February 3rd, 2010 by Barry Caponi
I was talking with a manager of one of our customers the other day and he told me he noticed on some of his team’s Klpz reports that one of his reps was making very few phone calls but was still hitting her activity goals of reaching out to her targets each week. I asked him if she was setting as many appointments as she needed and he said no, her Initial Appointments had dropped.
Without boring you with his travails, let me cut to the chase. I’m sure there are markets somewhere where email trumps the phone for setting appointments, but I have yet to find it. If it’s yours, I’d love to talk to you. In the meantime, here’s what I think about email in the appointment making process.
My experience is that when sales professionals begin making more attempts to set appointments via email than the phone, it’s generally an indication of them avoiding making the calls and fooling themselves into thinking they’re still working at it. My advice? Nip it in the bud immediately and get them back on the phone. (It’s particularly seductive to do this in Klpz because sending the already created email templates requires only the click of a mouse to send.)
Surveys show that less than 5% of our universe of targets is ‘in the market for what we’re selling when we contact them’ – and realistically I believe it is closer to 1%. Historically, good direct mail (and email) campaigns show a 2% response rate, and that is not measured in appointments. So what makes our intrepid sales professionals think they can better what marketing experts can do?
Only in a conversation can we convince the 99% that don’t think they are ‘in the market’ to see us by asking the right question based on their response. We can’t do that in an email.
So use email where it is effective, but use the phone when trying to set appointments. (Next week, we’ll talk about where and how to use email.)
You can also check on my Blog dated 1/31/08 entitled, When the email left along with our ‘Cold Call’ is returned with a ‘Not Interested’. It discusses some of the challenges of using email to set appointments.
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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