Twenty-five representatives, and a supervision layer built to coach rather than count

One team leader per twelve is a coaching ratio, not a monitoring one. On this process the team leader spends the majority of each day listening to live conversations and debriefing them, not reviewing a dashboard.

Billable seat mix
Role	Seats	Requirement	Billable
Representative — United States territories	13	Neutral accent, business-conversation English, certified on the profile and outreach rules	Yes
Representative — United Kingdom territories	9	UK-market listening, certified on the profile and UK outreach rules	Yes
Research and data analyst	3	Account research, profile checking, list enrichment, trigger identification	Yes
Total productive seats	25	—	Billed at $1,100 each

On the research seats. Three of twenty-five is a minimum. Partners cut them first because they look like overhead that does not dial, and it is the most reliable way to lose the acceptance rate. A representative who has to build their own list from scratch loses two hours of selling time a day, and it shows in the appointment numbers within a fortnight.

Overlay

Management and support — your cost, already inside the rate

Role	Count at 25 seats	Ratio standard	Purpose
Team leader	2	1 per 12 representatives	Daily coaching, live call listening, territory review
Conversation quality analyst	1	1 per 25	Call and email audit, qualification-note review, calibration
Trainer	1	1 per 40 during ramp	Induction, profile certification, refresher on messaging changes
Delivery manager	1	1 per engagement	Service level, client review, acceptance disputes
MIS and sales-operations analyst	1	1 per engagement	Sequence configuration, seat register, pipeline reporting
Compliance officer	0.5	Named, shared	Outreach rules, suppression, data provenance, incident handling

A partner who runs this with a floor supervisor and a dial-count report will produce activity and not appointments.

Rostering

Decision makers are reachable in a narrow window

Research and enrichment run on the India day shift, ahead of the calling window. Outreach outside the configured window is not permitted in any channel.

Shift	Seats	Covers	India time, indicative
Research and enrichment	3	Account research ahead of the next day's calling	India day
United Kingdom territories	9	UK business hours	Afternoon into evening
US — eastern band	7	Eastern and central business hours	Evening into night
US — western band	6	Mountain and pacific business hours	Late night into early morning

Night-shift allowances, transport, statutory obligations for women on night shift and the associated facility cost are the service provider's and are reflected in the economics.

Recruitment

Hiring profile

The assessment pack tests for the attributes below, in this order of weight. Unbranded job descriptions accompany this proposal so that you can advertise on your own letterhead — they carry no client name and no Akontec name.

Attribute	Why it matters	How it is tested
Business curiosity	A representative who cannot ask a good second question will never qualify anything properly.	Unscripted discovery exercise against a live business scenario
Comfort with rejection	Most conversations end in no. The ones who survive treat that as information, not defeat.	Structured interview plus a resilience scenario
Written English	A third of the work is email a director will read.	Timed writing task, no templates
Listening over talking	Qualification is discovered, not extracted.	Recorded conversation review
Research discipline	The call is won or lost before it is dialled.	Timed research exercise

Certification and territory tenure

Certification is per client profile and it expires. A representative whose certification has lapsed does not make outreach.

Stage	Content	Pass mark	Validity
Initial certification	Profile, qualification criteria, messaging, outreach rules, five assessed conversations	85% on the profile test; no failed criterion	6 months
Re-certification	Refresher plus any profile or messaging change since the last sitting	85%	6 months
Second client profile	Full certification; never a conversion of the first	85%	6 months

Attrition costs eighteen days of unbillable certification plus eight weeks of ramp per replacement, none of it reimbursed — and the territory knowledge goes with them. Plan the bench against that, not against a best case.

Next step

Cut the research seats and you will see it in the acceptance rate.

It looks like three seats of margin and behaves like a fifteen-point drop. The same pattern applies, more slowly, to the coaching ratio.

See the provider economics Read the acceptance criteria