Sales Partnerships, Inc. - Sales Outsourcing Provider of the Year
Company: Sales Partnerships, Inc., Broomfield, CO
Company Description: Sales Partnerships, Inc. is the premier direct sales outsourcing company in the world, offering branded representation that delivers rapid revenue lift for the most influential B2B firms in the world. Whether it's brand activation, customer acquisition, or retention, SPI is the leader in providing scalable and proven solutions to the Fortune 500.
Nomination Category: Solution Provider Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Sales Outsourcing Provider of the Year
Nomination Title: Sales Partnerships, Inc. - The Industry Leader in Sales Outsourcing
Sales Partnerships’ nomination for sales outsourcing Provider of the year focuses on our work in outsourced field sales in financial services and residential Internet services.
Our work during 2021generated more than $500Min revenue for our clients. We operated in more than 40 states face to face selling to hundreds of thousands of small brick and mortar businesses with a team of more than 350 representatives. Our performance during this period was more than 10% better than the period in which we won our prior gold Stevie award for top Sales Outsourcing Provider.
With many organizations trying to replace field sales with telesales and marketing channels with mixed success, Sales Partnerships took advantage of that market opportunity to capitalize on where field sales is essential. Our programs not only out-performed every competitor (including other Stevie nominees) but did so in safe and socially responsible ways.
The two case studies we present are in financial services SMB sales nationwide and in residential Internet sales in Colorado and North Carolina.
Financial Services
Our work during 2021 generated more than $500M in revenue for this client in financial services. We operated in more than 40 states face to face selling to hundreds of thousands of small brick and mortar businesses with a team of more than 350 representatives. Our performance during this period was more than 10% better than the period in which we won our prior gold Stevie award for top Sales Outsourcing Provider and top Field Sales Organization.
What makes this achievement even more impressive is it was done with 60% of the work being a strategic focus to win accounts who said no to other channels recently. It required finesse in building relationships and even more focus on selling value. Our core emphasis was in helping merchants better understand hidden demographics that they were missing and leveraging our work in the community. The demographic tools we developed demonstrating spending behaviors for individuals in their neighborhoods including with other companies in the merchant's specialty. The community work ranged from volunteering time from our teams to integrating our support for veterans, anti-racism, and support of the LGBTQ community into the sales.
Residential Internet Sales
Our 2021 work in the Residential Internet Sales space focused on helping an innovative $100M Internet services provider become a dominant player in their Greater Denver and Raleigh-Durham area markets. Tele-channels and direct marketing plateaued at a 5% market capture. They faced multi-billion-dollar incumbents spending millions each year in marketing and sales to maintain market dominance. We went in the field for our client early in 2021. Within 12 months, with an offer at parity with the competitors, we helped the client eclipse 50% market capture with direct door to door sales efforts in markets with tens of thousands of households.
We combined demonstrating Covid safety with community engagement and focused neighborhood rapport building to achieve these results. Leveraging our technology solutions, we optimized the field team performance. Those tools helped us field doors presented rates 20% higher than industry averages with a close rate more than 50% higher than market averages. This performance resulted in adding several new markets for 2022.
Thank you for your consideration of our nomination.
Sales Partnerships (SPI) is an 8-time prior Stevie winner in the Sales Outsourcing Provider Category, specializing in difficult selling environments while representing the brands of some of the largest and most respected companies in the world. Our client roster includes notables such as Google, IBM, US Bank, Verizon, and Dow Chemical.
Sales Outsourcing means providing cradle-to-grave sales services under the brand of each of the clients represented. SPI’s specialty is field sales where we have driven innovation for 25 years. Our teams are recruited for and dedicated to just an individual client based on that client program’s requirements.
Our hallmark is using and inventing systems and processes that optimize all the important areas impacting sales: recruiting, systems, training, management, analytics, technology, and strategy. We’ve won dozens of global awards, been recognized in national media (Selling Power, Sales and Marketing Management Magazine, Inc. Magazine, CNNMoney, etc.), and helped establish the standard for providing field-based sales outsourcing services. Since 1997, we have generated more than $12B in gross profits for our clients. SPI historically has operated in every significant MSA in the United States as well as in select markets globally.
SPI went to market with more than 350 field reps representing every significant MSA in the US during this period. We did so safely by leveraging Covid-19 expertise built by working with the CDC and public health departments. Combining strict guidelines, having a 100% vaccinated sales force, and using tools to steer away from Covid hotspots, we greatly limited risk while still gaining the advantages of face to face selling. We combined safe selling with innovation to overcome the challenging environment. This includes using our proprietary AI driven territory management solutions, a new flipped classroom training model, and integrated management and accountability solutions – we designed a field solution that delivered safe and successful results.
In financial services representing a Fortune 100 company, we hit 105% of revenue and activation goals. We did so with the majority of our target merchants having already been worked by other channels and having declined to be active customers. That was a strategic priority for the client to capture these segments despite the increased difficulty. The result was more than $500M in gross profit revenue for our client from SPI’s work.
In telecommunications, we took a client from 5% market capture to 50% market capture against multi-billion dollarestablished incumbents. The average media marketing spend to keep incumbent dominance exceeded our entire sales budget. We took our $100M client to over 50% penetration in two large metro markets.
Representing our Fortune 100 financial services client, we hit 105% of goal (measured in revenue and activation – our two primary metrics.) This was the highest results of any channel. By comparison, through the hundreds of internal sales teams that client fields – the average team missed goal by more than 30% in the understandably difficult environment. We generated more than $500M in gross profit revenue for our client from SPI’s work. Most impressively, we did it while having 60% of our target merchants having previously rejected the client.
In telecommunications, we doubled the production of every other partner channel including prior Stevie nominees for Sales Outsourcing team of the year and finished the year at more than 120% of quota. In that vertical, we took the client from 5% market capture to 50% market capture against well-established major CLECs (local incumbents.)
One of our clients said it best:
“2021 was the most difficult year for us in my 10+ years here. Even with the epidemic, the goals had to remain firm. Sales Partnerships stepped up to it tremendously. Despite the Covid-19 chaos closing markets with little notice, they kept rolling with it and beat the numbers. The field team is more than solid but this time, we got to see an often-unseen part of their solution shine – their support and technology teams. Nothing phased SPI. They make the nearly impossible look routine. We highly value their partnership.” - Client Liaison, Fortune 500 Credit Card Services Provider
The attached documents include:
Case Study about Hesitant Merchants detailing the efforts described in the nomination
Case Study about Residential Internet sales helping our client go from 5% to 50% market capture
GIS Territory Visualization solution overview describing important proprietary technology we deployed
SPI Gives documentation discussing community involvement
URL link to SPI's web site
URL link to our 2021 Stevie Winner acceptance speech