term goals. Demonstrate how a consistent lead generation strategy supports sustainable growth and positions the business for future success.
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The Cost of Doing Nothing
If you're struggling to generate enough leads, it's likely your revenue has already taken a hit. The stakes of inaction are high:
Revenue stagnation
Missed growth opportunities
Potential business failure
The most successful businesses are making major investments in advanced technology and high-cost talent to ensure their success, and they will outspend you. If your current lead flow is not enough to meet revenue goals, you’re risking far more than the cost of lead generation services. You’re also risking being crushed by bigger players with bigger budgets, and never even being considered by your ideal customers.
The potential loss becomes a key factor in demonstrating ROI. Failing to invest in lead generation can often cost far more than the investment itself in lost opportunities.
Key takeaway: By presenting the risk of doing nothing, you can highlight the ROI of taking proactive steps.
The Cost of In-House Expertise
Managing lead generation in-house certainly comes with benefits. Your organization will have greater control over the process, and teams will ultimately be perfectly aligned with company goals and messaging. Real-time communication and full data ownership are additional factors that keep lead generation teams in-house. However, this strategy comes with its own set of risks and challenges:
Hiring and training costs for a full-time team
Long-term commitments
Lack of flexibility when scaling up or down
If your team is already stretched thin, adding lead generation to their plate might reduce overall productivity. While the most competitive businesses are investing heavily in in-house teams, many companies are not even prepared to hire one additional full-time sales team member.
Outsourcing to a lead generation partner allows you to tap into a full team of experts without the long-term risk and expense. The right partner for your business will help you maximize ROI for lead generation services by providing flexible terms that make it easy to scale up or down as business fluctuates.
Key takeaway: Outsourcing can significantly cut the costs and risks associated with recruitment, training, and retention while delivering faster, more predictable results.
How Much Does B2B Lead Generation Cost?
The cost of B2B lead generation varies based on the level of service provided, expertise, agency location, and pricing models. Overall costs can range from $3,000 to $10,000 per month or more. Here is an overview of common pricing structures:
Pay Per Lead
In this model, you only pay for the leads you receive. While it allows for controlled spending, you must ensure the leads are high-quality, as low-conversion leads can inflate costs without contributing to revenue.
Pros: Budget-friendly; predictable costs
Cons: Lead quality can vary, which may affect ROI
Monthly Retainers
A monthly retainer works similarly to a subscription service. You pay a set fee for ongoing lead generation support, such as campaign management, optimizations, and consulting. The main advantage here is continuity—you have a team working on lead generation consistently.
Pros: Continuous support; deeper integration into your strategy
Cons: Higher upfront cost; some agencies require longer-term commitments
Commission-Based
With commission-based pricing, you pay a percentage of the revenue generated from the leads. This model aligns the service provider’s success with yours. However, it can reduce profit margins, particularly for high-ticket products.
Pros: Motivated service provider; aligned incentives
Cons: Smaller margins on each sale
Demonstrating Actual ROI for Lead Generation Services
To effectively demonstrate the ROI of lead generation services, it’s critical to consistently track and measure key metrics. Without this data, you’ll have trouble proving value or optimizing your strategy. The following are essential metrics to focus on:
Lead performance: Which leads are converting, and at what rate? Are the leads moving through the sales funnel efficiently, or are they stalling? Tracking conversion rates at different stages helps identify bottlenecks and areas for improvement.
Clear lead qualification: Without clear lead qualification criteria, you may waste time and resources chasing unqualified leads, reducing your ROI. A well-defined lead qualification process helps both sales and marketing focus their efforts on prospects who are most likely to convert.
Commission structure: While commissions align the lead generation service’s success with yours, they can also cut into your profit margins. Regularly review how much you’re paying per converted lead and whether the revenue generated justifies the cost. Keeping a close eye on this will help ensure that your lead generation efforts remain financially sustainable.
Does Your Business Have What it Takes to Close Deals Faster?
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The Cost of Incept’s Lead Generation Services
Your success is our top priority, and the experiences of businesses like yours reflect the value we deliver. Our lead generation pricing models are designed to align with your specific needs, providing fractional services that give you access to an entire team without the expense of full-time employees.
