Iveridis Seeks Telesales/New Business Executive

Location: London UK, Global

iVeridis is seeking a proven, target-carrying telesales person to help us grow our clients' and our own UK and global customer base. We are a young, dynamic company providing a range of sustainability software and outsource/managed service solutions to sustainability service providers. Based in central London and San Francisco, we deal primarily with multinationals and a broad range of sustainability solution providers. Our mission is to accelerate the sales success of sustainability companies. One of our services is to outsource our clients' telesales function.

The ideal candidate will be required to will be able to work within our clients' environment to make outbound sales calls selling both a range of carbon and sustainability software and services solutions. Key responsibilities include generating new business in a new market, playing a key role in creating demand and building strong relationships with clients.

Responsibilities include:

• Deliver a solid pipeline of new business by making outbound calls to Businesses.
• Searching constantly for new revenue generating chances to meet the company targets.
• Accomplishing the agreed levels of calling activity to raise revenue or volume streams.
• Consistently achieve other KPI targets as set by line management.
• Provide supporting information as required to assist in the sales process.
• Provide first class customer service
• Forecast sales activity and revenue achievement, while creating satisfied and referenceable customers
• Demonstrating software products via the Web.
• Developing and maintaining new database contacts and details of potential customers.
• Maintaining detailed records and accounts of all telesales promotions.
• Updating Customer Relationship Management database of an organization with new information.

• In addition the Telesales Executive will be expected to:

• Support the Exec Team in new business opportunities.
• Participate in marketing efforts at trade shows and conferences.
• Develop an up-to-date knowledge of the characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of both iVeridis and clients' products and services.
• Develop a good knowledge of the sustainability and carbon markets; demand, competition and prices.

• Maintain up-to-date information on all customer interactions in the CRM system

Required Experience:

• 2 years telesales/outbound experience
• Background and or hands-on experience in carbon markets and sustainability is strongly preferred.
• Experience of working on behalf of other clients
• Self driven, results -orientated and resilient
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to speak to people of all levels.
• Ability to work under pressure and to strict targets
• Experience selling business applications is strongly preferred.
• Track record of over-achieving targets in past positions
• Ability to work in a fast pace and dynamic, team environment

Required Skills:

• University Degree preferably in environmental field
• Previous Telesales Methodology training
• Strong and demonstrated written and verbal communications skills
• Strong computer skills, including CRM Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel

• Experience in a start-up or entrepreneurial environment would be an advantage

References: 
Employer references will be required and client references are desirable

Green is Good

The release of "Money Never Sleeps" the long-awaited sequel to Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" has led to the inevitable overuse of its most famous quote- Gekko's "greed is good".  Our current financial crisis and the role that over zealous bankers played in creating it again illustrates the dichotomy of the statement.  What however is the role that greed and profiteering play in influencing positive changes to the environment and the mitigation of climate change?  Do the ends justify the means and in fact make the statement 'greed is good' apropos?

Granted this concept is well outside the traditionally boundaries of how the green movement has been historically perceived and pursued.  That being said, how fast is the movement really advancing in achieving a sustainable planet, particularly in the global centre of capitalism, America.  In the current 'down economy' environmental issues have taken a back seat to fiscal stimulus and reform with the exception of a few shining beacons of environmental change like the UK and California.  In the meantime atmospheric levels of carbon continue to rise, as does the corresponding temperature and incidence of extreme weather events.   Paul Hawken et al., sum this negative cycle succinctly in their groundbreaking "Natural Capitalism":

     The environmental debate is conducted in a predictable cycle: Science discovers another negative human impact on the environment.  Trade groups and business counter, the media reports both sides, and the issue eventually gets consigned to a growing list of unresolved problems.

In the case of climate change this is an unacceptable outcome.  Therefore if you can't beat them, why not join them?

The opportunities to capitalise on the new green movement are immense, even if the traditional models of investment have not always proven successful.  The green movement needs to shift its focus from the negative impact of industry on environmental change to the positive impact of making money from the mitigation of environmental disaster.  Providing the necessary guidance, technology and infrastructure to improve efficiency and reduce emissions is just good business-green and industry should be working in tandem to achieve this.  Leaders of the green movement need to seek out industry leaders that are willing to collaborate on ways to make money by saving the planet.

The Definition of Irony? Facebook and the Campaign Against Coal

In the Sci-fi classic "2001: A Space Odyssey" a super-intelligent talking computer named HAL slowly gains control of a ship on a deep space mission- at the expense of astronaut Dave Bowman. The film highlights the diminishing divide between computers and machines that had been growing through the 1970/80's. This classic Frankensteinian (sic) story of the monster consuming the maker may be happening to social media giant Facebook.

Whilst I may be being a tad dramatic, the case of Facebook and its predominantly coal-fired power producer Pacific Power started gaining steam (no pun intended) on September 1st when John Vidal of the Guardian published an article exposing the story http://bit.ly/ddi8Cu and citing a movement led by Greenpeace that has seen a community of 500,000+ protesting the weighting of coal in the electricity provided by the power company: http://bit.ly/av8MF9. According to Vidal "Facebook will not say how much electricity it uses to stream video, store information and connect its 500m users but industry estimates suggest that at their present rate of growth all the data centres and telecommunication networks in the world will consume about 1,963bn kilowatt hours of electricity by 2020. That is more than triple their current consumption and more electricity than is used by France, Germany, Canada and Brazil combined."

The crux of the issue is the weighting of coal that Pacific Power utilises in its energy mix-67% which is higher than the national average. What is unstated is this mix is significantly higher than the average of the coal mix for the West Coast states and other power producers, many of which source energy from cleaner sources including hydro and wind-suggesting that Facebook has other viable source of cleaner power.

The relevance of social media has been growing for years, as a result of and to the benefit of, Facebook. The company may not have found a way to fully capitalise on the monetary value of this movement however its total net worth has soared to ridiculous levels and spawned a wave of innovation. The coal issue reflects the power that social media's growing effect can have on issues that matter to Facebook's users. More importantly, this campaign may see a trickle-down effect on power producers like Pacific Power-and hopefully its parent company MidAmerican.

With mounting competition in the social media market, Facebook cannot afford to let its market share of users slide through something as simple as where the company source's its power. Equally, losing a customer like Facebook is bad business for Pacific Power, particularly when you consider the growth potential of that company through its energy use in the datacenter and the impact this campaign may have on other tech companies. With or without regulatory control of GHG emissions through cap-and-trade schemes, pressure on a company's bottom line is what is going to drive change.

Let's wait and see what Facebook decides to do...