The mountainous U. S. debt incurred by the governmental attempt to pull the country out of the current recession could turn the country into a banana republic, says Warren Buffett. His contention is that like unchecked carbon emissions melting the icebergs, unchecked greenbacks will melt the purchasing power of our currency. The “Wizard of Omaha” has been right more than he’s been wrong, so you can bet that he has some insight into the future if the Congress and the Fed continue dilute the value of the dollar by printing more money to cover budgetary shortfalls.

What does all of that have to do with small and medium business owners? It means that they must make even more money in the faltering economy in order to survive. It means that while they must run “lean and mean” they must also be much more efficient in their approach to business, both in their operations and in sales. How can they run lean and still generate the business increases necessary to ensure survival? One of the answers is to outsource segments of their support operations to specialists.

Instead of fully staffing the customer service, order taking, order entry, sales prospecting, support and data processing departments, a company could employ only the key managers in these departments to coordinate and oversee the functions, then farm out the actual activities to a company specializing in these areas of business.
• Outbound calling to qualify sales leads, announce trade show activity and invite clients, develop and maintain relationships with prospective clients and supply leads and data to field personnel, can be outsourced.

• Inbound calls for product data, order taking, order entry, delivery information, order and production status may also be handled by a professional company that is well versed in their client’s needs.

• Database management can be contracted out as well, freeing office staff to perform other functions.

A subcontractor with the capability of providing these services will cost far less than having an in-house staff . . . and they don’t require any employee programs like training, medical insurance, retirement, ESOP, holidays, vacations or other fringe benefits. It is cost effective and since the services subcontractor is a specialist and highly skilled in the specific area of expertise, the expected results are far greater.

TeleArk is one such subcontractor and has superior professional skills in the areas of sales prospecting, sales lead generation and qualification, database management and they function very well as an inbound call center.