Here’s what one client said about partnering with us:
“Working with Incept has supercharged our lead generation efforts! They have been able to use their systematic approach to consistently deliver high-quality leads for our sales people. They have an uncanny ability to get in touch with key decision-makers and discover critical pieces of information. I look forward to seeing how our sales will continue to grow as a result of their efforts.”
Over the past 30 years, the leads we’ve generated for our clients have directly led to billions in transactions. Our services generate leads that contribute to $1 million+ contracts each month.
All Packages Include:
A dedicated employee with a college degree or two years of sales experience
Executive-level management with ample experience in sales and marketing
Weekly feedback and insight into the week's results
Daily activity reporting
Ability to adjust plan monthly
Setup Fee ($3,000) Includes:
Executive consulting
Program setup
AGS training
Market intelligence gathering
List building
Technical setup (CRM, dialer, etc.)
-
Daily feedback and insight
Monthly summary report
Access to all audio recordings
$3,850 per month
-
Daily feedback and insight
Monthly summary report
Access to all audio recordings
Competitive summary
$6,650 per month
These comprehensive services allow you to scale without the long-term risk and overhead of building an in-house team. Your ROI starts with reducing these overhead costs while delivering consistent lead flow.
How to Show Lead Generation ROI That Appeals to Decision-Makers
When presenting lead generation ROI to decision-makers, it’s essential to frame your argument in a way that speaks to their priorities: growth, efficiency, and long-term value. ROI isn’t just about reducing costs—it’s about demonstrating how lead generation efforts can drive revenue, fuel business growth, and keep the company competitive.
By clearly outlining these key points, you’ll help decision-makers see the strategic value of investing in a lead generation partner, ensuring they understand how this investment can lead to sustained business success and measurable returns:
Emphasize the cost of doing nothing: Show how inaction affects growth.
Highlight the cost efficiency of outsourcing: Compare in-house efforts versus outsourcing.
Show flexibility in pricing models: Tailor your lead generation investment based on your business’s evolving needs.
Remember, ROI is not just about cutting costs—it’s about driving more revenue, staying competitive, and setting your company up for long-term success. By partnering with a demand generation expert like Incept, you’re gaining a guide who can help you avoid costly missteps and ensure your lead generation efforts result in meaningful, measurable business growth.
Ready to boost your sales with proven lead generation ROI?
Schedule a consultation and start growing today!
Change Your Workforce Systems and Prepare Your Business for the Future
The business landscape is evolving faster than ever, and it takes an attitude of continuous growth in order to stay competitive as we adopt new technology, new processes, and new workforce systems. Sam Falletta, our CEO, keeps Incept at the forefront of workplace progress in Ohio. In his 2023 talk with The City Club of Cleveland, he highlighted how rapid workforce transformations are influencing businesses and employees alike. He delivered a powerful reminder of the responsibility of business leaders to build a dynamic workplace prepared to respond to future disruptions, and he shared insights about how Incept is adapting.
Watch Sam’s full presentation:
Is Your Business Prepared for the Future?
Are you struggling to manage your remote workers or finding it difficult to hire enough employees to keep your business running smoothly? Does rapidly changing technology leave you scratching your head more often than not? Is your definition of employee engagement still stuck at the water cooler? It’s time to either adapt your workplace systems or get left behind.
Take our Future of Work Readiness Assessment to discover where your business stands and get tailored, actionable feedback on how you can propel sustainable growth.
Why Holiday B2B Marketing and Lead Generation Makes the New Year Sparkle
Worried about sales drying up over the Holidays? You're not alone.
With retail getting all the love between November and the beginning of the year, you may be tempted to kick back and relax throughout the end-of-year holiday season. But that’s what everyone else is doing. So why not take advantage of the slowest time of year for most non-retail businesses?
Here’s why now is the perfect time to keep your B2B marketing and lead generation efforts going strong:
With most non-retail businesses slowing down, you have the unique opportunity to stand out, capture attention, and build momentum for the new year while competitors are hibernating. Don’t let the holidays be an excuse for missed opportunities—let’s turn this quiet time into your secret weapon for future growth.
