Selling Web services nationally using <gasp> phone reps.?

phone sales web design

[Clickstream]

I've invested 10s of thousands in my biz (at this point it will be life savings invested in the next couple months) and you all can't even imagine how much your impute from your experience can help. My monthly expenses are too high at this point unless the way in which I find new clients improves.

I own a web design, development, and markeing firm (AKA "interactive agency") with 12 employees in the Philippines. In the US (I'm an American), where I spend most of my time, I work out of a home office and run the US office for this company with no employees.

I am lucky to pull cream of the crop salespeople from the thousands that work for call centers in this offshore call center meca.

Both companies were started from scratch with almost zero clients 4 months ago. My approach has been that the sales guys "find interest" and pass the hot leads on to me for in person or phone follow-ups. Our target is my regional area (Maryland).

Now I'm wondering if dealing with clients nationally-- who'd I'd never meet in person-- might make more sense? This would allow me to work physically side by side with the sales team more often and take the phone once they've talked to someone and really sparked interest. It won't limit who we reach out to. I won't have to do expensive in person meetings.

How many of you that do web "service" work for clients have tried to reach out with your marketing on a national level instead of just local? One big benefit is going for small niches, so for example you could be one of the web design companies/freelancers that designs sites for only downhill ski manufacturers.

But I don't have a niche yet. I'm simply finding that MAYBE meeting in person is not so very important-- especially when I have such an effective phone sales group that I would like to be WITH.

And what about the fact that my company is not very established yet? I'm sure companies like Agency.com or Modem Media could care less the location of a prospective client. If a salesperson from their company picks up the phone and does a pitch they can close 40K contracts without showing their face.

But will people shell out 1-5 USD for web services to a fairly new company located 400 miles away from them in the US? I think so if they have enough assurances, and I'm about to try this, but it is risky for me to rock the boat in mid-stream.

Thanks for sharing your experiences!

Eric

[JKMitchell]

For what it's worth, I very rarely meet face to face with clients and now have them right across the UK, some in Europe, a sprinkling in the Far East (Singapore for example) and even a couple in Africa. Most of the clients are more than happy to work by email, it seems to be the local ones that want face to face meetings.

I started out locally, built a reputation and client porfolio and then the leads seemed to start to flow.

My niche, if that's what you want to call it is SME's I cover everything from finance through housing developments to conference services, medical practices and even local cleaning firms. I actively avoid large businesses, instead I pass them on to a much bigger firm that passes their smaller business back.

Mind you, I've been in the web business since 1997.

Hope this helps in some way.