Luminate, Inc.

The Challenge: Launch a New Product

Luminate needed to introduce a new product and service quickly into a new market. The company—a leading provider of Internet infrastructure management for e-applications—is a pioneer in the emerging Management Service Provider (MSP) market segment. Luminate’s vice president of sales, Jeff Johnson, had already built a direct sales team focused on the company’s existing products for the SAP environment. However, the new product, which is for the NT environment, required a completely different sales model - one utilizing both the Internet and an inside sales team.

The Strategy: Build a New Sales Program

Luminate turned to Phone Works to build a new inside sales team. The charter of this team would be to generate, qualify and convert Web site visitors who have downloaded free Luminate software into paying customers for the new NT product. Phone Works brought in a senior consultant to manage the project. The consultant created job descriptions, developed sales compensation plans and hired staff. “We saved a great deal of time and money recruiting our inside sales staff because Phone Works already had the industry contacts,” noted Jeff Johnson.

The Result: Rapid Deployment

According to Johnson, “In an industry where one week can make the difference between market leadership or product failure, Phone Works’ process for getting rapid sales results exceeded our expectations.” Indeed, it took Phone Works only 12 weeks to get the inside sales team up and running—including creating new sales tools, changing the existing phone systems, implementing new call guides, and establishing metrics. The new sales model is a success: in the first three weeks of operation, 30 highly qualified prospects have been identified for the new product. Moreover, the company has achieved a higher usage rate for the free Internet download—a sign of interest in the new NT product. An additional benefit has been the collection of feedback on product features, which will help to ensure that future releases will be on target. Johnson added, “the new sales model has worked so well that we are committed to implementing it for future products.”