The Unexpected Gift of Holiday Lead Generation
Ready to unwrap a pipeline full of leads come January 2nd? In this article, we’re going to show you how. We’ll offer up some B2B holiday campaign ideas to keep your brand merry and bright in the eyes of your prospects, and we will share our best tips and tricks to make sure your time spent perfecting your marketing collateral and updating your CRM results in a new year full of opportunities.
Gift yourself with a pipeline full of qualified leads that have been vetted and are ready to talk to you! Download our brochure to learn how we can help your business prosper in the new year!
Why Holiday Lead Generation Gives You an Edge to Sleigh the Competition
While competitors are settling in for a long winter’s nap, you can use this time to position yourself for a profitable Q1. By keeping your marketing and lead generation campaigns active, you'll capture new opportunities and build momentum that others might miss.
Fewer Elves in the Workshop: Reduced Competition
With fewer of your competitors vying for attention over the holidays, decision-makers are more accessible. There’s often reduced pressure to hit major productivity milestones at work, so minds are more relaxed and open to new opportunities. Use this time to reach out with thoughtfully-crafted messaging to capture their attention when others are less likely to be running competitive campaigns.
Pro Tip: Give your audience a break from the usual salesy content by keeping your emails and social media posts light and informative. Boost your message with a festive tone, and make sure you include something helpful as they wrap up their year.
Deck the Halls With New Plans: Business Leaders are in Planning Mode
The holiday season isn’t just about taking a well-deserved break—it’s also a time when many decision-makers, just like you, begin reflecting on the past year. You’re probably evaluating what worked, what didn’t, and how to improve for the year ahead.
As you tidy up business operations, assess your goals, and finalize budgets, you’re not alone. This quieter time is when leaders often step back, strategize, and lay the groundwork for success in the coming year. People are often more relaxed, open to new ideas, and ready to discuss solutions. Connecting with prospects during this planning phase allows you to align your offerings with their projected needs and objectives.
Pro Tip: Frame your outreach around how your product or service can help them hit those last-minute end-of-year targets or get off to a running start in the new year.
Don’t Let Your Feeds Go Frosty: Keep Your Socials Warm Through the Holidays
While professional platforms like LinkedIn may see a dip in activity during the holidays, other social media platforms tend to see an uptick as people have more downtime to scroll and engage. Prospects often turn to platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to connect with friends, family, and their favorite brands during this period.
This makes it an excellent time to stay visible, nurture relationships, and plant the seeds for future engagement. Even if LinkedIn traffic slows down, being active on more casual platforms can keep your brand top-of-mind.
Pro tip: Tailor your content for more casual, engaging platforms like Instagram or Facebook, where users are likely spending their holiday downtime.
Wrap Up Those Budgets: Year-End Budget Opportunities
Some companies have “use it or lose it” budget policies, motivating decision-makers to finalize their spending before the year ends. This creates a valuable opportunity for your business to offer solutions that align with their goals and help them allocate leftover funds. Whether it's closing a deal or initiating conversations for the new year, providing timely offers or discounts during this period can lead to quick wins and lay the groundwork for long-term partnerships.
Pro tip #1: Craft your messaging around how your product or service can help prospects maximize their year-end budget and seamlessly transition into the new year with enhanced value.
Pro tip #2: If prospects are in a hurry to finalize their year-end spending, an increased ad spend will capitalize on additional social media activity.
‘Tis the Season for Spending: Capitalize on the Buying Mindset
During the holidays, people are already in a spending mindset—whether for gifts, travel, or year-end investments. This heightened focus on spending makes prospects more receptive to a well-crafted B2B sales pitch. Business decision-makers are not only finalizing personal purchases, but also thinking about how to allocate resources for the new year. A timely, compelling offer that highlights value and return on investment is more likely to resonate when your audience is already in a purchasing frame of mind.
Pro tip: Use festive language in your outreach, positioning your product or service as the perfect "gift" to help your prospects achieve their goals in the new year.
Streamline Your Sales Team to Kick the New Year Off Right
Uncover your sales team’s most valuable strengths and the inefficiencies holding back your growth, then explore tailored insights in our simple efficiency assessment.
