by Colleen McCarty, VP Talent and Organization Development

When your leads are sourced through cold calling, the person doing the dialing is a large component of the equation. Without question, experience tells us that the dialer’s abilities, knowledge, and charisma all contribute to their success (or failure), but it is important not to overlook their work satisfaction.

One area where job satisfaction may be most vulnerable is Sales, because of the intense pressure to produce. Good sales leads are an integral part of generating business, and companies without dedicated inside teams frequently rely on their “closers” to perform cold calling because they are already in place. I maintain that there is an employee satisfaction cost to having your sales team make cold calls that you should take into account on top of the simple dollars and cents.

Why is cold calling so hated? After all, it is simply the first, and vital, step of the sales cycle. Usually the sales people who struggle with it are those who are tasked with the dual role of both inside and outside sales. They are supposed to be always closing new deals while, at the same time, keeping their pipeline full, which is painful for three reasons:

Reason #1: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Cold calling is the bane of a sales person’s agenda and is frequently the item that “slips.” When handling warm calls - whether responding to interest or managing existing clients - you are behaving reactively. Conversely, making cold calls is proactive. We all know it is easier to react to something, and we all have a to-do list screaming at us. I’m not the only one who can make an extremely persuasive case for why it is far more critical to respond to an existing customer than to reach out to a (potentially uninterested) future customer. So cold calling moves to the back burner as a chore that the sales representatives may honestly think they will get to “later” but never seem to accomplish.

Reason #2: Success breeds failure.

Interestingly, successful cold calling can sabotage productivity. Cold calling is frequently measured by the number of dials, and yet a good conversation with a decision-maker or influencer lowers those total activity numbers or even cuts short the calling hours (see reason #1) because now we have a task to “react” to. Although we want prospects to be interested when we call, the follow-up required after a successful cold call will slow down future cold calling.

Reason #3: I just wanna be loved.

Rejection is never fun, but the earlier you are in the sales cycle, the higher the percentage of “no”s you will hear, especially when you are reaching out to truly cold prospects. Good salespeople can routinely handle rejection but everyone has limits. The term is not accidental; cold calls are icy!  Sales people have to keep their “mojo” and go in to each sales interaction with confidence. If you are emotionally braced for rejection, you may lose the positive energy you need for the next call, follow-up, or close.

Interestingly, I’ve observed that there are a few personality types who specialize and thrive in the cold calling role. One exceptionally successful cold caller I know makes six figures and won’t accept any job where they dangle the old carrot: “If you’re successful, we will promote you to the outside.” He is smart enough to know where his strengths are, and he scorns those sales organizations led by individuals who don’t understand that outside sales and inside sales jobs are truly different.

Outside sales people can cold call but most don’t like it, and you should consider this reality when developing your sales plan to avoid burnout or retention problems. If you can, develop a dedicated inside team or outsource the role to specialists. But if you can’t swing either of those options, it helps to better understand the challenges of cold calling so that you can work with your team to mitigate the stresses and increase the work satisfaction of one of your most critical assets - your sales team.

From time to time we like to share the resources that we find especially helpful and informative with our readers. Here are some of the most recent articles we've been reading:

Are You Marketing to the Customer's Buying Cycle?: From one of our partners, Kickstart Alliance, explains why it's important for B2B marketers to develop a variety of content to reach out to potential customers at various points on the buying cycle.

7 Lies Sales People Tell Themselves: From Fearless Selling this article covers seven common lies sales people tell themselves which can sabotage their success.

Confidence in Cold Calling: From The Sales Blog, S. Anthony Iannarino offers helpful advice to sales pros who get the proverbial cold feet before a cold call. 

We want to know what you've been reading, too. Tell us in the comments below!

Amy Keuper, Initial Call's VP of Sales, recently appeared on a local radio show titled Changing People’s Lives. Host Roy Butler and Amy discussed a few important principles for sales people:

1. Accept that your audience members are busy, overloaded, and distracted. Examine your habits and modify your tactics in order to break through the noise and keep the attention of your prospects.
2. Avoid these common pitfalls:
   a. Lacking a definition of your ideal customer. Map out who is a fit for you so you can focus your work on the right kinds of targets.
   b. Missing key metrics about your sales cycle. Document your distinct sales stages as well as the length of time it takes to close new business.
   c. Focusing on volume of sales activity alone. Make smart, meditated calls to your prospects rather than a multitude of hurried or careless activities.
3. Adopt a CRM system to manage your sales efforts for increased visibility and effectiveness.
4. Update your sales approach with the following tips:
   a. Hone your value proposition. Make it about the problem you solve rather than about your business.
   b. Shorten the length of your emails and voicemails—drastically!
   c. Simplify your closing process and make it easier for your prospects to buy.

Click here to listen to the interview.

by Catherine Brown, President, Initial Call

Given that sales is my business, it may be particularly ironic that I dislike the word “lead” so much, but has there been another word in the world of sales lingo that’s caused so much confusion? For the purposes of this article, I’m defining a lead as a viable person/company who has expressed interest in learning more about your solution. Leads that are just names about which you know little information aren’t leads; they are suspects.

So, what is the cost of a lead? During 2011, our clients’ cost of a lead-- in these cases both pre-arranged phone appointments and face-to-face meetings –cost between $250 and $4800 each. How is this possible? At a run rate of $100 per hour for the labor to generate these meetings, some clients’ meetings could be scheduled every 2.5 hours of work, while other clients (those with complex services and difficult, large target accounts to penetrate) see a meeting every 40-50 man hours of work. When we wrote about this topic in early 2010, we reported that we were seeing a range of qualified leads cost clients between $800 and $3000 each; I ascribe the broader range during 2011 to the diversity of the client industries we’ve served over the last year. The fact remains that all sales processes are not equal: some things are much easier to sell than others. Selling a low-cost item to an individual for less than $1000 per year is not as difficult as selling consulting services around a specific technology.

How do you know what your lead costs should be? There are industry benchmarks that we can share with you.  Email us at sales@initialcall.com with specific questions and we’ll share what we’ve learned. Another way to do some research is to read our most recent client story on work we did last year for an Oklahoma City-based venture advisory firm, i2E, and their clients.  This client story shares 4 quick examples of different projects, whose lead costs varied widely, based on what and to whom they were selling.

Be sure to consider your total costs when evaluating which sales programs are working. While cold calling may seem expensive to you, lead generation work through Internet marketing, direct mail campaigns, trade shows, and networking all cost money too, so be vigilant in capturing true costs when you assess the expense of acquiring your qualified leads.

