Cold Calling 101Lead Generation, Prospecting, Appointment Setting, Cold Calling Training – Cold Calling 101 » http://coldcalling101.com Wed, 17 Apr 2013 06:43:03 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 How to build territories over time. http://coldcalling101.com/how-to-build-territories-over-time/ http://coldcalling101.com/how-to-build-territories-over-time/#comments Wed, 17 Apr 2013 06:43:03 +0000 Barry Caponi http://coldcalling101.com/?p=1602 Why ignoring this concept is costing you money.
 
Let’s face it, sales professionals come and go, but territories tend to be permanent. If you think about it, even if I divide a territory up into smaller pieces, or recombine multiple territories in some fashion, the individual targets within them stay the same, so I would argue that they are permanent even when the deck is re-shuffled. So, as I like to say, shame on me if my territories are not stronger, warmer and better defined a year from now than they are today.
 
There are three reasons why it is important to pay attention to this:
 
1.   Loss of sales revenue every time there is turnover in a territory while the territory lays fallow during the hiring and during ramp processes.
2.   Reduction of sales professional turnover. One of the reasons we turn over our sales teams is because they can’t make enough money in their first year on a new job. Transferring the results of past work and leveraging the efforts of past reps mitigates this.
3.   If your sales professionals are also responsible for customer relationships, customers can be lost during turnover which means more than just lost revenue from new customers resulting from an empty or under serviced territory.
 
Here’s what happens in most companies we work with. They hire another sales professional to come in behind the one that just left and give the new person exactly the same list the old one prospected from. He or she will call on all of the same targets, usually starting at the top of the list again) getting exactly the same responses that the departed rep did (except that some of those targets might even now begin to become rude because they’ve now told numerous reps of yours to leave them alone).
 
Let’s assume for a moment that the departed rep was a reasonably good sales professional and did the job well, calling on 1,000 different businesses. He/she determined that 500 of those were unqualified (not unreasonable on a virgin list.) They quit because they had to spend way too much of their time talking to and qualifying out those 500, so they couldn’t make enough money. Wouldn’t it be better if your new sales professional didn’t go call on those same 500 again?  
 
We’ve talked about the how difficult it is to find a good list for a new sales professional to call on in this blog on more than one occasion. We’ve also talked about how to size territories before. So, if you think you can solve this challenge that way, you’re just flat wrong. List manufacturers themselves will tell you a list is obsolete the day they send it to you.
 
One last thought. CRMs are not the answer. By definition (the ‘C’ in CRM stands for customer, not target or prospect), so they were never designed to be efficient for prospecting. CRMs are really not only not very efficient and effective for this task, they’re downright counterproductive. They are so difficult to use for this task that sales professionals don’t use them, or if they do, they add to their frustration level so much that it adds to your turnover problem—Catch22.
 
Our suggestion is to use Klpz. (By the way, there are versions for individuals and teams.) it is the only automation we’ve found that was actually designed to be used for prospecting. If you’re interested in some benchmarks on the topic, let me know. I’ll send you some results of side by side comparisons. Bcaponi@caponipg.com.
 
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called 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 817 224-9900 or at barry@coldcalling101.com. You can also find answers to many of your challenges in our books: Contrary to Popular Belief, Cold Calling DOES Work! Volume I: Effectiveness, The Art of Appointment Makingand Volume II: Efficiency, the Science of Appointment Making.
]]> http://coldcalling101.com/how-to-build-territories-over-time/feed/ 0 How many times will you listen to a voicemail phone number? http://coldcalling101.com/how-many-times-will-you-listen-to-a-voicemail-phone-number/ http://coldcalling101.com/how-many-times-will-you-listen-to-a-voicemail-phone-number/#comments Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:16:29 +0000 Barry Caponi http://coldcalling101.com/?p=1600 Do you say your phone number s-l—o-w-l-y, and repeat it?
 
Got another one today—a phone number left on a voicemail so fast that I had to listen to it multiple times in order to understand it.
 
If you are in sales, you must make it as easy as possible for people to do business with you. My own personal rule is that I will listen to a number twice. If I have to go back and listen a third time, I won’t do it unless I must return the call—and a cold call does not fall into that category.
 
Sales professionals tell me all the time that people do not return voicemail, so why bother. Well, I’m here to tell you that people do return voicemails, so leave them and do it well. If you’d like to read about the five reasons to leave voicemails, click here.
 
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called 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 817 224-9900 or at barry@coldcalling101.com. You can also find answers to many of your challenges in our books: Contrary to Popular Belief, Cold Calling DOES Work! Volume I: Effectiveness, The Art of Appointment Makingand Volume II: Efficiency, the Science of Appointment Making.
 
]]> http://coldcalling101.com/how-many-times-will-you-listen-to-a-voicemail-phone-number/feed/ 0 “How are you today?” Is that a good way to begin a cold call? http://coldcalling101.com/how-are-you-today-is-that-a-good-way-to-begin-a-cold-call/ http://coldcalling101.com/how-are-you-today-is-that-a-good-way-to-begin-a-cold-call/#comments Wed, 03 Apr 2013 09:42:30 +0000 Barry Caponi http://coldcalling101.com/?p=1597 Some quantitatively measured advice.
 
This topic came from a great Group on LinkedIn called ‘Best Practices for Telephone Prospecting/Cold Calling. If you’re not a member, I suggest you join it. Roger Hamilton created the group and it’s one of the largest in LinkedIn. Good topics there and a great place to get your questions addressed.
 