B2B Marketing and Lead Generation Ideas that Jingle All the Way to the Bank
Ready to put that third glass of eggnog down and give yourself the gift of a profitable new year? Here are some ideas to give your holiday B2B marketing and lead generation campaigns a lasting impact:
Optimize Your Inbound Strategy
Are your landing pages converting as well as they could? Is your content up to date? This is a great time to make sure that everything is running smoothly so you can capture leads over the break. Use the slower pace of the holidays to review and optimize your inbound lead generation efforts.
Revise your content library to answer the questions your prospects have most often, and give your sales team assets that can help reduce the time they spend educating potential customers.
Bonus Assignment: An infographic is 30 times more likely to be read than a text article. Unleash your inner Bob Ross with a free Canva account, and spend some time turning your educational content into an easy-to-digest visual work of educational art.
Stay Active on Social Media
During the holidays, your audience is spending more time scrolling through social media, and you don’t want to miss the opportunity to connect with them. Instead of just adding to the noise, use this time to stand out with content that speaks directly to their needs and interests.
Create posts that are not only festive but also provide value—whether it’s through helpful tips, lighthearted holiday messages, or behind-the-scenes glimpses of your business. To make the most of your efforts, schedule posts in advance to keep a consistent presence without burning yourself out during the busiest time of year.
Bonus Assignment: Make sure your content isn’t just adding to the holiday noise. As an assignment, use holiday-themed hashtags like #HolidayMarketing or #NewYearNewGoals to target an audience actively searching for seasonal solutions.
Then, create a branded hashtag (e.g., #YourBrandHolidayTips) to keep your posts recognizable and easily searchable. Report back on the increase in visibility and how it impacted your engagement metrics
Create Educational and Festive Content
Want to add some extra sparkle to your holiday content? Use the festive season to create content that not only educates but also entertains. Don your Santa hat or reindeer antlers and host a holiday-themed webinar or virtual event to deliver valuable insights and connections to your B2B audience. This approach keeps your brand front and center, showcasing your expertise in a way that feels helpful rather than promotional.
Bonus Assignment: Craft a downloadable holiday resource, like a guide or checklist, that offers both festive fun and practical tips. This gives your audience something useful and helps strengthen your brand’s relationship with them.
Don’t Forget About Your Existing Clients
Do you have some of the best clients anyone could ask for? The holidays are the perfect time to express your gratitude. A simple thank you email, a digital postcard, or even a personalized gift or handwritten card can strengthen your relationship with existing clients, setting the stage for more business in the new year. You could also ask for feedback or invite them to be a part of your future plans, like testing a new service or product offering.
Bonus Assignment: Include a year-in-review in your email newsletter, highlighting achievements, milestones, and how you helped clients meet their goals. Add lots of emotive imagery to keep your audience engaged.
Showing Gratitude Has Never Been Easier
SayThanx turns best intentions into powerful action, making it easy and effective to let customers know how much you appreciate them. Create personalized video postcards, and get in-depth engagement insights for the holidays.
Use Your Holiday Marketing Campaign to Expand Your Database
Don’t miss out on great opportunities for future business! Not everyone is ready to buy during the holidays, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be valuable leads next year or the year after. Boost your inbound marketing assets and offer valuable content, like a downloadable guide or an ebook, in exchange for email addresses.
Bonus Assignment: Create a festive landing page that offers a festive promotional giveaway in exchange for email sign-ups. Ensure the design and messaging feel seasonal to make it irresistible and set the stage for nurturing those leads in the new year.
Creative B2B Lead Gen & Awareness Ideas for Extra Holiday Cheer
Just plain tired of pushing the sales angle of your business for the year? Sometimes, giving back and showing your company’s human side can do wonders for lead generation. Here are a few more creative ways to make the most of the holiday season:
Partner with a Charity or Host a Holiday Fundraiser
Aligning your business with a cause during the holiday season is more than just a good deed—it’s an opportunity to showcase your company’s values in action. Whether you partner with a local charity or organize a holiday fundraiser, you’re building goodwill with your community and demonstrating your commitment to social responsibility.
