October 28th, 2009 by Barry Caponi
The appointment making process is not just ‘a numbers game’. Most of us sales managers believe it is. Make enough dials and you’ll get sales! And when our sales charges aren’t setting enough Initial Appointments, we respond with another platitude, “Just make more dials!” Let me explain why this is a dangerous thought through a story.
A colleague of mine, Stu Schlackman (http://www.competitive-excellence.com) related the following story to me recently. When he was a young pup, he was hired by a sales training company, handed the yellow pages and told to get on the phone. In his first week, he literally made 1,000 dials (how many of us could do that?), left 650 voicemails, had 50 conversations of which 49 said no and he gave up, got one appointment and one sale (to an existing customer who told him they were going to call him and buy again anyway).
What if he would have had a set of proven Best Practices and a process to follow? What if he would have known how to ‘Counter’ those 49 ‘nos’ he heard? How about if he had had good voicemail scripts so that at least some of the 650 would have returned his calls? What if he would have had good solid questions to ask (we call them ‘Bridge Questions’ http://www.caponipg.com/The%20AM%20Formula%20Description.htm) that would have gotten his targets to stop and think for a moment and enter into a meaningful conversation? And lastly, what if he had been able to make those 1,000 dials in half the time? See http://coldcalling101.com/how-we-help/ for an example of the value of improving those key ratios.
He didn’t last very long there. And, by the way, who do you think the rep that followed him called? Probably started right at the front of the same yellow pages and called the same people, expecting the results to be different.
Now think about the time and money that was wasted recruiting him, vetting him, training him on what he was selling, and finally, paying him to make those calls. We have the tendency to think that our time is not ‘real’ money. We’re there anyway, so it doesn’t ‘cost’ any money out of pocket to repeat this process over and over, right?
Our company, Coldcalling101 www.coldcalling101.com, also must rely on the cold call, but our sales team would have had 36 Initial Appointments out of that 1,000 dials, and done it in half the time. Plus, I would have had real time visibility into the calling, so I could have taken corrective steps before Stu would have burned himself out and left.
The appointment setting process is a very expensive one, even if your sales team is commission only.
By the way, there’s also another self-serving story here. Most sales training company’s expertise lies in the pipeline, or back-half of the selling process, not the first half. They try to apply the same concepts that work well in the pipeline, in the appointment setting process. We eat, sleep and think about this process 100% of the time and we’ve gotten pretty darn good at it.
(See the four part blog beginning on April 8th of this year to read about why the techniques, tools and process that work to get prospects through the pipeline, don’t work getting them into the pipeline.)
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called The Prospector’s Academy™. It is the only comprehensive solution to solving the biggest barrier to success in most selling organizations – the inability to secure enough Initial Appointments to begin the selling process. We accomplish that through simultaneously addressing both the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. We can be reached at 214 483-5800 or at barry@coldcalling101.com.
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October 21st, 2009 by Barry Caponi
It’s no secret that how well your team sets appointments to begin a new sales process has a direct impact on your new business revenue stream. Where their ability to set appointments with new targets can be hidden is where reps have responsibility to sell into existing accounts as well. The ‘new customer’ Initial Appointments are mixed in with the calls into existing accounts. Additionally, most of us at a team level are measured on revenue and not on the acquisition of new customers, so we’re not even that concerned about it as long as the revenue keeps rolling in. But if you are a senior sales manager, you know that new customers are the lifeblood of any organization.
If the acquisition of new customers (and the process to get in front of new potential customers is such a critical piece to the selling process, then why can’t most sales managers we talk to articulate what their reps are saying on the phone to set those appointments? They view the steps between dialing the phone and getting the appointment as another example of the proverbial ‘black box’. They have no idea how their team is actually performing on the calls.
Here’s a way to test whether they need help or not.
Have each of your team call you on the phone to ask for an appointment just as they would a target and then ask yourself the following questions:
- If you weren’t there, what kind of voicemail did they leave?
- What was their value proposition? Was it consistent across your team or was each one ‘winging it’?
- Did they sound confident and like they believed in what they were selling?
- Did they talk about what they had done for others to generate interest or did they talk about what they could potentially do for you? (Remember, > 95% of targets your team is calling don’t believe they are in the market for you solution when you call – ergo, what you can do for them falls on deaf ears until you can get them into an open minded discussion.)
- Was it all them talking or did they engage you?
- When you said ‘no thanks’ were they able to consistently handle that and still get the appointment?
And, of course, if you come to the conclusion that you need some help with this process, give us a call!
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called The Prospector’s Academy™. It is the only comprehensive solution to solving the biggest barrier to success in most selling organizations – the inability to secure enough Initial Appointments to begin the selling process. We accomplish that through simultaneously addressing both the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. We can be reached at 214 483-5800 or at barry@coldcalling101.com.
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October 14th, 2009 by Barry Caponi
I received a cold call the other day from a janitorial services company here in Dallas. After letting the sales person finish, I asked her if her company really delivered what she was telling me they would. She exclaimed with enthusiasm, “Of course!”
“Then why didn’t that come across in your voice?” I asked. Why did I have to ask my question?
How many others had she called that day who took away the same impression I did?
The moral of this story is that she was just going through the motions up to that point. I heard no excitement or belief in her services and company coming through in her voice.
Record yourself and see if your enthusiasm is coming through.
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called The Prospector’s Academy™. It is the only comprehensive solution to solving the biggest barrier to success in most selling organizations – the inability to secure enough Initial Appointments to begin the selling process. We accomplish that through simultaneously addressing both the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. We can be reached at 214 483-5800 or at barry@coldcalling101.com.
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October 7th, 2009 by Barry Caponi
Stephen Covey, in his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, addresses renewal and self-improvement in the last chapter. He calls it ‘sharpening the saw’.
The 4-4-4 Club is not Covey’s, but still hits the mark. Each of the three numbers relates to setting goals for ‘sharpening the saw’.
- Read 4 books each year
- Listen to 4 CDs each year
- Attend 4 seminars each year
Lastly, we should be investing 3% of our annual income back into ourselves.
So how do you stack up?
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called The Prospector’s Academy™. It is the only comprehensive solution to solving the biggest barrier to success in most selling organizations – the inability to secure enough Initial Appointments to begin the selling process. We accomplish that through simultaneously addressing both the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. We can be reached at 214 483-5800 or at barry@coldcalling101.com.
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