(See our previous article by Amy Keuper, The Real Cost of a Lead.)

by Amy Keuper, VP Sales

We use a custom field which is so vital to our sales work that I’m puzzled as to why it’s not a pre-existing field within out-of-the box CRM configurations.

We create for our clients a pick-list field titled “Account Status” and use it to track our prospecting penetration into our Accounts. Without a status designation, it’s impossible to tell at a glance where qualifying talks are occurring. Certainly you can run activity reports and spend time reading through call notes, but VPs of Sales as well as sales reps themselves need high-level visibility.

Of course, once an Opportunity is created, the Account officially hits the pipeline with easily identifiable stages. But prior to that point (and we recommend having a high Opportunity-creation threshold), you need an Account Status field in order to have a snapshot view of your pre-Opportunity sales work--all the work leading up to your first official sales talks that we think of as the “pipeline to the pipeline.”

We recommend sorting Accounts into three primary prospecting groups: 1) those that you have not touched yet, 2) those that you are currently touching, and 3) those that you are finished touching for now. The last two stages have sub-categories. We use customized variations of this pick-list:

1. Not contacted
2. Working
   a. Working: identifying and navigating contacts
   b. Working: connecting and qualifying
3. Resolved
   a. Resolved: sales opportunity created
   b. Resolved: nurture, no interest right now
   c. Resolved: objectively disqualified

Having two or more levels within the “working” group helps distinguish which Accounts you are just beginning to call from those where you’ve made some real connections with Decision Makers.

Breaking out your “resolved” list enables you to find Accounts for targeted marketing. You can keep track of companies where talks have progressed to deal discussions as well as Accounts that have no immediate need but should be nurtured along by regular communications.

We find it particularly helpful to separate Accounts that are objectively, and therefore permanently, disqualified from those where you simply did not get traction at this time. Identify what eliminates an Account from being a Prospect (maybe you only sell in the US, for example). Resist the natural tendency to dismiss Accounts that don’t have need, ability, or desire at this point in time since any of those factors could change.

We also recommend having a label for “other” so that you can flag Accounts that don’t fit neatly into any of these categories. Identify any patterns and create new, custom status labels that make sense for your own prospecting steps.

Using a pick-list field enables you to run reports and uncover actionable intelligence about your prospect pool. Look, for example, at what this sample report reveals.

If the pie chart above represents all my potential future customers, I’m in trouble. I’ve already worked 97% of my Prospects and well over half of those have no present need, ability, or desire to buy. I need to find a way to revisit and create urgency with this large group of non-interested companies. I might also need to source a new target list or modify my offering to open up new markets since I have no sales possibilities with almost 70% of my Rolodex.

With a robust CRM such as Salesforce.com, you can easily drill down into any of the categories to explore details about each stage group. Review what’s common among the Accounts where you are developing Opportunities and extend your reach into similar companies.

By implementing the Account Status tracking field, you’ll move from having only a vague sense of your prospecting progress to benefiting from an easily understood and measurable picture of your sales work.

by Catherine Brown, President

Over the Christmas holidays, I was catching up on some of the discussions from the LinkedIn groups that I follow, including the B2B Lead Generation Round Table. Chris Knipper at Kuno Creative posted an article titled, “Is Direct Mail Marketing Dead? Not If You Do It Right.” This topic piqued my interest, as I’ve been tracking Initial Call’s own direct mail successes this last quarter.

 In a world of instant gratification, direct mail is still an art. Letters still work in reaching people, precisely because direct mail is such an old concept, it almost seems new again. “Snail mail” gets attention in a world of e-mail marketing. I love direct mail because it gives the opportunity to do many things: to demonstrate that you’ve specifically chosen to reach out to X company because you have reason to believe they’d be a good fit for your services; to provide a targeted case study with quantitative, measurable results that don’t look sales-y; and finally, now you have a reason to call them since you’ve put a call to action within your letter.

I believe that mass mailings are hard to do well because lists always involve bad names. Sending to the wrong name and title at a company undermines the personal touch you are striving to have. I like to send small batches of letters at a time, where we choose an industry that we want to target because of our success story therein. Then we send personal letters that reflect that we have good reason to be a fit to work with a particular company, including a case study. Finally, we call and set up an appointment to speak further. The final step is essential, as even an interested party may be just busy and not get around to calling you even if they mean to call you. Make it easy for them by telling a strong story about why they should speak with you with quantifiable results, and follow up to schedule a time to speak further.

by Amy Keuper, VP Sales

By implementing one simple custom field within your Opportunity management object, you can easily run post-mortem analysis on your lost deals.

Create a custom pick-list field for “Primary Reason Lost” with selections such as:

• No budget
• Went with other vendor
• Decided not to do anything right now
• Price objection/needed less expensive option
• Fell off map
• Unknown/would not say

You might also create a place to house comments relative to the loss since there’s always more to the story, but forcing your team to identify the main reason you did not win will help you understand and rectify problems.

Running the percentages on lost opportunities will tell you critical information such as:

• You’re consistently losing to competitors and should revise your positioning.
• You’re getting push back on price and should see if you can make adjustments in either your pricing model or value proposition.
• Your prospects are going dark or are not candid with you because your sales reps aren’t developing real relationships.

By tweaking your report for different periods of time, you can see trends. Perhaps you lost mostly to a competitor in 2010 but in 2011 you believe you lost mostly due to lack of budgets, which speaks more about the general economy and less about your market share. So, you’ll work harder going forward to help your prospects build the case internally for purchase.

While it’s painful to lose business, it’s vital to capture why and respond accordingly.

by April Karli

I notice a lot of bloggers and talking about generosity in the sales and marketing world. The idea is to give away your content, advice, or help while expecting nothing in return. One of my favorite articles talking about this is from Seth Godin. In this article he talks about getting something after you've given something. You give money and get lunch in return. You give time and money and get a university diploma.  

But, he says, "Online, though, I'm not sure the math is so obvious." 

And he goes on to say, "Online, the something, the quid, the this, doesn't cost cash. It takes heart and energy and caring, which are scarce but renewable resources. As a result, many people are able to spend them without seeking anything external in return. Even better, the act of generosity, of giving without expectation, makes it easier to do art, to create work that matters on its own."

Another blogger, Michael Hyatt, says the tools we use online like Twitter and Facebook are relational tools, not transactional. He suggests a 20-to-1 Rule - you give 20 relational deposits for one withdrawal.

