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Today we have the pleasure of interviewing Keith Wolf from Virtual Appoint (virtualappoint.com). As many of you know I am a HUGE fan of outsourcing. Keith has taken outsourcing to a whole new level. He has identified (and fixed) a problem that most people encounter when they enter the world of outsourcing- making effective sales calls.
Let’s get right to the interview.
1) Keith, would you start out with a little background about you and the types of things that you have done prior to Virtual Appoint?
Sure, after graduating from the University of Texas, I started my career in market research at Procter & Gamble where I designed research studies to understand the market for various household consumer products. From there I joined Invisalign, where I was the second marketing person hired to join what was then a fledging start-up. The company was founded by two Stanford MBA’s and it went on to help revolutionize modern orthodontics by inventing a product category known as invisible orthodontics. It was at Invisalign that I was first exposed to the cost and efficiency benefits of outsourcing. It was 1999 and outsourcing call centers internationally was still a relatively new concept to most US companies. We were in the middle of Silicon Valley, yet through a combination of our company’s own international operations and outsourcing, we had call centers, manufacturing, marketing, and software development operations in Pakistan, Costa Rica, and Eastern Europe.
Following Invisalign, I studied at Harvard Business School. I vividly recall one prominent venture capitalist who guest lectured on campus saying that he would not invest in a company that did not have an outsourcing strategy. Fast forward 5 years – since business school I have been involved in two other companies that have outsourced everything from bookkeeping to manufacturing.
2) Why did you create Virtual Appoint?
My background has given me a unique perspective on what resources are available for companies that are looking to outsource. But the one service that I had never seen done well was cold calling. The argument that cold calling doesn’t work is an absolute myth. For those who have tried it, I would guess that it ranks up there with death and public speaking as an activity that they fear the most. But there’s no arguing that it works. It’s just a time and numbers game. Most people do not have enough time in the day and/or enough resources to engage in a successful cold calling campaign. Just like with direct mail, the success rate is relatively low on a per call basis, but if you’re smart, have great phone skills, and make enough calls, you will find prospects who value your product or service. Part of Virtual Appoint’s value is that we hire only the absolute best of the best in the industry. Our associates are well educated (most have their MBA’s), speak fluent English, and take the time to really understand a client’s business before we start making calls.
3) Why is outsourcing sales calls with your company different?
Virtual Appoint provides our clients with a higher level of personalized service and expertise in the cold calling market. We do this by not only screening for the best talent, but also by being extremely critical of the nuances of language and accents. Unfortunately, lower end international operations have trained US consumers to be leery of the small time delay before someone says “hello”. And we’ve all had the frustration of speaking with someone who we know is thousands of miles away – it’s impersonal and it’s frustrating. Virtual Appoint’s state of the art IT technology eliminates phone delays and our exhaustive hiring and training process removes the language and accent barriers.
But in these economic times, service is not enough – we’re also significantly less expensive than US-based business development companies. Our management team is US-based, so we’re able to engage our clients directly and understand their needs from a business perspective. But, our international operations give us cost advantages that simply cannot be matched domestically. I do not know of another provider anywhere that will help build your business with a graduate degree caliber staff for as little as $16/hour.
4) Would you give me a thumb nail sketch of how the Virtual Appoint process works?
Sure, the process is actually very simple. First, clients visit our website, where they create a profile and sign up for a block of hours for the month. This takes less than 3 minutes. Within 1 hour the client receives a call or email – whichever the client prefers – from a Virtual Appoint associate who will assess their needs. This typically includes a basic education on the client’s business and an introductory assessment of the project. We then set up a meeting for a comprehensive training where we can really dig into a client’s business and help them devise a plan for the cold call project. This can include generating a target list if they don’t already have one, writing a cold call script, and identifying key points to highlight with the target market. Once the calls begin, the client can log-in to their account at any point to view the results of calls that have been made. The goal of most campaigns is to set appointments for our clients so they can meet face to face with prospects. In those cases, we make an appointment in the client’s online calendar – clients can log-in to virtualappoint.com to view their appointments in real time. At the end of each business day we email clients a full report that highlights how many calls were made, the result of every call, and how many hours they have left in their account. If clients run out of hours, they can visit their online account to purchase more hours at any time.
5) What industries do you serve?
We serve a wide variety of industries – entrepreneurs in a variety of industries, advertising and public relations professionals, financial and insurance companies, internet marketing companies, IT companies, small business owners, the list goes on.
6) Who is a typical client?
Most clients come to us because they are looking for new and efficient ways to reach their target market. In a marketplace that’s being flooded every day with more print ads, more TV commercials, more of every form of advertising marketers can dream up, the need to engage customers in a verbal conversation – to really get in front of customers – is becoming exponentially more difficult. Our clients range from medium sized business owners looking to expand their businesses to independent sales reps who use us as their personal business development department. We really cater our services to our customers’ needs. At the end of the day, we’re in the customer service business – if we can help our clients, we will.
7) Does Virtual Appoint offer other services besides cold calling?
We do and while the cold calling aspect of our business seems to get the most attention because of its uniqueness, our virtual assistant services make up about 40% of our business. Our Virtual Appoint associates help clients with competitive and industry research, writing business plans, submitting expense reports, making travel arrangements, and any other service that does not require our physical presence.
What’s the oddest request you’ve received to date?
(laughs) Nothing too crazy yet. As long as it’s legal and in good taste, we’ll take it on. Although we did turn down one request from a prospective client who asked us to manage his Internet dating life. Some things just shouldn’t be outsourced!
9) Do you have plans to expand your service to other countries?
The US market is years from being tapped, but we do have our eyes set on UK, Canada, and Australia. As English speaking countries, they’re logical expansion targets.
10) What’s the best way for people to get in touch with you?
Just log on to Virtual Appoint and all our contact details are right there.
