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OpenView is located in Boston, and I’ve often noticed an assumption that we therefore prefer to invest in companies based locally. While the Boston area is undoubtedly a breeding ground for awesome enterprise tech companies, the majority of our portfolio companies are located elsewhere in places as diverse as Boise, Irvine, Munich, and Salt Lake City.

In this post, I hope to communicate what location-related factors matter to OpenView’s investment team while evaluating a potential investment and why being located down the street from us (though that would be great come BOD season!) simply isn’t one of them.

Addressing the Elephant in the Room: Is Location Really Part of a Venture Capitalist’s Investment Criteria?

As I alluded to above, there seems to be a misconception that VC firms only like to invest in companies based in Boston, New York, Silicon Valley, and maybe a few other select markets depending on the firm’s location.

Founders often ask me if we are open to investing in their region (whatever it may be) before they agree to have a conversation, and every time I can’t help but be surprised. I can’t speak for other firms, but I do know that if a company is compelling to us based on their history of acquiring and retaining customers and on the market to which they sell, OpenView does not care at all where they are based.

In a given day, I might speak with a CEO in any part of the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, etc. If the management team speaks English and the company is a good fit for OpenView, location is simply not a factor.

Location as Strategy

We don’t care where your company is located, but we do care where your customers are located. It is important to us that the companies in which we invest either have customers or plan to have customers in North America. The experts at OpenView Labs and our senior leadership have gained the majority of their expertise working with companies that play in the North American market, and we feel that we would not be prepared to be as helpful as a partner for companies that do not have a strategy to acquire customers here.

Additionally, if the solution offered does not apply to potential clients in North America due to regulatory factors or otherwise, the market opportunity might not be big enough for us to consider the investment opportunity attractive.

Attracting and Retaining Great Talent

If a company is located in a very remote location far from other tech companies and/or universities, it might be challenge for them to attract top-tier technical, sales, and management-level talent. Conversely, if a company is located in a tech bubble, they may have trouble retaining talent due to fierce competition and salary wars. Both of these scenarios have been overcome by plenty of companies, and they are not deal-breakers but rather question areas that we will address when speaking with companies in these types of locales.

Overall, Location Doesn’t Matter

Between email, the phone, and hoping on a plane, there are plenty of resources available that make us indifferent to a company’s location. Overall, our goal is to help build great companies, and we are open to working with any best fit partner wherever they may be.

Honey Badger don’t care. He’s persistent.

As an analyst at OpenView, it’s my job to reach out to leaders at expansion-stage software companies and initiate a dialogue. While I find many aspects of my job to be a challenge (wrapping my head around complex software technologies and effectively communicating OpenView’s model, to name a few), it may surprise you that the hardest part of my day-to-day is the simple task of getting attention.

It’s not just VC analysts who have trouble receiving a response from the folks they’re trying to reach, and it’s not just software company CEOs who have a lot of demands on their time and mental bandwidth.

Amidst endless emails, phone calls, blog comments, Tweets, LinkedIn notes, Facebook messages, not to mention internal communication, professionals have never had so many people trying to communicate with them through so many different media channels. Whether you work in sales, journalism, PR, business development, market research or are simply trying to build your network, you’ve probably figured out that busy people generally de-prioritize cold contact from people they don’t know.

This reality leads to an obvious question with a not so obvious answer.

How Do I Get in Touch with Prospects?

As many have learned the hard way, the only way to consistently gain the attention and engagement that you are seeking is persistence. Ultimately, you must be prepared to attempt contact many times and in many different ways.

It may be helpful to keep in mind that the busy and successful person you’re trying to reach was probably in your shoes at some point and will hopefully appreciate and respect your gusto and determination. With any luck, your efforts will impress them and motivate them to dedicate some of their time to speaking with you.

10 Tips for Reaching Prospects to Try Now

While you still may not always receive a response, here are a few tricks and tips to incorporate into your routine when you’d like to hear back from someone:

1) Believe in your purpose for getting in touch

There is no point in putting all your effort into reaching someone without reason, and it will ultimately show if your efforts are not sincere. Think hard before truly gunning for a person’s attention – is your reason worth the toil, or is this simply another name on your prospect list? If there is no thought behind your mission, you’ll come across as nothing more than a telemarketing spammer and you’ll spoil the relationship going forward.

2) Keep emails short and organized

A line or two is more likely to get attention, and ending with a direct question — ideally one that does not lead to a yes/no answer — is never a bad idea. Ex: When do you have a few minutes next week to talk?

3) Keep it positive and upbeat

It is important to convey a positive, pleasant demeanor through voicemail and email messages, as people are more likely to want to have a conversation with a pleasant person than someone who sounds unpleasant, no matter what their reason for getting in touch. You may have left six voicemails already, but if the seventh one is the one that gets a listen and your tone is monotone, dull, or worse – angry, you’re probably not getting a ring back.

4) Try a multi-channel approach

Different people are best reached in different ways. Some people prefer the phone, while others like email. Some will appreciate a LinkedIn message and some will let them pile up ignored. As there is little way to know how to best gain an individual’s attention, your best bet is to try them all! It’s important to be systematic and take notes in your CRM so you know what you’ve tried already and create a constant flow of contact attempts from many different angles rather than firing from the same cylinder over and over again.

