If you've participated in any of my webinars, read any of my articles or listened to any of my podcasts, you know that I've made it my mission to educate the corporate B2B world on outsourced prospecting.

I'm convinced some company managers are not sure what to expect if they want to consider outsourcing their prospecting. Many immediately pivot to telemarketing, the traditional script-driven, boiler room model that's really intended to identify leads (and annoy every person on the receiving end of the call).

If you engage with the right (ahem) outsourced business development firm, what you should get is comparable to a prospecting event planner and concierge. Now, I know that sounds odd, so let me explain.

If you're going to outsource your prospecting to a 3rd party firm, you should be able to hand off all top-of-funnel activity to this firm and in return, get meetings with interested prospects. But that's just the start.

When my firm books an appointment, we not only gather all the pertinent information; we also create the meeting, send the invitations and track confirmations. Yeah, like a meeting planner or concierge--get it?

Wait, there's more.

We create the online meeting as well, logging date, time and agenda and make these details part of the invitation. Then we make sure the appointment is booked in our client's sales representative's Outlook calendar so they don't shedule any conflicts.

If the deliverable requires it, we send meeting reminders and/or make follow up calls to ensure the prospects received their invitations and instructions, and answer any questions they may have.

Let's say the meeting is to take place on site at the prospect's offices. In that case we find out everything we can about the location--directions, cross streets, landmarks, and most importantly--parking! We've had instances where our client's reps were rushing between meetings and the parking instructions saved them critical minutes and ensured they arrived at the meeting on time, crisp and unhurried. We've gone as far as sending our client reps check in instructions, lobby location, elevators, floors, room numbers and names, and emergency phone numbers.

If you've been working with my firm, these are your expectations. If you're not, well, maybe it's time to raise your expectations!