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JOE ANDERSON, DIRECTOR AT BLACK SHEEP COMMUNICATIONS, TELLS US THE INS AND OUTS OF THE LEAD GENERATION BUSINESS
Where:
12 Albion Street, Brighton, East Sussex.
www.blacksheepcomms.co.uk
Tel: 01273 810970
sales@blacksheepcomms.co.uk
What does your company do exactly, in layman’s terms, and why is it important for the mobile industry?
Black Sheep provides new business opportunities to the UK’s B2B mobile dealers and distribution channel. We provide qualified face to face meetings, telephone leads and data.
We only charge per business opportunity generated so there is limited risk to our clients. If we don’t produce we don’t get paid.
Why is lead generation important for the B2B mobile industry?
The B2B mobile industry needs a lead generation solution because keeping a field sales team on the road is a large investment for a company and we allow our clients to maximise their sales forces time by keeping them in the field meeting prospective clients and winning business.
What is unique about the way Black Sheep creates leads for dealers?
Our company name is Black Sheep and we like to think we’re outstanding in our field. Unlike a lot of our smaller competitors, we have the large database and the experience to consistently deliver the volume and quality of leads our clients require.
Most of our competitors have disappeared over the last 18 months and we’re going from strength to strength.
We only work in the B2B mobile sector and this makes us very specialised.
How is Black Sheep structured in order to create these leads?
We have a database containing approximately 300,000 company expiry dates across the UK, which we have built up over the last four years. We have around 25 agents who make 250 calls per day.
We have just moved into new premises to allow us to grow to 40 agents over the next 12 months. When people visit our offices they often comment that it doesn’t feel like a call centre, and that’s what we aim for.
Black Sheep has been working in the mobile B2B space for four years now, amongst very light competition. Do you expect this sector to begin attracting interest and getting more crowded in 2010? How do you expect to see this market grow?
As your lead generation sector does get more competitive, what will Black Sheep do to stay ahead of the pack?
How many dealers do you have on your books? Are you looking to expand further? How and why?
We work with over 80 dealers and two of the networks directly. Now we have moved we have capacity to double the number of agents we have and plan to do so over the next six to 12 months.
We’re always looking for new dealers as we generate leads of every size all over the country. Our clients all specialise in different market sectors some focus on small deals other in large and the cost of travel is an important consideration so it’s important to have a good geographic spread of clients.
Where are you investing in or expanding your business?
We’ve invested a lot in technology over the last four years, and more recently in securing our new premises which has had a complete refit. It’s important to create a nice environment for our staff.
Our main focus now is our staff. As the company grows they need the tools to grow with it so we are investing our training strategy. Our people are our company and so it’s essential to invest in them.