5 Signs You Should Be Outsourcing Lead Generation for Your HVAC Company

The summer heat has significantly impacted every state in the country, which means your company’s HVAC services are more crucial now compared to other months of the year. However, you don’t see an increase in business opportunities in your area—why is that? If you don’t see a spike in business, it may be time to reevaluate your sales development strategy. 

Every company has its own strategy for developing and sustaining business with other local vendors. However, of course, some strategies are more effective than others. If you have an in-house sales team, you should be asking:

• What’s their communication strategy?
• Are they using the most relevant sales practices?
• Do they have all the tools they need to be successful?

If you don’t have a sales team period, it’s vital to reach out to a reliable lead generation service provider to help you generate leads and set high-quality appointments with prospective businesses. Without a sales team, your company risks missing out on great partnership opportunities. 

Continue reading this blog to consider five signs that you should be outsourcing your HVAC company’s lead generation: 

• You’re Not Specialized in Sales Development
• You’re Spending Too Much Money on a Sales Team
• You Don’t Have Access to Advanced Sales Tools and Technologies
• You’re Not Generating Quality Leads
• Business Growth Is Inconsistent

In a consistently evolving world, sales best practices are changing all the time. What may have worked for sales development representatives (SDRs) two years ago—or even six months ago—may not be effective today. By outsourcing B2B lead generation, your business has the opportunity to stay in the loop with the most up-to-date and advanced sales practices. 

For example, here are some of the biggest sales trends for 2021 and how outsourcing lead generation can help you approach your sales goals:

Sales and marketing automation is essential for setting appointments with potential customers. It enhances workflow and allows you to have a competitive edge over other local HVAC companies. Outsourced SDRs are in tune with sales automation programs and know how to use them to your company’s advantage.

The term “sales” tends to have a bad reputation because prospects strictly perceive it as a way that businesses can make a profit without any benefit to the company they’re pitching. However, through a value-based selling lens, SDRs emphasize the importance of your company’s HVAC systems or preventative and emergency maintenance services to the customer with them at the top of their minds. This method prioritizes customer satisfaction and promotes how that product or service changes how a company operates for the better.

Contrary to popular belief, social selling is not simply posting an image with text on every social media platform—a successful content marketing plan has a strategy. In addition to creating and publishing content, it’s crucial to make it relevant to your target audience and monitor the posts’ engagement. Outsourced B2B marketers have the opportunity to create engaging posts with a call to action as well as track significant metrics that help you qualify leads.

When pitching your HVAC company’s product or service, it’s crucial to emphasize how you can help them get their building’s infrastructure where they want it to be in the next five years and beyond. SDRs emphasize customer success more than customer support because it allows them to focus on their long-term goals and how your company aligns with their future.

There are unlimited numbers of channels to choose from for your sales efforts, and it’s vital to utilize more than one. For example, a cold call with no follow-up email leaves potential customers forgetting your conversation and the company you’re representing.

In addition to cold calling and email marketing, it’s a best practice to address each email specifically to the key decision maker (KDM). This adds a personable touch to your content and makes the prospect feel wanted by your company.

As digital content progresses, viewer attention span is getting shorter. Visual content such as informational graphics and videos are great tools for your social channels because it requires less text and people spend more time looking at your content. B2B marketers use this tactic to engage viewers and direct them to your website, social profiles, and landing pages. 

Especially in 2021, money plays a significant factor in the sales development process. Internal sales teams are much more costly because the average salary of an SDR is $50,000, and it generally takes a group of more than three SDRs to promote an effective sales strategy. In addition, the salary doesn’t account for expenses, such as:

• Management
• Training 
• Bonuses and incentives
• Benefits package
• Traveling sales expenses

Many businesses don’t take additional costs and the number of sales team members into consideration. By outsourcing SDRs, you cut all these costs, and you have a team of at least five SDRs who are knowledgeable about sales best practices and the HVAC industry. Outsourced SDRs provide qualified leads and set you up with high-quality appointments that lead to long-term partnerships.