When I think about blogs I read, people I follow on Twitter, connect with on Linkedin, or friend on Facebook, I don't respond well to those who seem to be using the platform purely to promote themselves, their businesses, or their books/blogs. I connected with them to learn, not just about their products, but about them. Otherwise, I'd just read their website and other marketing collateral. I quickly "unfollow" and "unfan" anyone who is updating their status or Tweeting a link to their book multiple times a day. I followed them to learn from them. I want to know what they're reading, who they follow, and what they think is important. 

Like Seth Godin says, it's "Santa Math." Santa flies around the world giving away presents not because he expects anything in return. He does it because he's generous. It's in his very nature to give things away for the pure joy of giving.

How do you respond to people online who are generous? What about those who aren't? 

by Amy Keuper, VP Sales

The concept of controlling the sales cycle is simple to grasp in theory yet elusive in real life, especially in the Complex Sale where 1) your primary Buyer needs to coordinate with others in the prospect organization and 2) they really do need time to make a deal happen.  No single-purchaser, click-to-buy easy close here.

The Complex Sale, like Gilligan’s cruise, can easily deteriorate from a straightforward 3-hour tour into a storm-tossed wreck.  Here are two tactics which will keep you at the helm of your sales relationship:

1. Tell your Buyer what your sales process is--who helps evaluate your solution and how long it will take.  Your language might look something like this, “We have found that, typically, the key roles for evaluating [our fabulous offering] are CEO, CFO and COO—and that it usually takes about three weeks to confirm that we are a fit.  We have come to you as a key Decision Maker and are reaching out to X and X as well.  We can schedule a group meeting to discuss the merits together or loop back to you next week…”
   
   With this phrasing, you have spelled out not only the timeframe within which you hope to receive a preliminary “yes” or “no” but have also acknowledged the reality that multiple Buyers are involved.  You have set the stage that you will be contacting others which might motivate this contact to become your Champion.  At the very least, this one contact now lacks the power to stall the process. 
   
   
2. Next, determine what is stalling your prospect: a genuine lack of interest or the weakness of human nature.  If your prospect truly has no interest at this time—for whatever reason, you are unlikely to move the account forward no matter what you do.  However, some prospects are open to you and your offering, but simple procrastination and the “tyranny of the urgent” may prevent them from acting.

If you don’t have clear “no-go” signs, you will need to nurture your prospect along in specific ways.  Break down the tasks you currently do after a prospect commits to moving forward and see if you can move some of those milestones earlier in your sales cycle.  In essence, create Baby Steps which lead your prospect to “yes.”  This idea works especially well when the services you do for your client (typically after you close) only reinforce the rightness of your solution.  Do you see any ways to separate and sequence your sales process?  Do you gather requirements or run numbers?   Consider giving away more analysis or consulting so that perhaps some heretofore “post-close” steps will actually help finalize your sale for you. 

In other words, make it very easy to buy.  A story to illustrate:

I had wanted to refinance my house for months and had made some calls and web inquiries to vendors.  I had two Good Faith Estimates sitting in my in-box…for weeks.  Then I got a call from the loan officer who ultimately earned my business.  Before I realized it, we were walking through the necessary info in a phone interview—no burdensome forms.  He did some quick calculations and asked if his numbers were as good as or better than the other quotes I had.  They were.  Then, he closed the sale without me ever having to say a word.  “What I am going to do now is overnight a package that will be on your doorstep by 8:00 a.m.  All you have to do is sign the top paper and return it in the postage-paid envelope.  If you want to send some or all of the other forms, great—but don’t let that hold you up.  We can get those by email or fax later.  We will get you locked in and from that point your rate can only go down—not up.”

This master closer didn’t let me say that I needed to think about it, or else his quote would have languished in my in-box along with the others.  He took charge and took a risk by mailing me a package, but with that action he created a simple Baby Step for me.  Everyone else was waiting for me to say “Yes, I pledge to working with you,” before taking any action.  Having been through the home-purchasing process more than once in the past, I got stalled in making a decision because I knew I would then have to gather and copy countless forms and mail them in—after finding or buying a jumbo envelope and going to stand in line at the post office and paying postage for my jumbo package on top of all that.  It all felt too annoying and troublesome to deal with, so I kept stalling.

Clearly I was interested in refinancing or I wouldn’t have contacted several lenders.  By taking an action step that others saw as post close, this loan officer cemented my business.  Your prospects are the same as I was; they have an interest in your offering or they wouldn’t be taking your call.  Now—don’t wait for your prospect to say “yes” or “no.”  Don’t make those the only choices.  Don’t make it hard to move forward.  Instead, walk them through your sales steps, positioning each task as “providing them what they need to make an informed decision.” 

By definition, there are many ways that The Complex Sale can’t be simplified; however, it can be streamlined and accelerated.  And you can be in control of more elements of the timetable than you may assume.  Map a course and then help the “maybes” become “yeses” by steering your prospect through waypoints that you define—ones that have been there all along.  Share any sales process steps that you can--prior to closing the sale--and you will guide into your harbor those prospects who otherwise would have likely drifted out to sea.

by Colleen McCarty, VP Talent & Organization Development

It was recently my great pleasure to receive an unexpected package in the mail. My colleague, Amy Keuper, had attended a conference and was moved by several of the speakers. So moved that she thought of me and sent 3 books representing her favorite conference topics. Delighted, but busy, I chose the smallest book to read first: Humilitas: A Lost Key to Life, Love, and Leadership by John Dickson.

What did I learn?

• Humility is not low self-esteem or being a doormat for others. The author defines humility as “the noble choice to forgo your status, deploy your resources or use your influence for the good of others before yourself.” The author argues that being humble does not preclude holding strong convictions nor is it incompatible with a healthy sense of your own worth and abilities. Rather it is the absence of an overbearing ego or insistence on one’s own rightness which encourages respect from others and a sense of credibility.
• Humility allows honest reflection and encourages learning. Those who think they know everything are not open to learning anything new. When you can reflect on and discuss, honestly, what went right and what went wrong then you can find improvement.
• Humility is not necessarily visible. Look around you, are there amazing leaders exhibiting humility in your world? Don’t think only of the largest or fastest growing company you know, for while it seems counter-intuitive, if we remember that humility is putting the good of others first, then that humble leader could be in an organization or position that is operating smoothly but not flashily. It is probably someone highly credible whose team delivers superior performance. It could be someone in a non-profit organization, religious group, a coach, or a youth leader.

An easy read about various great leaders and history, this book has generated thoughts that continue to stick with me raising provoking implications for my own life and prompting comparisons, both flattering and not so, between the global players in the world’s economy, politics, and business and the notion of humility described in these pages.

by Catherine Brown, President

Last month Amy Keuper wrote about the importance of keeping different “buckets” of data when you have a business-to-business, accounts-based approach in sales. Amy reminded us that there are different standard choices that most companies use when categorizing the way they think about a potential client.