Not only does this help those in need, but it also fosters deeper connections with your audience by showing that your business cares about more than just profit. When people see your values in action, they’re more likely to trust and engage with your brand. And as a bonus, this genuine display of purpose can boost brand awareness, creating long-term loyalty with potential leads who share similar values.
Bonus Assignment: Identify a cause or charity that aligns with your company’s values and organize a holiday fundraiser or volunteer event. Create a campaign around your efforts—share your story on social media, highlighting why this cause matters to your team.
Encourage your audience to get involved, either by donating or participating. After the event, share the results and reflect on the impact it made, both for the charity and your company. Track engagement to measure how the initiative strengthened your relationship with existing and potential clients.
Offer End-of-Year Discounts
If it aligns with your business model, consider offering a year-end discount or special promotion. This can help push prospects who are on the fence about purchasing, especially those looking to make final use of their 2023 budget.
Bonus Assignment: Create a limited-time holiday offer page showcasing your year-end discounts with festive design elements like countdown timers to create urgency. Include a promotional code and make it easy for prospects to share the offer on social media, encouraging further reach and engagement. Track clicks and redemptions to measure how well the discount drives last-minute purchases.
General Tips and Tricks for a Holly Jolly Campaign
Holiday B2B marketing and lead generation campaigns can be tricky to navigate, but they are highly rewarding when done right. As you launch your holiday lead generation efforts, keep these tips in mind to ensure success:
Prioritize Your Best Leads
The holidays are a great time to get in contact with business leaders who are available, but keep in mind that it’s a hectic time of year. Without a strategy, vacations, PTO, and the general holiday rush can have you running in circles. If your goal is to close deals, make sure you’re focusing your efforts on the leads most likely to convert. Use your CRM to segment and prioritize the prospects who have shown the most interest or who are most aligned with your offerings.
Focus on Filling Your Pipeline
The holidays offer a golden opportunity to focus on filling your pipeline, setting your business up for success in the new year. While some prospects may not be ready to buy immediately, keeping your lead generation efforts active ensures you're nurturing relationships that could convert early in Q1.
Don’t Perform Outreach on Actual Holidays
While it’s a good idea to stay active throughout the holiday season, it’s important to respect the key cultural and religious holidays observed by your audience. Schedule automated outreach for the days leading up to and after major holidays, but avoid sending marketing emails on days like Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s Day, and other significant celebrations such as Winter Solstice and Three Kings' Day.
Being mindful of these holidays shows respect for your audience’s diverse traditions and helps foster stronger, more positive relationships.
Reach Out on Fridays
Fridays during the holiday season are a great time for outreach. People are often in a more relaxed, positive mood and may be more open to conversation, especially with a friendly, festive tone.
Focus on Next Year’s Goals
When reaching out to leads, emphasize how your products or services can help them hit the ground running in 2025. Show empathy by acknowledging the busy season and position your offering as a solution for their future plans.
Keep the Sparkle Going
Want a little extra holiday cheer this year? Imagine being greeted with an inbox full of qualified leads when you return to the office in the new year. You’ve worked hard through 2024. You found the perfect gifts for everyone on your list. You gave to charity, and you even survived Whamageddon. You deserve to hit the ground running for Q1!
Holiday lead generation isn’t just about making sales during the slowest time of the year. It’s about setting your business up for success in 2025. By staying active, maintaining a presence, and offering value, you can build relationships, fill your pipeline, and make the new year sparkle with opportunity.
It’s Not Too Late for a Last-Minute Holiday Boost!
More Qualified Leads for B2B, More Productive Sales Teams: What We Do
Is your sales team struggling to find quality leads for B2B that convert? Have you thrown out the idea of making long-term growth plans in exchange for maintaining an active sales pipeline? Are you losing sleep (and maybe a little hair) trying to master complicated CRM software or squeezing in one more social media post?
Consistently generating qualified leads for B2B sales teams while maintaining productivity is a delicate balancing act that requires mastery in three key areas:
Strategy
Management
Execution
Lose sight of one, and the others are left on shaky ground. If you lack a clear strategy, you’re pouring your efforts into the void, leaving your sales team’s wheels spinning. Without solid management, prospects get forgotten–and valuable opportunities vanish. And no execution means an empty bank account in no time.
