Conversion Consulting is delighted to announce the appointment of Flemming Laursen as Managing Director.

Flemming will be responsible for Conversion's current business and meeting future growth plans. Chairman David Jarvis commented, "We are delighted that Flemming has agreed to take overall day-to-day responsibility for Conversion's business. We believe that Flemming is the right person to take Conversion forward into the next decade achieving both consolidation of past success and growth for both our customers and the company". Flemming commented that he was, "....excited to take on the role of Managing Director and help Conversion reach it's full potential. Conversion has a great future, and I am looking forward to growing the company and maintaining the strong relationship with our clients".

Conversion today announced it has appointed David Jarvis CBE as the Executive Chairman. David will be responsible for supporting the management team and will also serve as a member of the company’s advisory board.

David spent 36 years in the Royal Navy and retired as Commodore. As well as providing executive oversight and governance at Conversion, David is a Fellow of the IET, the Strategic Systems Advisor to Lockhead Martin UK, the founder and Director of UK PONI, and an Associate Fellow at RUSI.

"I am delighted to take on this role and help Conversion through the next phase of growth. The team under Flemming Laursen is highly movitated and very able - Conversion has a bright future."

What does it cost a business to hire a Business Development Executive?

Hiring salespeople is always a risky business, especially when you’re hiring at a junior level when it’s difficult to really get a handle on an individual’s abilities as there is often no track record of experience by which to measure.

As such it’s vital that an organisation understands the full cost and therefore the total risk involved in such a hire. All too often I have seen companies (generally smaller ones) take the salary plus the expected commission and add on the NIC payments to come up with the “Cost of Employment. This is often way off the mark in terms of calculating the true cost to a business of making such a hire.

Here we have attempted to quantify what that cost might be and therefore what the overall risk of hiring said individual would be should they fail (and various opinions and studies state the 50% - 70% of salespeople are unsuccessful…)

Click here for the Cost of Employment Calculations.

Please note these calculations are generalised and not specific to any business – the notes on the figures will give you an indication of how we arrived at them. We use these sums to demonstrate how outsourcing the Inside Sales or Telesales Role can help to mitigate or offset the cost to the business of this type of employment.

For more information on the numbers feel free to give us a call on +44 (0)20 7471 8600.

What's the real Cost per Lead?

For anyone who sits within the marketing function or sells to that function the phrase “cost-per-lead” is instantly recognisable as a standard measure for marketers to compare their spend across a range of marketing initiatives: essentially “how much did I spend on this lead as a unit cost?”

As a sales professional working in the technology and professional services space for the past 11 years the phrase has both baffled and infuriated me in equal measure by often being too simplistic a measure in an environment with high value complex sales. I would also argue that it is typically an inaccurate measure. By that I mean that ‘X’ may have been spent, but what was the real cost to the business?