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Tracking results, coaching and Cold Calling activity.

April 28th, 2010 by Barry Caponi

 

Telling your charges to, “Make more dials” when their Cold Calling isn’t working isn’t going to cut it.
 
Having your sales professionals just ‘make more dials’ when their activity isn’t generating enough new appointments is actually counter productive. Why?
 
First, it is discouraging when the dials are being made with little results. At best, it’s a waste of time and at worst, it can cause turnover on your sales team. Secondly, it takes more time away from servicing customers and from pipeline selling activities. So what to do, you ask?
 
If the team lives and dies by finding new business each month and must set new appointments with each prospect to do so, efficiency is a must. Keeping a few targets a month straight can be done in a spreadsheet or in a CRM. But if there are more than 10 names per week to be called, I submit that we must have a tool that is designed for this task.
 
I have personally tried the paper system (lots of folders), ACT! (invested a lot of money optimizing it), an internally developed CRM, commercially available CRMs and Excel spreadsheets. In each case, I could not find enough time to keep track of everything that is necessary in order to continuously call a set of targets. Each time, with each tool, I became hopelessly lost, forgetting who I was pursuing, what progress I had made, and fell further and further behind in the process of documenting activity to the point that I gave up.
 
We suggest a tool called Klpz, which was developed specifically for this task. Benchmarks show a minimum of a 2:1 improvement in the number of targets that can be pursued effectively in an organized manner in a given amount of time.
 
Here’s an example from one of the benchmarks. Prospecting 10 targets in a row using SalesForce.com took 48 minutes. Klpz took 18 minutes. Since most sales managers bought SFdC thinking it could be used for this purpose (among the things it is good at), I know this sounds like heresy, but it’s very true. Refusing to examine this can have catastrophic consequences. Check out the 8 minute video that is located on the home page at www.contactscience.com. I promise it will be one of the best 8 minute investments of your life.
 
But back to the problem at hand; fixing an ineffective appointment setting team. One of the ancillary benefits Klpz will provide is accurate and granular reports as to where the team is failing. That at least will give you a place to start to examine how to fix the specific challenges with each individual sales professional.
 
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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How can sales management fix a lack of Cold Calling activity?

April 21st, 2010 by Barry Caponi

 

Four Best Practices ideas that sales management can actually apply when our charges are not setting enough Initial Appointments to hit our assigned targets.
 
First an observation. If we know we’re not setting enough Initial Appointments to feed that hungry beast, the pipeline, there is good news afoot! We have at least a minimal set of metrics or we wouldn’t even know that we’re headed towards disaster. As I have pointed out in the past, (see blogs August 19, 2009, August 26, 2009, September 16, 2009) consistency in making the dials does make a difference.  
 
So if our charges just aren’t making the dials, what can we do if our selling model requires that the sales professional set their own appointments? Here are four ideas.
 
First things first, people are more apt to buy into a goal they help set. So, take each person through an Activity Calculator exercise (you can download it free from www.caponipg.com) allowing them to help determine what is the appropriate number of dials needed each day. Then get them to commit to that number in writing. If that alone doesn’t work, try these:
 
  1. Have them show you each week where they’ve set aside Call Blocks on their calendars to make those calls.
  2. If that doesn’t work, have them come into the office and make those calls during their chosen Call Blocks.
  3. If that doesn’t work, then have mandatory Call Blocks in the office at times of your choosing. This can be done in a couple of ways.
    1. One of our customers uses what he calls Touch Point Tuesdays – No one leaves the office until the appointed number of Initial Appointments is set for the coming week.
    2. A set aside number of hours each day until the appointed number of Initial Appointments is set for the coming week.
  4. There is a different approach that I’ve seen managers use effectively in managing remote sales people. Schedule a couple of days to go on calls with them in their territory and give them a minimum number of Initial Appointments and follow-up appointments you want to go on while you’re there. If they don’t set enough, tell them you’re still coming and it will be embarrassing to say the least, not to mention that they’ll have to sit there and make the dials in front of you during those times there aren’t appointments set.
  5. If those ideas don’t work and others are setting the required number of Initial Appointments, there are two additional arrows left in the quiver – get someone else to make the appointments for them or, well, you know what to do…
 

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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Cold Calling is a great predictor of sales to come. So how were your sales in Q2?

April 14th, 2010 by Barry Caponi

 

For those of us who have buying cycles of at least 60 days, it is pretty much too late to influence Q2.
 
The moral of this story, if you will, is that our appointment making activity is a very accurate predictor of sales. If my buying cycle is 90 days, then Initial Appointments I have today will close on approximately July 14th.
 
Most managers we run into are nervously concentrating their efforts on what is going to close this month. That is obviously necessary. But to also not concentrate on the effort our sales professionals are putting into setting more buying cycles into motion this month will make us nervous nellies in July as well.
 
The basic element (and therefore predictor) of an Initial Appointment is the dial. We all should be able to tell how many of those are necessary to generate the necessary number of Initial Appointments we need each month. We all should also be able to accurately determine how many of these precious dials are being made each day. Can you?
 

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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The 4 elements of the appointment setting process we can improve. (Part four of four)

April 7th, 2010 by Barry Caponi

 

What are they and how do we improve them? Part four of four – Science (efficiency and improvement).
 
Are you like a lot of us ‘Hooked on Hopium’ when it comes to the success of your new prospect acquisition strategy? Do you concentrate most of your energy and focus on pursuing prospects that are already in the pipeline? After all, that’s how we get paid, right? We don’t get commissions for finding prospects; we get paid to close them. Our teams are good at closing, but suck at consistently filling the pipeline with quality prospects.
 
This series of four blogs focuses on the four main elements of a prospect acquisition process and how to improve move the needle in a positive direction on each.
 
The four parts are:
 
  1. Target Acquisition (who do we call?)
  2. Art Skills (what do we say and how do we say it)
  3. Best Practices (process and messaging)
  4. Science Skills (efficiency and improvement)
 
Part 4 – Science
 
Science is all about speed in the ability to pursue Targets using the prescribed set of Best Practices, organization and improvement.
 
Our creator has given each of us the same number of hours each week to attain our goals. In the world of telephone prospecting that is usually stated in terms of each of us has only so many dials in us each year. How we expend those dials is directly proportional to our success. For instance, our product, Klpz, was designed specifically for this task. Therefore, our benchmarks show (and our customers report) that a caller can easily double the number of dials being made per hour of calling. So if we can either increase the number of attempts being made without increasing the time commitment, or make the same number of attempts in half the time, should we not sell more?
 
Those that do take the time to design and institute a set of well thought out Best Practices generally would like for their charges to be able to follow those Best Practices accurately. Science is the way that is enforced.
 
Have you (or any of your charges) forgotten to call someone back in a month, or a quarter or whatever they requested? Unless you (or your charges) are super heroes, the answer is yes. It’s why organizations invest a lot of money in CRMs, contact managers and the like.
 
Lastly, science helps us improve the process by measuring the results and doing so in a way that we are provided the necessary data in a meaningful way (information). 
 
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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