How We Can Help
For 30 years, Incept has provided essential resources, augmented time, and delivered the expertise needed to expand for some of the most successful businesses in the world. With our lead generation services, there is no need to have a perfect handle on everything all at once. We give you room to build your team’s strengths, no matter where you are in your growth cycle.
“Incept has helped our sales efforts by providing consistent, professional outbound phone calls. They are truly a part of the team that is invested in what our company does and works with us to ensure we are moving forward in the right direction.”
We customize action-oriented strategies, drive qualified leads to your sales funnel, and enhance customer retention and satisfaction, so your team can focus on closing more deals.
Build a Better Strategy and a Better Team With B2B Lead Generation Services
Collaborate with us to develop a winning sales strategy you can implement right away. We’ll get you set to enter new markets in new locations, help you prepare go-to-market (GTM) plans for new products, or provide the support you need to execute on your existing blueprint to generate more leads for your B2B sales pipeline. Our results team integrates seamlessly into your existing team to provide flexible expertise based on what you need, when you need it.
Getting Started: Comprehensive Strategy Validation and Alignment
If you are looking for leads for your B2B sales team, you need more sales right now, not in nine months from now. Traditional strategy firms will take you through a long, drawn-out consultation while time ticks away – and you still aren’t getting leads.
When you work with us, we focus on quickly validating and aligning your current strategy to ensure it’s optimized. Our nimble processes fill your sales funnel as quickly as possible while we keep an eye on your long-term goals.
The Two Most Important Factors for Sales Success
Presenting a clear picture of what you sell only gets you so far. In order to close deals, you need to communicate the value of your products or services to the right people. We work with your sales team to provide action-oriented strategies that define what makes your business unique and pinpoint who is most likely to buy.
1. Understand Your Value Proposition
Our onboarding process is designed to quickly identify the problems your products or services solve, what makes your company the best candidate for the job, and how to best present these ideas to your prospects. Our pipeline management expertise provides actionable insights as we refine messaging to create effective, compelling pitches.
2. Reach Your Target Market
If your sales team is getting leads without closing deals, they are talking to the wrong people. We’ll get to the bottom of who you need to reach and take the first steps toward narrowing down your best-fit prospects.
Retention Campaigns: Generating Revenue Right Now
1. Retention Campaigns
Ignored customers are lost customers. Our relationship experts work with you to create outreach programs that ensure your existing customers are satisfied and know you are there for them.
2. Reactivate Existing Customers
Do you have new products or services your customers may not have heard about? Do you have unengaged customers who could benefit from more interaction? We know how to get your customers reengaged and keep them engaged to make the most of the relationship you have already worked hard to establish.
Empower Your Team’s Full Potential
Discover how making small adjustments makes a big difference in your revenue with our simple efficiency assessment.
Management: An Overlooked Essential for Productive Sales Operations
Project management tasks often fall into an ambiguous bucket that never gets accounted for until it begins to overwhelm. Especially if you don’t have a full-time sales manager. Let us take the pressure off and give your sales time to do what it does best–close deals.
1. Organize Vendors
Stop stressing over your sales pipeline. Managing your tech stack requires considerable amounts of time and expertise that most businesses can’t afford. We’ll keep your customer relationship management (CRM) platform data clean and up-to-date, maintain your marketing platforms, and manage your list providers, all within our flexible B2B lead generation pricing model.
2. Create Project Plans
Planning, and organizing your launch and execution seems like a piece of cake … until you’re in the weeds. We leverage our 30 years of experience to organize your launch and execution, ensuring you are never surprised. You’ll always know what you are going to get and when you are going to get it.
“They do not overpromise in the sales process or during the engagement. If they cannot do something, they tell you, and if they are not sure, they tell you. You can just take their word for it – you don’t have to filter their answers or guess the real meaning.
Their operations staff and agents are dedicated and excellent. They will accept your approach if it makes good sense to them, and often make recommendations to improve your approach.
Their client services are the best I have seen, and their IT team is responsive, careful, and knowledgeable. Billing is accurate and pricing is reasonable.”
