Resolve Technology is a leading provider of business intelligence and portfolio management solutions for the real estate investment industry. When they were considering expanding their sales operation, David Rubinstein, Resolve’s Chief Operating Officer brought in The Bridge Group, an inside sales consulting firm.

The Bridge Group conducted an Inside Sales Validation Program that helped Resolve understand what type of sales model would best fit their needs.

Here David describes the engagement and the results, which included a better understanding of their market, help with messaging, and a recommendation that saved them from what might have been a costly mistake.

The right formula for growth

Resolve sells enterprise software solutions to the commercial real estate investment market, which is a very tightly defined niche. As Resolve grew, we wanted to find a more efficient way to build a pipeline for our direct sales people, something that would allow us to find prospects and quickly advance them through the sales cycle. We were contemplating creating an inside sales organization, but wanted to find out if this was the right investment for us. To validate this assumption, we decided to bring in an outside consulting firm.

I suggested we bring in The Bridge Group because I had utilized their services at a previous company where the head of sales was impressed with their capabilities. However, we did our due diligence and spoke to eight firms before making our decision.

In our initial meeting, I quickly recognized that The Bridge Group had the know-how and expertise to help me through each phase of building this group, from hiring, to creating processes, to training and coaching. Because of this meeting and the process they used to get my attention, I was confident that they were the right company to assist me in this initiative.

What we discovered was that there are quite a few inside sales operations out there, all with different value propositions, such as paying by the appointment or by the number of dials. However, no one, except for The Bridge Group, had a consultative approach that would actually help us determine what was right for our organization.
 

The recommendation – a new path forward

The Bridge Group came in and essentially became part of our company. They very quickly learned what our value proposition and key differentiators were. This was commendable in and of itself because our industry is quite complex.

Ultimately, The Bridge Group’s final recommendation was surprising, but right on target. They helped us realize that perhaps building an inside sales operation might not be the right approach for us now, as our market isn’t big enough.

Instead of capitalizing on our initial thoughts of building an insides sales function, The Bridge Group steered us toward a more suitable plan for a quarterly, highly targeted, outsourced inside sales campaign. This wasn’t what we expected initially, but we quickly recognized the value of this recommendation and appreciated their advice on how we should move forward.
 

Added value throughout the engagement

In addition to guiding us towards the right solution for inside sales, The Bridge Group provided us with some market validation services. They helped us build more disciplined sales processes for our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) foundation system. They created an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) that focused us on who we should be prospecting to and who we shouldn’t. The Bridge Group also developed scripts for our products and tested them out in target organizations.

All of this work resulted in a Sales Playbook leave behind, which has been very helpful and just the kind of help we needed at Resolve.
 

Honest and straightforward

What sets The Bridge Group apart from other organizations is their honesty, straightforwardness, and passion for what they do. They could have recommended something that would have brought more business in for them, but they didn’t do that – they recommended what was right for us.

The Bridge Group didn’t sugarcoat their recommendations for us. They were very upfront about what the pitfalls were for our company and that’s what I love about them.

I’ve already hired them again and I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again in the future.