The first two categories that most companies should use are suspects and prospects. A company name that you may like to pursue but about which you know little is a “suspect.” A suspect becomes a “prospect” when they meet some basic definitions for your company’s qualification process, such as:

1. You have confirmed the names of the right people to pursue;
2. You know these right people can afford your product or service;
3. You’ve spoken with a right person at the company and they haven’t asked you to get lost yet.

The way people define “prospect” varies, but every company has suspects and prospects, and it’s important to define what these terms mean for your specific organization. Why? Because your costs of gaining new clients can decrease considerably when you learn how to fill your sales pipeline with the suspects who are most likely to convert to prospects. Suspects come from a variety of sources: industry lists you’ve purchased, hits from your website, cold calling efforts…any number of places. Your goal in data management should be to determine what suspects are converting to prospects. Then your goal can become to convert as many prospects as possible to clients.

Example: If you purchase a list of company names from your industry’s primary trade association to be your suspects and, after marketing to these prospects in a variety of ways, only 1 company in 99 is a prospect after 6 months, this is bad news because even the best sales person can’t convert every prospect into a paying client. In this scenario, you would need to have many HUNDREDS of prospects to gain even 1 new client.

With a good Customer Relationship Management system, it’s easy to know how many suspects convert to prospects. For many companies, a reasonable goal is to see 25% of your suspects become prospects that move through your sales process. Then, if 25% of your prospects become paying customers, you can build a sales and marketing plan to determine how to fill your suspect and prospect pipeline. A simple illustration:

• 200 suspects (25% convert to next stage)
• 50 prospects (25% you win)
• Approximately 12 new clients (6% of your suspects became clients)

Once you know these basic numbers, you can determine your costs and determine the least expensive, most effective ways to fill your pipeline with the best suspects possible. Whether your suspects cost you $.50 each or $50 each, everyone has the same need: to know their real numbers and true costs so they can sell more effectively.

From time to time we like to share the resources that we find especially helpful and informative with our readers. Here are some of the most recent articles we've been reading:

Sales is a Game from the Sandler Blog is an honest assessment of who the "winners" are in the game of selling. Learn the characteristics of top sellers who love prospecting and negotiating the buyer-seller relationship. In the game of selling the best sellers live to sell rather than sell to live. 

A Different Perspective Can Do You Good from Fearless Selling emphasizes the importance of looking at situations from several angles. Solving problems in sales can be tricky when you're faced with a circumstance you've never experienced before. Having a network of people who can offer different perspectives can help you arrive at a viable solution.

Beware of Parochial Managers from the Gallup Management Journal is about identifying and dealing with dysfunctional management practices within organizations that stifle creativity and success. Sometimes fear leads people to focus more on the process than the outcome leading to barriers within an organization. This is the first article in a three-part series. The second and third articles can be found here and here. 

by Amy Keuper, VP Sales

You’ve heard of a “bucket list,” that ultimate “to-do” list in life. When it comes to work, most of us have “get organized” and “increase sales” on our corporate task planner. Take a small step today and begin to master the chaos in your CRM system with one simple step: separate your list into buckets.

Sales executives instinctively know that they need to categorize accounts according to their relationship. We know that we want to distinguish between groups of companies and treat them differently. Hence, most organizations store prospects as “leads” and reserve the “accounts” label only for customers. The Salesforce.com Sales app contains by default a “Leads” object which accommodates this desire to separate prospects from clients.

However, utilizing the Leads object within your CRM is not the only way, nor the best way, to classify your various contacts. We at Initial Call are passionate about tracking sales activities with an accounts-based approach. You can read in depth here why a leads-based approach causes problems for the complex sale.

When you have a complex sale, working in Leads and creating an Account only when a company becomes a client limits your view of the sales landscape. “Leads” in most CRM systems are individuals, and closing sales often means coordinating multiple buyers. Working the entire account and all the associated contacts simultaneously is the only way to effectively see the whole picture.

We recommend that you group all the companies in your database into named “buckets” or piles so that you can address each appropriately and see everything comprehensively. For our clients, we solve the categorizing problem by using a field on the Account object to capture the relationship between our client and each of the accounts in their database. Every company is officially an “Account.” We use the Leads object sparingly, primarily to capture web leads or manage unverified data.

The process is simple. For every Account, define the relationship to your organization. You might simply expand the picklist choices in the standard field called “Type” in Salesforce.com. Or you can create a custom picklist field called “Relationship to [Your Company].” Lists vary, but some universal picklist choices are:

Suspect
Prospect
Potential Partner
Partner
Referral Source
Customer
Former Customer
Competitor
Potential Vendor
Vendor
Disqualified Prospect

Labeling all companies according to how they relate to you provides three clear benefits.

1. Organizing your marketing lists. Think of the possibilities. If a client ceases to use your product or service and you have appropriately coded them as “past client,” then you can easily find this group to target with a “come back to us” campaign. Rather than sending your partners and vendors a sales message, you can craft specialized messages relevant to how you can help and serve each other. It’s wise to track information on your competitors, and by naming them as such, you can store market intelligence while excluding them from receiving your marketing communications.
2. Ordering your prospecting efforts. A segregated database helps manage your sales team’s workflow. When you can quickly see the various groups, you can be intentional about spending a planned percentage of time on each type of account. Devote 20% of your time to developing channel partners. Dedicate another 20% of your time to cold-calling and qualifying suspects. Set aside 40% of your time for nurturing prospects. And so on.
3. Enabling better reporting. With the addition of one simple field, you will multiply your insight. You can see what percentage of all the accounts in your existing universe are customers and how much more of the pie you have potential to win. Measure the effectiveness of campaigns by examining how many of your prospects opened your newsletter relative to how many of your clients did. Watch how many accounts are being objectively disqualified and take action to add accounts or modify your offering if you see your prospect pool shrink rather than grow.

Implement this master labeling system to enable tailored marketing, intentional time management, and superior reporting --and cross one thing off your list!

by Colleen McCarty, VP Talent & Organization Development

Our co-workers learn to trust us as we build credibility over time. Traditionally, trust is established in person and starts subconsciously via your physical presence in face-to-face work environments. You begin to lay the foundation simply by showing up. After a few hallway- or elevator-sightings, your coworkers and boss form opinions about your commitment -- adjusting that opinion by observing the evidence: how early you arrive or the length of your lunch breaks.