3. Build Actionable Insights and Analysis
Every sales activity performed creates valuable insights for an agile, successful strategy. Don’t build your sales strategy on inaccurate data and faulty analysis. With our expertise in the most popular CRMs like Hubspot, Salesforce, ZoHo, and others, we’ll make sure your data is clean and your insights apply to your unique needs.
Augmenting Your Sales and Marketing Team: Excellence in Execution
You’ve no doubt experienced a push and pull between needing more staff in order to grow, and needing more revenue to hire more staff. Hiring a full-time employee is a significant investment that delivers minimal immediate benefits. And if you waited until you could feel the need, you waited too long.
If you are not ready to hire additional staff, you’ve lost staff, or you just don’t want another operational arm to invest in and manage, we can help you execute on your strategies without the long-term commitment and expense. We combine all the skills you need into one package, offering everything from B2B lead generation services to social media management, all for the price of one mid-level, full-time employee.
We Meet Your Business Where You Are
Our flexible, scalable service model provides essential, multi-channel services, generating leads for B2B sales teams here and now. We tailor your plan to your specific sales and marketing goals, and we can scale up or scale back as your business or your internal team grows and with seasonal demand. The average length of an engagement with us is about 11 months, but we support engagements lasting from 2 months to several years.
1. Lead Generation and Nurturing
Outbound calling
Email campaigns
Digital campaigns
Follow-up cadences
2. List Creation and Market Research
Competitive analysis
CRM data cleanup
Prospect qualification
Eliminate the need for purchased lists
3. Appointment Setting
Customized lists
Customized scripting
Numerous touchpoints through multi-channel approach
Lead nurturing to preferred funnel point
4. Lapsed Customer Reactivation
Focus on lapsed customers’ past behaviors to remind them why they partnered with you before
5. Custom Projects
Event recruitment
Survey calling
Curated projects to fit your needs
Client Success Stories
“Working with Incept has supercharged our lead generation efforts! They have been able to use their systematic approach to consistently deliver high quality leads for our sales people. They have an uncanny ability to get in touch with key decision makers and discover critical pieces of information. I look forward to seeing how our sales will continue to grow as a result of their efforts.”
“Super-charged lead generation efforts”
Our client, a premier on-site corporate restaurant management and catering company with clientele across the US, was looking to expand their qualified prospects. We got to work quickly learning their best practices, conducting account-based marketing (ABM) research and competitor analysis, and discovering the reasons for their lost business.
We then developed a multi-channel, personalized lead generation strategy that included outbound phone calls, personalized emails, and personal social media outreach through LinkedIn InMail. Our firm grasp on prospect pain points and goals helped us drive in-person appointment-setting for our client.
Throughout our first year together, we refined our strategy, which led to a 5x increase in lead output. As a result, our client closed several deals, with one deal valued at $2 million.
An Integrated Approach as Unique as Your Business
We integrate sales and marketing strategy, management, and execution to ensure you meet your lead generation goals, no matter where your business is in its growth. You pay for what you need, when you need it, without being locked into rigid contracts.
End-to-End Coverage
We integrate and expand on your existing strategy while augmenting your staff with end-to-end coverage. Our services are adaptable, and our partnership model is responsive to changing market conditions and sales strategies. We designed our multi-channel, comprehensive approach to ensure you get quick results without compromising your long-term goals.
Results-Driven Philosophy
We make your timeline our timeline, delivering the results you need, when you need them. Our experts build your strategy around retention and reactivation campaigns as well as new customer acquisition to ensure quick initial results as well as long-term growth.
“Incept has assisted in increasing awareness and attendance for our events since 2016 and we couldn’t be happier with their services! It’s evident that communication is important to them as we receive updates and feedback from the team daily.”
Get More Sales, Increase Revenue, Keep Your Sales Team Busy
Lead generation requires a complex balance of strategy, management, and execution. When all the elements are there, your business can grow. But when even one element is off-kilter, it will wreak havoc on your growth and profitability.
You’re here because your business needs support to succeed. We tailor our fractional B2B lead generation services to where you are right now, keeping your sales operations agile and responsive to changes in market conditions and business strategy. Trust us to get you quick results while working toward your long-term goals.