Selecting a Lead and Referral Generation Company

One of the key aspects of ensuring that your company's sales team has the chance to be successful is to select the right referral generation company. If you make the wrong choice, there are a significant number of possible drawbacks including invalid leads, wasted time or even legal concerns. However, if you make the right choice, there are many more advantages including company and sales individual success.

Obviously, a concern faced is that one doesn't wish to work with a company that does not fit your needs. How does one select the right company?

Although the choice of a referral generation company is ultimately a personal choice and a 'gut' feel, there are a couple of criteria that I personally would use. If I was going to hire a company to do my lead generation for me, I would want to make sure that these few minimum requirements are met.

Are you a number or a person?

Some of the companies out there are so large or so narrowly focused on cutting to the cheapest price possible that they're willing to work with anyone and bring on more partners than they really can handle. I say partners because the best lead generation companies are, in my opinion, not a 'normal' client/vendor relationship -- it is a relationship built on mutual success.

Are they available to you?

This should be obvious, but in doing business with a lead generation company, you should be able to reach them, at least during their normal hours, and speak with someone. Its not necessary to immediately talk to them under most circumstances, but at least receive a call back within one day; a response to an email should be in the same time-frame. There should rarely, if ever, be a reason that a company doesn't respond to you for a longer period of time. Even better would be if you can get a single point of contact with whom you can co-ordinate that has access to all your preferred methods of communication.

Do you feel like you trust them?
Do they have referrals?