Business Growth Strategies… Lead Qualification

Many expansion stage software companies we talk to about investing growth capital don’t need capital. Or if they do they can get it from any number of sources other than a Boston based Venture Capital firm called OpenView Partners. The founders and CEOs are good solid entrepreneurs and business executives who look for “Smart” money versus just money.

We just added a new case study explaining how the OpenView Labs which provides business development services to portfolio companies built and delivered a Lead Qualification Model to Intronis one of our companies located in Boston.

There is more to this story than OpenView Labs delivering an outbound prospecting plan with details about staffing, executing, tracking and managing the business development process. Because the Intronis team was already stretched thin, OpenView Labs actually:

• Developed the skill set profile with Intronis
• Interviewed the candidates
• Recruited the best candidates
• Trained the new Lead Qualification Reps
• Managed the team and complete process in our OpenView Labs office
• Handed off the qualified leads to the Intronis Sales team
• Iterated on and improved the process

After the process was refined and proven we handed the team off to the Intronis management team to manage going forward. By this time the first original lead qualification rep we hired had moved into sales and the two people we hired to take his place were transitioning in to sales and we had hired three more new lead qualification reps to take their place. In the end we were actually handing off a team of six people to Intronis.

If you are going to raise expansion capital do you want money or do you want “Smart” money… that is the question you need to ask yourself. If the answer is “Smart” money then you need to ask your potential investors what they can bring to the table besides money and a blackberry.

All the best!

G