By the time you begin to share ideas in meetings, a basic trust basis already exists. Unfortunately, when working virtually, we don't have those initial live encounters that provide the key groundwork for our mutual trust. Even general goodwill can be hampered if our paths do not frequently cross in conference calls or via email. Because you’re not there, you’re starting out behind.

Milly Sonneman's article, Leading Virtual Teams - Secrets of Building Trust and Rapport Online (Buzzle) outlines what happens when trust does not get established. We:

• second guess motivations of others;
• act from competitive self-interest;
• lack collaboration;
• lack communication; and
• are unable to navigate tough issues.

When you work virtually, nothing happens by accident at the water cooler. Understanding that it is far easier to proactively develop solid relationships than uproot distrust, you’ll have to be intentional in your actions.

First, communicate actively.

• Share your action plans. This indicates that you know what needs to be done and by when. This helps build credibility. If something comes up that hinders your ability to meet the completion date, develop a workaround or Plan B. Don’t assume your deadline is flexible, especially when others’ success depends on you.
• Be transparent in your availability or lack of availability. Be accessible so that people know you are working. When you are “head-down” busy, reduce suspicion and frustration by sharing your open time blocks. If you are in training, attending a webinar, or on another call, send a message stating, “I'm in a meeting but can call you at x:00.” Keeping your word will go a long way toward strengthening confidence in your reliability.

Second, do a great job.

• Understand what is expected of you and do it well. Stay focused on the task, especially if you work from home. Don't let your family or non-work responsibilities undermine your work commitments.
• Ask for feedback frequently. Check your understanding of what is required and what it takes to meet or exceed those expectations.
• Ask intelligent questions to show your comprehension and desire to meet the goal. 

Finally, be professional.

• Eliminate sounds or personal habits that shout, “I’m virtual.” Mute the dog as needed. Avoid driving during conference calls. Be sure your phone messages are professional and do not go to a busy signal. Don’t unload the dishwasher or start a workout while on a business call.
• Be at your desk and fully focused for conference calls unless you have a business reason to be away.
• Because of the default anonymity of faceless communication, be sure to guard against using an overly casual tone with co-workers. Minimize discussion about your personal life or pressing home needs. Instead, stay on topic and consider how you are presenting yourself. Exercise judgment then allow friendships to deepen naturally over time, as welcomed.

If you work remotely, don’t presume upon the trust and generosity of your co-workers.  You will have to earn baseline trust.  Then, build on that through excellence in communication, performance, and professionalism.

by Catherine Brown, President, Initial Call

Is “outsourcing” a bad word? Admittedly, the idea can have a negative connotation, but in B2B sales, seeking expert outside help for key professional services is becoming more and more acceptable. I experience this personally not only as we help other businesses decide whether to outsource their sales work but also in the running of my own business. For example, when tax season comes, I am reminded how much I enjoy outsourcing accounting. Although I appreciate my competent Certified Public Accountant throughout the year, I am especially grateful for her services in April. Why? Because although I could do my business taxes myself, I am freed from a tremendous burden in time and management energy by trusting this to a professional. Recruiting is a similar function. Some companies hire only through HR, but others utilize a competent contract recruiter to help. The inside sales role is similar for sales executives. When deciding how to build or grow your organization, ask yourself, “Do I want to run this process myself or am I willing to delegate?” Evaluate what is best for your business model as well as for your personality. If you lack the bandwidth to find, hire, and actively manage resources, then outsourcing may be best for you. To make a final decision, consider two more key points - Training and Budget. 

Regarding training, do you have a product or service that contract labor can be trained to learn? Even if your product or sales qualification process is complex, the answer to this question is usually “yes.” Of course trusting someone else with your messaging is a big hurdle. Remember that, in reality, you must do that very thing if you hire an employee. There is no other way to grow. Rest assured, if you have a definition of what a “qualified opportunity” means for your company, it’s likely that you can provide the information that an experienced contractor needs to be successful in finding sales for you. A good vendor will have an established project launch process to guide you.

The other important consideration is budget for the work relative to your offering price. Analyze your cost of sale. Determine what your budget would be if you were to hire someone for the role then research what that dollar amount buys when outsourced. Contractor prices vary, depending on the level of resource appropriate for your pitch. The vendor price may appear either very affordable or very expensive at first glance. You must dig deeper and consider what’s included then compare the hidden costs of employees. From the intangibles such as lost time when a person doesn’t work out to the add-on costs of taxes and benefits, employees can be expensive too. Contracting the right level of inside sales talent tends to cost about the same as hiring when you analyze the whole sales cycle, from the process of building a target list to qualifying opportunities. 

Elements of your sales cycle may dictate in-house operations. For example, does the same person who cold-calls also do an on-the-spot in-depth demo? Thinking about your management style, you may simply enjoy building inside sales teams, training people to cold call, and overseeing performance. If you want to listen to cold calls in person and see your team around the water cooler, you will likely be more satisfied with a team of people in your physical location. If you are a person who needs high control over your whole sales organization, you may be dissatisfied with outsourcing, no matter how good the vendor. Embrace that you want to own all sales operations--even the gory details! But, let’s say that the above does NOT describe you. You simply want good sales opportunities and you don’t have to be intimately involved with every detail of acquiring these opportunities. If you lack the bandwidth to find, hire, and actively manage resources, then outsourcing may be best for you. 

Determining whether to outsource or hire requires careful thought as to what is better for your business in addition to your own preferences. We talk more on our blog about Eliminating the Risks of Telesales if you’d like to see more suggestions. I’d also welcome the opportunity to discuss our findings about true costs of outsourcing if you want to contact me to talk further. cbrown@initialcall.com

by Amy Keuper, VP Sales & Operations

When evaluating cold-calling work, do you measure the volume of phone activity, first and foremost? If sales were merely a numbers game, then more dials should automatically net more results. But it's not always so. We maintain that for today's busy and distracted buyers, the quality of activity increasingly trumps quantity.

We record all significant activities rather than the dial count. We track how many meaningful touches are required on average to set a qualified sales appointment. We document every voicemail, conversation and email. Our activity-per-hour ratio ranges from 3-12 per hour depending on the type of work.

1. Most of our client base have a complex sale. By nature this is navigating work, not a high-volume dialing process. Frequently, we don't have a contact name to start with when calling a company. We have to figure out who the real Decision Makers are and reach them. We gather company and overall market intelligence as we go.
2. We work on a targeted list of named accounts, often a limited lead pool. Since we make our clients' first impression, careless contact will only burn through precious leads. Activity for activity's sake squanders prospects. Each touch has to count to move the ball forward.
3. Talk time is key. If we are just leaving voicemails, that's faster than connecting live and looks like more "work" in terms of activity count, but it is less productive than actually reaching someone and having a conversation. Our most successful Sales Managers may have the lowest number of tasks but the highest meeting-setting rates.