5) Don’t be a stalker

This may be common sense but I couldn’t leave it unmentioned: one voicemail or email per day is more than enough! Don’t attempt to contact someone more than a few times a week, or your stalker-ish ways may turn them off from wanting to speak with you at all.

6) Use humor

Humor can be extremely effective at setting your message apart as long as good judgment is applied. I’ve successfully used funny pictures to get a response from people, as it tends to remind them that you are human and have a personality. Again, judgment is important here – does their company website incorporate humor or is it all business? Do they work at an oil company or an ecommerce startup that sells bowties? These are questions you should ask yourself before forwarding a honey badger next to your note. If nothing else, incorporating something funny or lighthearted into a message keeps things from getting stale.

7) Always be polite

While the gatekeeper might get snarky after your third call that week, it’s beyond important that you do not match her tone. Remaining courteous and polite to every single person you speak with (and in writing) will only serve you in the end, so resist the temptation to behave otherwise.

8) Pick up the phone!

However unlikely it may be that your target picks up, it’s always worth trying to call someone directly every so often (even if you’ve been unsuccessful reaching them that way in the past). You never know — they could have been on vacation or maternity leave last month when you tried them 20 times with no answer — so don’t assume they’ll never pick up. As a tip, right before and after business hours are great times to give someone a ring (7:30-8am am and 5:30-8:00 pm). Important meetings are rarely scheduled at these times and gatekeepers tend to be off duty.

9) Don’t be afraid to ask for help or task ahead

Never give up but do feel free to give it a rest. If you’re simply getting nowhere, task ahead for three months and try again later. Additionally, if there is someone in your network who you think may be able to connect you or give you a few ideas on how to get in touch, by all means — ask them for help!

10) Keep the conversation going – don’t just get in touch when you need something

After making contact, it’s your job as a good community citizen to maintain the relationship as a mutually beneficial two-way street. See an article that may be relevant for them? Forward it along. Did they mention a upcoming trip to London and you happened to have studied abroad there? Send over some suggestions for great restaurants. Offering your help and showing that you are a valuable connection is the best way to develop your hard-earned relationship post initial conversation.

Persistence pays off, as long as it’s smart. What tactics have you used to successfully reach your prospects?

Call reviews are best conducted one-on-one

Within sales organizations, there is often a great deal of importance placed on metrics such as call volume, email volume, and appointments scheduled per day. These metrics matter (a lot) and correlate heavily with the health of a rep’s sales pipeline. However, while these quantitative reports are essential for feedback and performance analysis, qualitative measurement — analysis that helps to determine the quality of demos and conversations — is equally important and requires attention. One of the best ways to take a systematic approach to this type of analysis is to record important conversations and have reps and managers review them together, simply by listening.

How to conduct call listening and analysis:

Good news — the equipment necessary for recording calls is easy to find online and inexpensive! You can purchase a recording device that attaches to a land line for around $50 on Amazon. These devices come with a USB connector that allows you to download audio files you’ve recorded from your phone onto your PC or Mac as well as an attachment that plugs the recorder into your landline to record phone conversations. Recorders sometimes come with software, which you can toss or ignore, as most computers come with programs to download and play audio files (ex: iTunes).

Pick an important demo to record – it’s a good idea to do a test run with the recorder in advance to make sure everything’s working. Once the call is recorded and the file is downloaded, a rep and his/her manager should block off an hour or so to review the call together. The process can be painstaking, as no one likes to listen to his or her phone voice, so it might be a good idea to schedule some time at the end of the day when both parties can relax and enjoy a beer or a coffee together while going through the call to make the process a little more enjoyable.

Things to look for:

Odd verbal ticks: Listening to an entire call quickly highlights the” ums,” “ehs,” and “mms” that sneak into conversation. This exercise is a great opportunity to hone in on these verbal ticks and resolve to phase them out going forward. The same applies for overused or salesy words (ex: awesome, fantastic, solution, “your company”, etc), and nervous laughter. Communication is the most important tool a sales rep has, so a good rep should constantly strive to improve the way in which she presents herself in conversation.

Tone: It is important for a rep to recognize if she needs to work on her tone. Listening to a call can help identify a need for better executive presence, for example. Additionally, it helps to identify if a rep is coming across as pushy or salesy with a prospect.

Questions/interruption: Is the rep the one talking for the majority of a call? If so, the prospect is likely neither engaged nor interested in the presentation. The conversation should be a dialogue rather than a show and tell, with the rep asking qualifying questions and coaxing pain points out of the customer rather than steamrolling him with a sales presentation. Listening to a call is also a great way for a rep to identify and subsequently work on any interrupting habits she may have. Another important takeaway is the quality of the dialogue as a metric of how much value was built during the demo.

Closing questions: Gaging the prospect’s interest in a purchase and subsequently determining next steps is pivotal, and listening to closing questions from a real demo and getting constructive feedback is one of the best ways a rep can improve the closing process. Because this part of a demo can be uncomfortable for some reps, it is important to spend time formulating specific feedback to take away from the end of a call.

While sometimes a painful exercise, call listening is a great way for managers to give meaningful feedback and for reps to perfect their demos with the goal of converting more pitches into sales.

Do you have experience with recording and analyzing reps’ sales calls? What else should managers look for and focus on?