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.  

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.

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.

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%.  

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.

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.