We have seen that fewer, carefully meditated, and well-executed activities will yield better results than a flurry of poorly-planned calls.

by Colleen McCarty, VP Talent & Organization Development

In July we ran an article entitled “5 Ways to Assess Your New Outbound Caller.” With few exceptions, the main criterion for assessing an experienced caller’s performance is simply this: are quality appointments being booked and held? Assuming you’ve not changed processes or added new offerings that must be learned, chances are that your established callers are booking and holding appointments at a fairly steady pace – but what about those who aren’t? Here are 3 reasons performance can slip from good to mediocre, as well as strategies for getting your sales people’s performance back in the green zone.

#1 - Lack of Feedback -- “Most people appreciate getting a temperature check of how they’re doing at work even if it’s a weekly 10-minute chat. Employees have a higher level of commitment, contentment and confidence when they know where they stand.” (5 Rules For Giving Solid Employee Feedback That Works)

I’m a big believer that not hearing from you can allow your caller to think all is well regardless of whether or not you are happy with their performance. If you think the activities-per-hour metric is low, then say so - you can be nice about it but if your strategy is to hope the problem will fix itself - it won’t. You might think to yourself that they know better, they know what their activity pace should be, but I say your silence is shouting that their current performance is acceptable. The sooner you bring it up the easier the message will be to deliver.

I can’t tell you the number of times poor performers have been referred to me for the “talk” only to ask: “Why didn’t he just say something to me? I could have changed that easily.” At this point I’m struggling to defend the manager all the while making notes in my head about the manager’s own performance.

Just as important as corrective or constructive feedback is the use of positive or reinforcing feedback. Like what you see someone doing? Tell them! It is the best way to get them to do it again. Want better results? Tell the team. This action both rewards the person doing it right and serves as positive instruction for others. “Positive reinforcement is the most powerful motivator.” (Improve Performance Through Feedback and Reinforcement) 

#2 - Outdated Skills - Sales has always been social, but is your caller or salesperson ignoring the new social media tools? Granted social media can be confusing, but to stay ahead in generating leads we have to use all the tools available to be successful today. According to a recent Pew Internet Report, “Fully 65% of adult internet users now say they use a social networking site like MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn, up from 61% one year ago.” 

The division between personal and business social media is nearly non-existent (Social Media use in the Workforce on the Rise). “As it specifically applies to sales, now more than ever our work is about relationship building and facilitating a buying decision through social selling. But the Catch-22 is balancing our need to achieve these more meaningful relationships without sacrificing sales productivity. For B2B sales professionals, the bar has risen significantly. Thankfully, the tools and methods have kept pace.” (HOW TO: Improve B2B Sales Productivity with Social Media)

In a first interview the other day I was speaking with a candidate that I was very excited about. He had great phone skills, deep industry and business background and was an all around likable guy. Everything was a go until I concluded the interview by suggesting we connect via LinkedIn to which the candidate responded, “I don’t bother with that social stuff.” Thunk. The interview process ended there because, while I’m willing to train and mentor the right person on how best to use social media, I’m not willing to explain why these tools are important today.

#3 – Lost Motivation - “Motivation is the force that makes us do things: this is a result of our individual needs being satisfied (or met) so that we have inspiration to complete the task.” (Motivation in the Workplace)

Assess for yourself the caller’s motivation but don’t stop there - ask them as well. Constantly hitting the phones is hard work - have they simply lost interest in the job? Have they lost faith in the company, the product, or leadership? Try to have an honest conversation balancing your support with a real message of the consequences if business needs are not met. Your interest and encouragement can go a long way to increasing motivation especially if you also find a way to enrich the role (see #2 above - Outdated Skills.)

I remember having a conversation with one of our seasoned sales managers during which she pretty quickly confessed that her heart was just not in the work lately and, while she felt terrible about her deteriorating performance, she wasn't able to improve her level of enthusiasm. At that time I had some other work available, the pay was slightly lower than her more recent project, but happily she was in a position to be able to accept the work that interested her more. This candid conversation turned things around for everyone: her former client received a different, more enthusiastic sales manager; the sales manager got a new project that she found more motivating; and the new client started with an enthusiastic sales staff.

So if you’ve seen the performance in the past but it is missing now, then you’ll want to give some thought to what has changed. Start with giving more feedback, then check skill sets, and finally, assess motivation to bring performance back.

From time to time we like to share the resources that we find especially helpful and informative with our readers. Here are some of the most recent articles we've been reading as well as a video.

• This video from Sandler Training is provocatively titled: "All Prospects Lie All the Time." It gives a brief explanation of why prospects believe they need to lie to sales people and what you can do about it.
  
  
• This piece from  Patrick O'Malley delivers LinkedIn tips for sales professionals. He points out 10 important things to examine in a target's LinkedIn profile before you make the call. Download the .pdf with all the tips here.
  
  
• Are you using bad opening lines when you make cold calls? This article from Sales DNA points out weak lines and offers ways to cultivate valuable conversations with your prospect.  Click here to read the article.

As a business owner and sales professional, I am inundated with information about social media. Questions ranging from “Who really uses Twitter?” to “How do I best measure my company’s spending on social media?” are all the buzz in the sales and marketing world today. As a CEO who has invested some finances and considerable time in learning how to use social media, here are a few thoughts about my favorite tool, LinkedIn.

Let’s begin by clarifying the definition of Social Media. Wikipedia defines Social Media as “…media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media use web-based technologies to transform and broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues.” 

Facebook and Twitter are great, but LinkedIn is the tool I like best, especially for professional use. Why?

First, there is an array of Discussion Groups in LinkedIn which you can join in order to follow what’s happening in your particular industry. The evolution of business over the Internet means that marketing your business requires you to give away subject matter expertise in order to stand out in a busy, wired world. 

LinkedIn is a great place to practice this free sharing of information as you participate in discussion groups about topics you love. I have built valuable partner relationships this way. I have found that reading articles posted within groups about my field, sales consulting, keeps me apprised of changes and ideas of which I should be aware. These topics have given me ideas for blogging, for longer articles, and information for Twitter.

