Case Histories

JV/M has helped hundreds of companies increase their sales, market share and profitability. And while we can't guarantee success, we know what works in the B2B market -- and we know how to make it work for you. Here are just a few of the clients we've helped.

And here are some of their stories:

Under the Radar

An IT company was suffering the effects of the Great Recession, but had figured out how to find work as a subcontractor. The problem was that the company holding the contract was extremely secretive. That didn't stop us, though. I can't tell you how we found them more than 2 dozen projects, but it didn't involve sending chocolates to the secretary.

Size Doesn't Count

If you're a roofing contractor, you might not think that professional B2B telemarketing can help. But it's not only for the big guys; JV/M has delivered 4-6 new roofing projects per week for a local roofer for less than $1200 per month.

Fortune 500 times 6

A Fortune 500 manufacturer was entering the year with a sales forecast far below what they needed. But with their main sales force tied up managing their territories, no one was looking for new business. Marketing was coming up short, producing few leads from expensive trade shows, mailings and in-house calling campaigns. Their VARs were useless. And to make matters worse, their CRM vendor was going out of business, and they needed a whole new system. After getting the call though, we were able to set up a program that produced over 3,000 qualified leads and appointments, and they made their number for the year.

The Most Expensive Sales Ever Made

JV/M conducted a telemarketing pilot for a tech company, but by the time it got going, upper management had changed their minds and decided to pursue a VAR strategy. Nevertheless committed, the pilot program ran for 100 hours (over a period of five weeks), with 1250 dials generating 29 leads, which led to 14 demos, and 2 new sales. The VAR program also resulted in 2 sales, however it took 11,000 dials over the course of a year. Generating 220 leads, which led to 55 demos, according to the National Sales Manager, they were the "two most expensive sales ever made." Which would you do?

It Paid For Itself So Soon?

We understand that you're in business to make money. And we also understand that you've got a lot resting on the success of your sales program -- of which we may well be the major part. So when one sale paid for an entire year's worth of prospecting for one of our larger industrial clients, I guess you could say the program paid for itself. But that's why they went with JV/M, we suppose.

I Feel Smarter Already

A manufacturer of educational systems started a trial with JV/M recently. Normally, targeting the education market takes A LOT of time, principally because it's very hard to get hold of teachers and adminstrators. Call it luck, talent, or skill, but getting 11 appointments in the first 25 hours of calling has to be some kind of record.

Exceeding Objectives

When we do a trial for someone, we usually set a goal. In the case of a New York-area IT company, the goal was 15 leads in 125 hours. This would have worked out to about $375 per appointment -- pretty good for IT these days. But what did we really get? How about 25 leads in 125 hours? This worked out to a cost per appointment of $225 -- which compares pretty well to their historic cost per appointment of more than $800, don't ya' think?.

Hitting Quota

As part of your sales team, we can have quotas just like your field salespeople. When one client wanted one good appointment per week for each of his 16 salespeople, we rose to the occasion. His reps are typically booked up six weeks out, so they know just where their sales are coming from.

Putting the Pedal to the Metal

The owner of an an independent distributor of metals and chemicals to the electroplating industry wanted to grow his business. His reps just wouldn't make enough cold (telephone) calls, though, so his revenues were flat. So he called JV/M to prime the pump, not knowing that he was also facing an imminent collapse in his biggest market.

With JV/M's help, within three months his sales were up 15% over the previous year, at the same time that industry sales were down more than 40%! JV/M delivered an average of 20 new leads a day, with a two-month close rate in excess of 20%. We had expanded his base so he was less vulnerable, and his market share and profitability soared.

Insuring Success

Selling health benefits plans to businesses is extremely competitive, and the only way to win is to develop a trusting relationship with your prospect through face-to-face selling. The problem is that making good face-to-face calls can keep you from dialing for appointments, but if you're on the phone, you can't be in the field selling. How do you grow if you can't do both?

To solve the problem, one JV/M client first called in a traditional telemarketing firm who developed a written script, assigned resources, and promptly fell flat on their face -- generating one bad appointment in over a thousand dials. (Scripting doesn't work in the business market, which is why JV/M doesn't do it.) After meeting with JV/M, we put an appointment-setting program together that got them more than thirty new, qualified prospect appointments in just the first month -- 50% more than their own reps could make in-house in full blitz mode.

Best of all, they don't have to manage a telemarketing department; they just say "call JV/M to get us more business."

Cutting the Cost of Travel

Prospecting challenges come in all flavors and styles, and JV/M can handle most of them -- at a cost you can afford. In this case, a client had a problem with a customer on the West coast, but they couldn't justify the $2,500 cost of an airline ticket to go address it. So they called JV/M to get them a couple of prospect meetings in the area to spread the cost of the ticket over more pieces of business.

Getting four, new qualified Fortune 500 executive prospect calls for a client in the same week, in a city 3,000 miles away, is more than a challenge. So we only got them three. Needless to say, though, they saved the account, and one of the new prospects is now a client.

Stop, And Do It Right This Time

JV/M was called in to help a high-tech service firm penetrate the dot-com market (before it fell apart.) And using a combination of direct mail and telephone follow-up, we had gotten them into almost 50 leading firms within two months. The problem was, when they got there, they found out that the service didn't fit, and the whole effort was a waste of time and money -- except that we did find out where the real market was.

Within three weeks we had re-directed the effort, targeting senior executives at Fortune 500 consumer products companies, where we got them in to see 26% of the companies we targeted, and found over $3 million in new business.

Now We're Cooking

When you're selling a commodity product in a crowded market, waiting for the phone to ring is the slow way to success. One JV/M client was relying on advertising to keep his sales reps busy, but he was averaging less than one lead a day for whole his food processing equipment line.

JV/M's telemarketing service brought them up to 15 leads a day within a month, with at least a third of them worth a field sales call. We found enough qualified leads to justify -- and pay for -- another sales rep.

Consultants Need Help, Too

Consulting firms are great at what they do, but unless they're marketing consultants (and sometimes, even if they are,) prospecting for new business isn't one of their strengths. So one innovative powerhouse in the financial field called JV/M to prime the pump for them.

So what happens when they put JV/M on the job? Within five days we had found enough business to pay for the whole program ten times over. Not bad for a week's work.

Cautionary Tales

We don't claim to be perfect, and sometimes wierd things can happen. Like one company that took so long to approve the campaign that six valid prospects we had pre-qualified for them (that they could have helped,) went out of business! And another company that spent so much money on product development that there was nothing left to pay for the prospecting program.

JV/M can make it happen for you, and help you learn from others' mistakes, too. JV/M is your true sales partner.

JV/M isn't successful 100% of the time. Markets change, competition raises the bar, and not all of your prospects have been to "Customer School," where they learn to behave the way you want them to.

But JV/M can give you the absolute maximum probability of success, getting you in the door where you want to be, when you want to get there, so you can make the sale. In short, JV/M can make you money.

(For details on any of these, and other, case histories, please contact your JV/M representative.)