“Hey! You got peanut butter in my chocolate” goes the lament in the popular Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercials from a few years ago. And just like peanut butter and chocolate changed the way we thought about those two foods, an unlikely combination of business processes has changed the way we satisfy a basic business need. The need for sales teams to get in front of more prospects.

In 2003, Barry Caponi and Bob Howard, independently and unknown to each other, began the pursuit of the ‘Silver Bullet’ for telephone prospecting. Specifically, a solution to the most difficult form of telephone prospecting: Cold Calling. If one could solve the challenges of Cold Calling; all other forms of appointment making challenges would be a walk in the park.

Barry was focused on reshaping the effectiveness (the Art) of prospecting, while Bob was focused on providing the operating efficiency (the Science) that was not then currently possible.

As their respective visions separately became reality, Bob and Barry were introduced by a mutual acquaintance. While the market was independently validating their respective solutions, each still had a fundamental and unresolved challenge to achieving the goal of the ‘Silver Bullet’.

For Barry, his new solution to tackle effectiveness was called The Appointment Making Formula™ (or The Formula for short). It replaced the more traditional approach of crafting a ‘can’t miss’ opening value proposition and then handling the first negative response heard by applying a logical response to that “no.”   But because there is no ’logic’ in a knee-jerk reaction of, “Send me some information” or, “I’m too busy”, The Formula employs a different and more effective approach to the challenge by providing a simple, yet powerful method that shifts a target’s original negative mindset to a conversational one so that logic can be successfully applied.

Barry’s remaining challenges:

1. How to accurately measure calling results so managers could provide focused follow-through coaching to help struggling reps use the new skills effectively and appropriately.
2. Sustain the immediate success generated from his training programs over the long haul.

To Bob’s thinking, the historical baggage of telephone prospecting as being “painful” cried out for simpler, more efficient mechanics. While prospecting might never be the fun half of the sales cycle, it should not be painful.

Therefore, the solution was to dramatically reduce the mechanical effort necessary to make calls. The result was a subscription based software application called Klpz that provided an overall productivity gain of 100% or more, which allowed callers to generally make twice as many calls in the same time, and do so painlessly. An additional and important byproduct for management was accurate reporting as activity reports are generated automatically with no effort by the sales rep.

Bob’s remaining challenge:

1. With accurate reporting and the efficiency of the effort addressed, the question became how to help reps turn more of those additional conversations generated into appointments.

Thus, ColdCalling101 was born. Barry’s approach to prospecting effectiveness and Bob’s approach to prospecting efficiency combined to create the first holistic solution that allows companies (and independent professionals) to design a combined and custom solution to their telephone prospecting process that addressed the total picture

More calls in less time, with more conversations converted into appointments and activity reports generated automatically. The Formula + Klpz = Sustainable Success

About Barry

Barry Caponi is the Chief Sales Officer of Contact Science in addition to being the the founder and president of the Caponi Performance Group, a sales training and consulting company.

Barry brings over twenty-five years of broad management, sales and sales management experience to Contact Science and CPG. His general management experience includes responsibility for a regional property management firm and worldwide P&L responsibility as a general manager for a division of a software company. On the sales side, in addition to a successful career as a sales person himself, he has run local sales teams, North American sales teams and global sales teams. Barry’s industry experience includes computer hardware and software, telecommunications as well as getting his sales start selling life and health insurance. He’s worked for multi-billion dollar companies like Hewlett-Packard and Computer Associates, mid-sized companies such as MetaSolv of Plano, Texas, as well as his share of start ups.

Mr. Caponi has closed business in his career that ranged from small deals measured in the thousands of dollars to large deals valued between $30M and $50M. Mr. Caponi has had articles on sales published all across the world in addition to his hometown publications such as the Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Business Journal.  Mr. Caponi is also the May 2009 trainer of the month with SalesDiscipline.com.

About Bob

Bob Howard, Founder and President of Contact Science, has built and managed field and inside sales forces for 25 years for Lanier Business Products, RCA Cylix Communications, Encoda Systems and DG Systems. Bob provided strategic leadership, hands on marketing and product development for a variety of sales-oriented enterprise software products.

Contact Science builds specialty sales tools to improve the productivity of sales people who start their sales cycle with a phone call; whether the phone call is a cold call, a lead or a referral.