January 27th, 2010 by Barry Caponi
I received a call from one of our customers this week. He was very excited because for the first time he could see exactly what his teams were doing in terms of cold calling. He’s a regional sales manager with several sales teams that were trained before the first of the year through one of our appointment setting Prospectors Academies™.
He told us that his reps had been truly pounding the phones now for a couple of months since the training which fixed his lack of activity problem. He also said that the activity was very consistent across his districts. He was also pleased with the fact he was now able to start deep drilling on the process and results a bit more instead of just focusing on the activity levels as he had to do in the past.
Reading his weekly Klpz reports had gotten him to ask why some of his guys were setting appointments like crazy and some were not. As a matter of fact, he was able to see that the ones that were being successful were all in the same districts. He told us that when he role-played with the different districts, they sounded pretty much the same. He told us that the teams that were not setting the appointments were getting discouraged and so are their managers.
Here’s a synopsis of what we found:
· We ran a report that found that his districts that were not performing differed in one key area from those that were having success. To put it frankly, their lists were awful. The successful districts were seeing about a 35% removal rate of names and the unsuccessful ones were seeing a more than 80% removal of names.
What this means is that after following the four steps in the process of contact we set up (we call them Cycles), the rep has three choices of what to do with the target: Recycle them for 120 days and try again; declare Success (they met with them and began a Buying Cycle); or Remove them from the list. After speaking with the District Managers, it became clear that the managers that had taken the time to put some effort into defining the lists their charges would call into (call it a semi-qualified list of suspects if you wish) were experiencing the most success. The ones that did not were filled with targets that were not good fits (for a variety of reasons). The targets were too small, the reps were not getting through to decision makers because a quick conversation with the gatekeeper determined the company was not a good match for their products, or once talking with the decision maker they determined the same thing.
There are two morals to the story. First is that by adding what we call ‘Science’ (Klpz (www.contactscience.com), to the challenge of prospecting for new customers, managers gain access to valuable information none of us have ever had before to help improve our prospecting processes for the first time. Second, we’ve talked about the value of investing time in refining lists and building territories over time in this Blog before (see January 20, 2010, November 4, 2009, March 26, 2009, March 19, 2009, March 11, 2009, and April 23, 2008), so we know the importance of this.
And by the way, just imagine the potential consequences of what might have happened if he hadn’t been able to define the problem. Would have some of his reps quit because of the frustration? Would he have incorrectly assumed he had a closing problem or a rep problem instead of a management problem?
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called The Prospector’s Academy™ under the brand name Coldcalling101. 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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January 20th, 2010 by Barry Caponi
I’ve said it before, but let me say it again. The better our list is, the more often we’ll get through to the right person and the more often we’ll be able to convince that target that we’ve been able to help others like him/her solve like challenges.
In our ColdCalling101 Academies, we invest time determining the top challenges our participants solve for their customers and also the top benefits their customers tell them they derive from investing in their solution. To accomplish that, we suggest they start with their best customers.
When trying to build a territory list to call from, we suggest exactly the same thing. How do we describe what our best customers look like and then go find others the same. Well, here are three resources we’ve come across that provide tools for you to enter those best customers and then ‘clone’ them. In other words, find other companies that look just like them. They are:
- Manta.com
- InfoUSA
- Bizjournals.com (only works where the Business Journals publish
If you’ve got any more, let us know and we’ll share the knowledge.
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called The Prospector’s Academy™ under the brand name Coldcalling101. 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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January 13th, 2010 by Barry Caponi
Many customers we’ve worked with originally only had their sales teams reporting to management each week the number of dials they were making to set appointments. A few more would also track the number of appointments set. But even in those situations that track them both, it’s not enough to effectively manage the process.
We believe that both must be tracked along with one other interim result; conversations with decision makers. Why? Because in order to help a sales professional improve at appointment setting we need to track three metrics, not just one or two. They are:
- The number of dials being made.
- The number of conversations that occurred with decision makers. From the first two numbers, we can then determine the ratio between the number of dials and the number of conversations. We call it the Conversation Ratio.
- The number of appointments actually set with those decision makers. From this and the number of conversations, we can determine the ratio between the number of conversations and the number of appointments set. We call this the Appointment Ratio.
Here’s why we want those three metrics.
- The number of dials being made is an indicator of effort. Are they making the dials we believe they should be making or not?
- If the Conversation Ratio is too low there are only three reasons for it:
- The list they’re calling off of is bad.
- They are not leaving voicemails and (where possible) emails that get returned enough.
- They are struggling with Gatekeepers.
- If the Appointment Ratio is too low, there are only two reasons for that:
- Again the list is bad and the targets are not qualified.
- They’re not able to effectively handle the initial ‘no’ they’ll almost invariably hear.
If our selling process truly necessitates finding new customers through telephone prospecting, accurately tracking these metrics is critical to our success. If we don’t, our turnover will unnecessarily be too high (lack of early success) and our sales will be too low. Both of these negatives can be addressed if know how to appropriately focus our effort to help our charges improve.
Lastly, the metrics must be accurate and timely. There is still only one product we’re aware of that will provide that information automatically and accurately. That product is called Klpz.
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called The Prospector’s Academy™ under the brand name Coldcalling101. 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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January 6th, 2010 by Barry Caponi
Quota going up? Of course it is. Does every year, right? So what are we going to change in the new year to reduce the need to just work harder to accomplish more in the new year?
For most of the country (and world for that matter) will still find targets reluctant to spend money and take risks. Therefore traditional lead generation activities will still be struggling to supply us with enough easier targets to call in 2010. Networking and/or referrals in most B2B environments don’t supply us with enough either. The only other choice is to cold call. But even that’s not the point I want to make.
We are believers in addressing both the efficiency and effectiveness of the appointment making process. I work hard, but I’m not interested in working any harder than I have to. I brag all the time on our customers making twice the number of prospecting calls in the same amount of time as they did before implementing our solution. But we also have customers that are pleased to make the same number of calls in half the time they used to. So regardless of which camp we fall, January is a great time to address how we’re going to get more efficient and effective in the new year.
Our typical customer will pay for the investment in our Prospector’s Academy™ in less than one buying cycle. Give us a call. We don’t bite!
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called The Prospector’s Academy™ under the brand name Coldcalling101. 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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