Second, I like the built-in recommendation system which makes it easy for you to ask other people to recommend your services. Through LinkedIn, it has become socially acceptable to ask people to rave about your company’s services. The process is straightforward and painless with LinkedIn’s built in tools. The procedure helps you identify your association with the person you are recommending and offers adjectives from which to choose to describe that person. It also gives suggestions for free-form text which can prompt even the most inexperienced writer to include important details about the Connection they are recommending.

Third, I find it invaluable to see my Connections’ Connections. I have used this feature in LinkedIn dozens of times to ask for an e-mail introduction to someone I wanted to meet. Granted, this feature can be disabled if a LinkedIn user doesn’t want to disclose his or her Connections to the world, but most people make theirs available. I love this sharing of information and appreciate when anyone lets me see whom they know. Feel free to ask me for an introduction to my Connections and, if I think it’s a good match, I’ll be happy to introduce you via LinkedIn.

Connect with me there!

by Jill Lopez, Recruiter

When it comes to job hunting the biggest challenge is getting an interview. How can you increase your response percentage? Look carefully at your activities in these four areas:

Research
Start by sending well thought-out letters and resumes to true job opportunities for which you are qualified.

Research the company offering the job; do more than just scan the website. Make notes about the plusses and minuses of working with a company. Search the company on the internet and read all the articles you find. Use LinkedIn; see who works there. Build your knowledge of the company with concise meaningful notes that you can access quickly upon receiving a phone call. If the minuses outweigh the plusses, don’t send the resume.

Customize
Customize the most important document in getting an interview -- your resume.

Create a laundry list of relevant accomplishments from your career. Pick and choose the appropriate accomplishments to grab the recruiters’ attention. List these first on your resume titling them “Professional Accomplishments.” Now your resume begins with qualified achievements that showcase your strengths for the position.

Deliver
Get your resume seen by the right person.

While it often seems like you have no choice but to follow the instructions when applying for a position - you frequently can find other avenues to express your interest in and desire for a job. LinkedIn is a great resource that allows you to seek names or paths that can be used to connect you with the position you are seeking.

Follow up
No matter how you get your resume to your targeted company, always include in your email or cover letter what you will do next.

“Thank you Mrs. SoandSo for reviewing my background and related accomplishments as they relate to your company. I will follow up with you on xyz day. I look forward to speaking with you.”

Bottom line - do what you said you would do – follow up. This is your first chance to display, in real-time, one of your outstanding qualities – credibility.

When sending resumes to companies it pays to be thoughtful in your approach. You will stand out if your background and accomplishments are truly a match for your targeted company.

Today I got an invitation to a breakfast hosted by my city’s Business Journal. The meeting is this coming Thursday morning and features a two-part program with a panel of experts in SEO marketing. The event piqued my interest.

The pricing section lists the following:

$79.00 Admission includes:

• Breakfast
• 1-yr. subscription (52 issues) of the San Antonio Business Journal (value $99)
• 2011 & 2012 Book of Lists (total value $110)
• BONUS - For subscribing to the San Antonio Business you will receive a $50 Hotel Gift Card that is Redeemable at over 55,000 hotels & resorts in thousands of destinations world-wide!

Nowhere is a price listed for those who already subscribe, so I called to check. I told the registrar that I’m already a subscriber and got the email as if I were not. She replied, “Ma'am, that same email went to everyone.” I asked what the price is for those who already subscribe. She had to check and returned to the phone to say, “It’s the same price.”

Needless to say, I’m not attending. I take three key lessons from this exchange:

by Catherine Brown, President

While there are many qualities that define consultants, I have listed three which make the difference between good and excellent consultants: demystify processes, give away knowledge, and anticipate clients’ future needs.

Demystify processes: Great consultants resist the temptation to use complicated language to sound important. At every opportunity, avoid acronyms and speak plainly about the issues at hand. Sometimes the fanciest-sounding people are the least helpful, because it is human nature to temporarily “shut down” and stop listening when something sounds too hard to understand. 

Make sure your client is following what you are saying before you wax on about Six Sigma or CRM. Test a sample email or measure some of your web copy with the Gobbledygook Grader. Good consultants seek to simplify what is complex so our clients can hear us.

Give away knowledge: Wise consultants teach their clients what to do and how to do it instead of handling all the work for the client. It is tempting to create job security by fostering client dependency, but empowering clients is what establishes loyalty. Training the client to eventually not need you is the irony of great consulting. If you adopt a coaching philosophy in your consulting practice, your client will mature and eventually become a walking testimony of the effectiveness of your consulting. 

Initial Call’s practices include sharing our sales calling information in a database that allows our clients to view our work at all times. Our clients keep the sales playbook that we write and we share market intelligence and contact information that we find. We even train our clients’ employee inside sales teams. By sharing this much information, some of our clients do “outgrow” Initial Call, but others continue to retain us not because our services are proprietary but because they are valuable.

Anticipate future needs: Outstanding consultants see beyond the client’s spoken questions. Many advisors struggle on this last point, thinking that addressing the client’s voiced concerns is enough. Anyone who has had me as a client has heard me say, “I don’t know that I am even asking the right questions; I need you to tell me what I should be asking.” The best consultants can see beyond a client’s immediate needs and anticipate what issues will arise in 6 months, 1 year, or even several years from now. 

A friend of mine was the unfortunate recipient of short-sighted consulting when she hired a graphic designer and programmer to build her first website. After spending thousands of dollars for a nice-looking site, my friend realized she wanted to update the content by herself. When she asked how to do this, the consultant explained the many (and expensive) steps involved. What a shame! Not having built a website on her own before, my friend didn’t think to ask for this capability at the start of the project. Had the firm who built the site anticipated this need the client could have ultimately been more satisfied. Your client does not know what he does not know. That’s why he hired you!

Consulting is an art. By demystifying the processes, we communicate comfortable expertise. By giving away knowledge, we gain trust. By anticipating our clients’ future, we provide value now and later.

by Colleen McCarty, VP Talent & Organization

Typically the team naysayer earns little respect but are we overlooking the benefits these party poopers bring? Playing devil’s advocate myself, I'm going to say yes, with a caveat.

Negativity can be an undervalued quality. Harvard Business Review's August 15th Management Tip of the Day reminds us that, "Groupthink is a dangerous byproduct of teamwork." The very first tip of this short article is: "Ask someone to play the role of devil's advocate to be sure ideas get challenged." If a team member is willing to push back on ideas, especially the team lead's idea, then you know your contrarian values the truth. The conversation to defend the idea will help you explore it more thoroughly from more angles.

