At isolved, VP of Digital Marketing Tom Taylor and Sr. Dir of BD Mark Whisonant manage growth efforts such as outbound sales motions and inbound campaigns. When Mark joined, the company had massive pipeline goals. With his existing team and process, Mark knew he wouldn’t be able to fill it.
To catapult calling efficiency, Tom and Mark sought out an AI-powered live conversation platform and landed on Orum. Thanks to the partnership, the BDR team has seen a 2x increase in the number of meetings booked via phone. Reps are motivated, ramp time has decreased substantially, and the isolved team is well-positioned to meet their goals.
Challenge: isolved needed to validate data and make hundreds of calls to fill pipeline
When Mark joined isolved, the company had substantial pipeline goals. But the team had only three BDRs calling and making connections with prospects, which was not enough to provide the necessary pipeline for the growing number of field reps.
With a target of growing field reps by 40+ by the end of the year, Mark knew they needed to scale their efforts. Not only that, but the team’s data was erroneous, making it the BDRs’ job to validate it. In order to verify the data and connect with prospects, Mark knew he needed to maximize the number of calls so that he could get his team connecting and having conversations more often.
At the time, each of the three BDRs was making ~100 phone calls per day that would go nowhere. With such a low connect rate, the team needed to increase the number of pitches they could make in a single day.
"We needed to generate pipeline as quickly as possible. In order to do so, we knew we needed a solution that would help us go through data quickly and get more prospects on the phone with us."
Mark Whisonant, Sr. Director of Business Development
The team relied on a simple click-to-call dialer. Although the dialer allowed them to make calls from their computers, the process was manual and time-consuming. Mark knew that there must be a solution that offered a better way, and sought out a solution.
Mark had a small team and needed his BDRs to ramp quickly. It took four months for his first new BDR to ramp — and Mark's ideal ramp time was half of that.
Solution: A seamless implementation & integration of an AI-powered live conversation platform.
Mark’s team was tasked with filling pipeline — the team needed a way to supercharge the number of meetings booked. Although he was able to go into the market to find better-validated data, the team was still restricted by the number of calls they could make with their current solution.
Mark and Tom worked together on the hunt for an AI-powered live conversation platform and found a few potential solutions, but they weren’t very nimble. Tom discovered Orum and was impressed that it could be implemented quickly, unlike many of the other options on the market. Additionally, he wouldn’t have to involve sales operations or use development resources to implement Orum. Plus, it integrated seamlessly with tools such as Outreach and Salesforce that the team was already using.
"Our pipeline needed to be filled and that was our top priority. We needed to find a way to fast-track the number of meetings we could book despite our issues with data validation. That’s when we found Orum."
Mark Whisonant, Sr. Director of Business Development
Mark Whisonant, Sr. Director of Business Development
Flexibility was also valuable: BDRs could decide if they wanted to dial one number at
a time or up to 10 at a time. Other platforms offered this option, but required administrative requests and several-day waits. Because isolved changes projects often, they needed more control over their dialer.
"During the vetting process, Orum was clearly the most nimble. Orum could be implemented immediately, whereas competitive offerings would take a minimum of 120 days."
Tom Taylor, VP of Digital Marketing
Results: More Calls Made at the Right Time, More Meetings Booked, Cleaner Data, and Improved Ramp Time
Now that the isolved team has Orum, they’re well-equipped to generate pipeline.
"Now that we have Orum, we are able to make more calls — especially at the right time of day — and book more overall meetings. We’ve also been able to more efficiently clean our data and improve ramp time substantially."
Mark Whisonant, Sr. Director of Business Development
More Calls Made During “Golden Hours”
Before using a parallel dialer, BDRs had to manually make calls. Not only was this time-intensive for them, but it also prevented them from concentrating these calls during the “golden hours,” the time of day when people are most likely to answer the phone.
BDRs can now talk to more people in a shorter amount of time. Not only does this result in more conversations, but it also helps BDRs get into the rhythm of pitching and gain practice in overcoming objections. It also reduces stress and desperation for the team.
"Before Orum, team members would make 100 calls in an eight-hour time period. Today, team members can make 200+ dials in the two-hour timeframe we call the ‘golden hours."
Mark Whisonant, Sr. Director of Business Development
More Meetings Booked
Before implementing Orum, each isolved team member made approximately 3–4 connects per day. With Orum, they have doubled the number of connects, with each BDR making 8–10 connects in the same time period.
More connects means more meetings. The team is now booking an average of 13 meetings per day. Prior to Orum, the number of meetings was low enough that the team measured bookings per week rather than per day. Today, the team is booking an average of 65 meetings per week.
Improved Ramp Time of BDRs
The isolved team also had the goal of shortening BDR ramp time, as a faster ramp would lead to a faster time to quota. Before Orum, ramp time for BDRs was roughly 120 days. Thanks in large part to Orum, ramp time saw an improvement of 68%.
"Orum helps us train and onboard our BDRs and it’s incredibly easy for them to adopt. It’s not a highly complex process — it's simple and intuitive."
Mark Whisonant, Sr. Director of Business Development
Because BDRs were connecting more, there were more opportunities to practice pitching. “Our BDRs had a much better playground than they did in the past,” said Mark. “Because we were able to connect so often, they had opportunities to pitch, overcome objections, and ultimately improve substantially.”
