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Direct Alliance - Sales Coaching

Company: Direct Alliance, Tempe, AZ
Company Description: Founded in 1993, Direct Alliance is a business process outsourcing (BPO) company. We provide marketing services and professional inside sales teams to accelerate sales for our Fortune 500 clients.
Nomination Category: Best Organization Achievements
Nomination Sub Category: Sales Coaching Program of the Year

Nomination Title: Direct Alliance Sales Coaching Program of the Year

  • How many people are in your organization's entire sales department?

    Size of Sales Organization
    For more than a decade, Direct Alliance has been a leader in providing
    integrated sales and marketing solutions to extend market coverage, accelerate
    sales, and build customer relationships for its Fortune 500 clients. The
    company represents many of the world¡¦s top technology brands and employs over
    700 people. It has approximately 350 inside sales representatives and 54
    professional sales managers across its sales-driven organization.

  • What is your organization's annual sales volume? If this information is confidential, simply enter "Confidential" in this space:

    Annual Sales Volume
    Annually, Direct Alliance sells over $2 billion on behalf of its clients. Its
    proven track record of growing revenue quickly through inside sales account
    management and electronic direct marketing gives clients the confidence to
    entrust Direct Alliance with the care of their best customers.

  • Provide a brief biography of the leader(s) of your sales organization (up to 100 words):

    Biography of Sales Team Leader
    Joshua Harris - Director, Program Sales
    Mr. Harris is currently the Program Director for all client programs whose
    primary focus is finding new prospects. He started his sales career at Direct
    Alliance seven years ago as an inbound sales representative, moving into sales
    management just after his first year. Mr. Harris went on to launch several
    successful client programs and is considered an industry expert by his peers.
    In 2006, he was selected as Sales Manager of the Year by executive top
    management. Mr. Harris holds an MBA and a BS in Global Business from the
    University of Phoenix.

  • Describe for the judges your achievement in this category (up to 100 words):

    Achievement
    Direct Alliance successfully implemented an aggressive lead generation program
    for one of its high-profile clients, a leading business software company. The
    strategy focused on improving the sales behavior of their telesales reps
    through a state of the art call coaching program. The new program assigned reps
    to specific verticals (based on their industry experience and personality
    types) and coached the reps on adjusting their communication style to the
    organizational level of their contacts. Program objectives were achieved when:
    1) the learning curve a representative needed to hit full stride decreased from
    an average of 4.5 months to 2 months, and 2) the number of leads that agreed to
    an appointment with the client improved from a baseline of 80% to over 95%.

  • Briefly describe the 3 keys to the success of your initiative (up to 100 words):

    Individual Call Coaching with EYEQ360, a Teletech web-enabled, quality 
    assurance (QA) solution, allowed reps to improve their voice and data exchanges
    with customers. A coach can see the screens the rep is using while monitoring
    the call. Rep calls were scored and then their data was provided so they could
    proactively monitor their performance against client-defined metrics. The rep's
    personality type and the anticipated personality type of the prospect were
    critical factors in providing relevant coaching. For example, reps had to vary
    their style to communicate effectively with a banker versus an advertiser or a
    CIO versus a VP of Sales.

    Team Call Coaching Sessions with EYEQ360 pulled the entire team together to
    listen to best-of-the-best calls and give public acknowledgement to the
    specific agents while encouraging the rest of the team to take notes and
    emulate those same skills in their calls. Weak calls were also played back to
    discuss how the team members could improve collectively.

    Sales Team Best Practice Sessions were conducted monthly for the teams
    to share what was working and what was not from a lead generation perspective.
    For example, the team would discuss tips on effective voice messaging
    techniques, industry specific jargon, product pitch tactics, useful websites,
    words that work, and appeals for different personality types and industries.

  • List the 3 most important lessons your organization learned during this process (up to 100 word):

    Assigning sales reps to an industry focus based on their experience and 
    personality type helped them develop a deeper understanding of the industry,
    the details of their business challenges, and an affinity to speak with key
    personality types within that industry. This significantly decreased the
    learning curve previously required.

    Training sales reps to adjust their communication skills to address
    varying levels within a prospect company (i.e., C¡Vlevel, technical, sales
    managers, etc.) was highly beneficial to qualifying better prospects. More
    leads accepted an appointment.

    Combining both of the above tactics with timely follow-up to event-
    driven opportunities (such as a thought leadership conference hosted by the
    client) allowed the sales rep to more quickly move the opportunity lead to
    an accepted lead ready for a phone call.