The caveat? Style counts. No one likes a team member who habitually shoots down every idea out of laziness, malice, or envy. The goal should be to engage the team in an exploration process to "to test the quality of the original argument and identify weaknesses in its structure, and to use such information to either improve or abandon the original, opposing position." (Wikipedia)

So if you are lucky enough to already have a team member who is insightful yet contrary, ask yourself if you are fully utilizing their strengths. Can you coach your naysayer to employ their questioning nature for the good of the team? Do you need to encourage the team to respect opposing views? If the team works together to explore all angles the best solution should emerge.

by Amy Keuper, VP Sales

My phone rang. I had to say hello twice. And you know what that means: someone in a call center selling something—and probably doing it poorly. All my negative expectations were fulfilled in a recent exchange. I remained polite because I’ve been where this caller is. And it’s easy to make these kinds of mistakes, especially if you’re trying to avoid being aggressive. This bad call serves as an example of what not to do. Are you or your team falling into any of these traps?

First, we’re all trained by now to know that when we have to repeat our greeting, it’s not going to be a good call. I don’t know if there is a dialing system out there without a connection time gap after pickup, but if you have to use predictive dialing, do everything you can to find a solution that minimizes this call center red flag. I believe any time saved by auto-dialers is offset by the antagonistic mode it generates in the prospect. Is that worth it? Is speed everything when the price is turning off the very people you’re trying to win over?

Second, this caller asked me “How are you today?” Attempting politeness in this way gives your prospect the chance to say, “Terrible,” which leaves you nowhere to go. Script a different greeting which is professional but gets to the point without the risk of derailment. We recommend getting right to your message or perhaps asking, “Do you have a moment or are you putting out fires?”

Third, this caller said, “You downloaded a whitepaper from us….” She hadn’t identified the company in a way that jogged my memory. And she didn’t reference the specific marketing piece. I get a million emails. I download and read a lot of things. If you are calling me because of a campaign response, your company name or the title of the piece should be able to ring a bell or you should be specific to remind me. I said, “I have no idea what that was.” She had to pause and look it up because she didn’t already know. Even if she was calling on many individuals who had responded to various touches, she should have had the details about my click-through handy. When she finally did tell me what I had downloaded, the title was so vague that I only barely recalled it.

Fourth, this caller asked me a yes or no question. She said, “I want to make sure you got everything you needed. Did you get what you needed?” As I explained above, neither the piece nor the company were memorable, so we got off in the weeds about the article itself. Because she had initially asked about my action of downloading rather than any potential underlying pain, the conversation was already doomed. She didn’t lead by saying, “I’m calling to discuss our best practices for blah blah blah which I imagine are an issue for you because you downloaded our whitepaper blah blah blah…” And then her open-and-shut question made it effortless for me to say, “Yep, I’m all set.” She served up her own rejection on a platter.

Fifth, this company wasted their money. I applaud that they were doing telephone follow up on an email campaign, since so many companies fail to take this step at all. But the effort was fruitless. If the other calls were similar to mine, I imagine the ROI was not there. Without good strategy and excellent resources, you are throwing cash away. Spend adequate funds to do the job well rather than just getting it done.

by Amy Keuper, VP Sales

We’ve observed two different approaches to outbound prospecting: a “call center” mindset and a strategic inside sales mindset. Both have a place--but are not interchangeable. What’s your default paradigm? Is it right for your business?

When you look to expand your sales efforts by hiring employees or contracting help, first explore your position on telemarketing. Acknowledge and understand your own expectations about how cold-calling should be managed and how success will be measured. Then interview with this in mind. If you and your new hire (or vendor) don’t share beliefs on methodology, the relationship may fail even though you both are doing what you think is right.

What do I mean by call center approach? Typically, it involves high-volume dialing and presumes that you have a very large number of prospects to call. The work may be done by resources who need to be closely supervised. The callers utilize fixed scripts and may use an automated dialing system that supports a call-outcome focus.

What’s wrong with a call center paradigm? Nothing, when that approach is warranted. However, Initial Call’s experience is that, for the complex B2B sale, a strategic inside sales mindset is best. This means taking a tactical, high-level, account-based approach.

Sales is not a simple numbers game. Super-busy prospects, self-educating buyers, and the “conversation” marketplace have changed the game altogether. Spoiler alert: the tortoise wins.

A few key assumptions typically define call center telemarketing. Below I’ve listed these hallmarks along with the difficulty they pose for a strategic insides sales approach.

1. Working individuals rather than accounts. When you go after new business in B2B sales, you want to sell to new companies. Individuals play a part, but any one person may come or go, especially if you have a long sales cycle. The complex sale requires building a consensus. So, it’s ideal to step back and identify all relevant contacts at the account and work all of them simultaneously.
2. Referring to contacts as “leads.” Using this term can create unrealistic expectations. If you are cold-calling individuals who have never heard of you, they aren’t leads. We define “leads” as marketing respondents, those who have clicked through to your site because of a campaign or attended your booth at a show, for example. Names in your CRM system from a purchased list are unverified and cold, and your results will likely reflect that.
3. Operating in the Leads object. I have a whitepaper which expounds the trouble of using this approach, so I won’t go into detail here. In CRM default settings, “Leads” are individuals. Working in the Leads object means that you have limited visibility into the whole account picture. Forcing a certain workflow in the database appears to ensure productivity but may actually be counter-productive.
4. Ranking leads. A myopic focus on each call outcome can occur if you are using an integrated dialer or measuring your callers’ performance on each activity. Saving a call summary based only on a limited list of call disposition codes rather than free-form notes can skew the pipeline picture. Unless you know that your callers reach a decision maker on every call, forced post-call logs (labeling an individual “hot,” warm,” etc.) fail to capture the essence of what’s truly occurring with the account.
5. Quantifying success by speed and volume of activity. Having a high number of calls shows that many dials are being made, but does it indicate true progress? We represent many different types of clients and have observed that our average number of activities per hour decreases as the offering complexity increases. Our deliberate sales approach includes researching a prospect account before calling, intentionally contacting multiple contacts, getting referrals within an organization, and uncovering key intelligence along the way. Contrast our slow progress with a comparative caller who is blazing fast but burning bridges as he works with thoughtless, unplanned bustle.

Over the years we’ve seen polar examples of mismatched expectations: one manager may be angry with a vendor who is “blowing through” the prospect list while another employer is frustrated with a low level of activity from his caller. The unhappiness stems from lack of agreement on approach.

Be aware that your foundational beliefs about telemarketing will drive everything from your CRM set-up to your idea about what appointments should cost to your methods of defining success. A call center paradigm has its place, but it is not reflective of our best practices for the complex sale.