About Straightline

Straightline Strategies is an outsourced sales, marketing and business development firm committed to helping our clients close gaps in their go-to-market plans.

Founder's Message

Starting a business is a great way to find out how much you really know. Customers vote with their dollars, so a "no" vote can be deadly. Fortunately I developed a lot of relationships during a two-decade career in the IT industry, and a lot of those relationships have turned into clients.

My clients benefit from my skills and experience, and get to apply me in situations that need critical support and leadership. When managers hire my firm they get more than one role--sales, marketing and business development--for less than they'd pay full time employees to perform these functions--and with a lot less risk.

What is "outsourced sales, marketing and business development"?

Historically outsourcing has been pitched as a way to off-load corporate functions that are not strategic to the business. Not the case with my clients. Sales, marketing and business development are very strategic; it's simply a matter of having the right type and number of resources to pull off key company initiatives.

I consider Straightline to be an outsourcer rather than a consultancy. My clients have a pretty good understanding of what the problems are. They're looking for help solving these problems. So if they need teleprospecting, we build a team to do the work. Pre-sales? We hire Sales Engineers to provide deal support. Need territory coverage until you find replacements? We'll carry the sales bag. Need a sales manager? We'll provide the leadership.

Since start up, I've led lead generation campaigns, covered sales territories, designed channel programs, recruited channel partners, built sales tools, given sales presentations, provided sales leadership, facilitated brainstorming sessions, coached managers and individual contributors--all on an outsourced basis.

It all goes back to everything I learned during my sales management career about hitting numbers with modest resources. I worked for start ups, turnarounds, mid-size and Global 2000 companies. You probably think big companies have big budgets. That may be true, but money doesn't always flow down to the battlefield, regardless of company size. Managers have to continuously find creative ways to cover gaps in their go-to-market plans.

And of course the biggest gap is a source of sales-ready leads.

The biggest change in the sales process has been the evolution of prospecting for new business. Historically sales managers ask their reps to do their own prospecting, which at one time made sense. Sales reps now face big quotas and short timeframes within which to hit them leaving precious little time for a consistent prospecting effort.

While reps are perfectly capable of making cold calls, the time to conduct a consistent outbound campaign does not exist in today's selling environment . I knew this as far back as 1994 when I hired my first outside teleprospector in 1994. I had a list of target companies that needed some attention. We put the person in a cubicle and turned him loose. Within weeks we had triaged all the contacts and gained new prospects without forcing my slim sales team to try and balance prospecting and selling. The die was cast. 

Throughout my management career I hired a number of teleprospecting individuals and firms and achieved measurable results. Utilizing professionals to make initial prospect contact was cost-effective and gave hours of productivity back to my sales teams. I learned what works, and which firms do the best job. I applied these best practices at Straightline to create differentiation, because there are a lot of companies out there that offer the same services. There are two key fundamentals that set us apart.

1. Quality and Professionalism. I only hire teleprospectors with more than 10 years sales experience, usually with an IT industry background. They all have good technical skills, understand technology and how to pitch it, and are well-versed in CRM. Straightline gets consistently high ratings on the quality of our callers and the readiness of the prospects we find.

Our team works virtually, which is highly suitable for this kind of work. Commuting can be a drag on productivity and morale. I don't believe in contact centers. When I outsourced teleprospecting, I got the weakest results from call centers, and I attribute this to the fact that the callers were young and inexperienced--and sounded that way on the phone.

2. Experienced leadership. It's my personal experience and knowledge that helps drive results for my clients. I impart that knowledge to my team. I understand the bigger picture and the role my firm will play in the process.

If you were looking to hire an outsourced business development firm, would you favor one that had actual experience in doing the kind of work you required; that could bring additional expertise and speed to the process, or someone who manages a contact center? It's an easy choice.

I invite you to visit the Content page of the website where there are more articles and podcasts you can review to gain further insight into my approach and philosophy. All content is freely downloadable and there is no registration requirement.

Brian B. Berlin

President & Founder