In this day in age, a successful sales strategy starts with an efficient customer relationship management (CRM) platform. Through a CRM, you have all the information you need about a prospect, including their name, why you’re contacting them, and why they should be interested in the HVAC services you have to offer.

Outsourced SDRs know how to utilize CRM platforms—such as Salesforce—to their advantage; they have all the information they need to put your company in a good light and stand out among competitors. Even if the prospect is uninterested in your HVAC services at the moment, SDRs can still gather all the information they need to help you better understand the market you’re working in.

In addition to being an effective CRM platform, Salesforce can also be used to optimize:

• Marketing: B2B marketers use Salesforce to follow potential customers on their buying journey and automate email engagement. 
• Commerce: Salesforce is an excellent tool for growing your business’s online storefront. It allows buyers to have an easy-to-understand, personalized shopping experience. 
• Services: Salesforce for service allows your business to deliver an instant, personalized service across any channel. This makes the customer experience more personal, exceeding their expectations and growing your business.
• Integrated IT Solutions: Salesforce for IT solutions increases productivity by automating key processes. It also improves employee scale, transparency, and security.
• Sales: Salesforce is traditionally used for sales efforts. However, this CRM allows you to spend less time doing data entry and more time building relationships with prospective customers. 

In B2B sales, it’s important to remember that not every business opportunity is a good business opportunity. If you’re looking for long-term partnerships and all you’re getting is project work, it may be time to reevaluate what kind of business you want out of your sales efforts and how you’re approaching the conversation. To get the business you want, it’s vital to determine what a good lead qualification means to you. 

Lead qualification is the process of determining whether or not a prospect fits your target customer profile and has the potential to become a long-term customer for your business. There are three crucial steps your SDRs must follow to qualify leads:

• Prospect and gather data: Every B2B sales strategy should start with collecting information about a prospective company. This involves gathering information about the key decision-maker (KDM), including their name, job title, email address, phone number, and other relevant information. 
• Ask qualifying questions: Qualifying questions help determine if a prospective company is a good fit for your HVAC services. These questions include asking if they are the KDM, if they have a budget, and what problems they are trying to solve.
• Ask survey questions: By asking survey questions, you can uncover specifics about the companies you’re speaking with to further qualify them and convert them into customers. Survey questions include asking how many employees they have, when their contract with their current provider is up, and the square footage of the air-conditioned space of their building.

When you partner with a trusted B2B lead generation provider, business growth is predictable and consistent. SDRs develop sustainable sales pipelines to ensure you get the business growth you’ve been looking for. Here’s the process of building a sustainable sales pipeline:

Prospecting is the foundation of any sales pipeline. Identifying KDMs and forming a list of prospective companies that fit your ideal customer profile enables you to get in touch with companies you’d prefer to do business with. 

After prospecting, it’s essential to cleanse the companies that fit your criteria. The sales pipeline is cleansed after an SDR calls and emails prospective companies to obtain more information or clarify misinformation.

Communicating with prospects through calling or emailing is the initial step to building a B2B relationship. This allows you to pitch your company’s products and services and familiarizes the prospect with your company if they’ve never heard of it before. 

Following up with prospects who have told you “no” is the most significant component to setting appointments. Without nurturing leads, your sales pipeline is not sustainable and will fall flat. 

Nurturing leads promotes top-of-mind awareness. Even if a qualified lead is not interested or has no need at the time, the lead nurturing process ensures that if and when a problem comes up with their air conditioner, your HVAC business will be the first company they think of. 

Lastly, setting appointments with qualified, prospective leads converts local businesses into new customers. Setting appointments with qualified leads should always be your end goal for B2B lead generation because it leads to loyal partnerships and increased business profits.

At Abstrakt Marketing Group, we hire diligent, hardworking sales personnel who know the ins and outs of sales and the HVAC industry. Our B2B appointment setting and marketing services have won us more than 80 awards for the impact we’ve made on business growth around the country. We offer exclusive partnerships, which means that we don’t work with any other HVAC industry in your market when we work with you.

Ready to grow? Contact us today to start outsourcing your B2B lead generation efforts!