 "How are you?", "This is a cold call", "May I have a moment of your time?", "Do you have a moment?" all have one thing in common. They are attempts to soften the fact that this is a cold call. Don't have a problem with the sentiment. Do have a problem with delivery.
 
Trust me, guys—they get the fact that this is a cold call. Get straight to the point of the call. By asking for permission or by asking a question, you give them an easier out. "No I don't have a moment", "Yes I do mind". Why make your job harder than it already is? And, as I conclude this blog below, it's all about the metrics. Improving your success rate even a little, makes a big difference at the end of the day. So, if you think this is no big deal, think again—unless you like making more dials.
 
We use two techniques that help.
 
1) First, on every call, we introduce ourselves, provide a '7 second commercial' and then say something to the effect of, "The reason I'm specifically calling you today is…" That generally signals we're getting right to the point so most people will let us continue.
 
2) We then couch the language regarding the reason for the call into terms that relate to what other customers have told us about what our solution did for them. We do not recommend talking about what our solution can do the for the person we're calling. Until we've had an exploratory meeting with them, we really don't know, do we? Does our solution fit every situation? Can we save everyone money? Can we improve everyone’s situation? Of course we can’t. To make that assumption insults the intelligence of the people we’re calling.
 
Last thought–these techniques I suggest do work and I do have the numbers to back that statement up. However, nothing works all of the time. The idea is to incrementally increase the odds of success on every call. If we're making just 20 dials a day, that's about 4400 dials a year. The law of large numbers will tell us that even a one or two percent increase in our conversation ratio (dials to conversations with the person we want) and appointment ratio (conversation to appointment), can be immense.
 
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called 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 817 224-9900 or at barry@coldcalling101.com. You can also find answers to many of your challenges in our books: Contrary to Popular Belief, Cold Calling DOES Work! Volume I: Effectiveness, The Art of Appointment Makingand Volume II: Efficiency, the Science of Appointment Making.
]]> http://coldcalling101.com/how-are-you-today-is-that-a-good-way-to-begin-a-cold-call/feed/ 0 How many targets should be in a territory? http://coldcalling101.com/how-many-targets-should-be-in-a-territory-5/ http://coldcalling101.com/how-many-targets-should-be-in-a-territory-5/#comments Wed, 27 Mar 2013 09:31:21 +0000 Barry Caponi http://coldcalling101.com/?p=1594 Question Four – How many days per year do we make telephone prospecting calls?
 
This one is pretty simple. If you make some appointment-setting calls each selling day, then use 220 days. When you take out two weeks of vacation, holidays, staff/sales meetings, etc., the number usually comes out right at about 220. If you take more than two weeks of vacation (we recommend one week per quarter), then subtract more days from the number.
 
This variable may be simple, but it is still important. For instance, because I do training, my number is 168 days. If I need to make 2,200 dials per year (10 per day at 220 calling days per year) and use that number when I only have 168, I’ll only make 1,680 dials. Using my metrics, that would mean I would lose four sales during the year which would cost me a lot of money.
 
Do the math and be honest with yourself.
 
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called 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 817 224-9900 or at barry@coldcalling101.com. You can also find answers to many of your challenges in our books: Contrary to Popular Belief, Cold Calling DOES Work! Volume I: Effectiveness, The Art of Appointment Makingand Volume II: Efficiency, the Science of Appointment Making.
]]> http://coldcalling101.com/how-many-targets-should-be-in-a-territory-5/feed/ 0 How many targets should be in a territory? http://coldcalling101.com/how-many-targets-should-be-in-a-territory-4/ http://coldcalling101.com/how-many-targets-should-be-in-a-territory-4/#comments Wed, 20 Mar 2013 16:29:39 +0000 Barry Caponi http://coldcalling101.com/?p=1592 Question Three – What is the average time per dial?
 
We covered this in detail two weeks ago when addressing how much time we need to set aside to make dials each day. As one must know the amount of time each dial takes in order to reach that number, it was covered in blog number Volume XVIV – Week 9.
 
However, we will cover one key related point here. The tool we recommend to use when making appointment making calls will reduce the time per dial on average to below three minutes per dial.
 
In the above mentioned blog, we mentioned that most people experience ‘sticker shock’ when first figuring the time to make the dials. Without sounding too self-serving, what we do is help companies (and individual sales professionals) reduce the time it takes to make the dials as well as the number of dials necessary to hit a particular goal. So if you’re needing to make too many dials or are taking too much time to make your dials, you know where we are.
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called 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 817 224-9900 or at barry@coldcalling101.com. You can also find answers to many of your challenges in our books: Contrary to Popular Belief, Cold Calling DOES Work! Volume I: Effectiveness, The Art of Appointment Makingand Volume II: Efficiency, the Science of Appointment Making.
]]> http://coldcalling101.com/how-many-targets-should-be-in-a-territory-4/feed/ 0 How many targets should be in a territory? http://coldcalling101.com/how-many-targets-should-be-in-a-territory-3/ http://coldcalling101.com/how-many-targets-should-be-in-a-territory-3/#comments Wed, 06 Mar 2013 10:48:15 +0000 Barry Caponi http://coldcalling101.com/?p=1589 Question Two – How many calls are typically made before we get through to the decision maker?
 
This one is pretty simple and doesn’t require a lot of work to determine. Most of our clients use a four-step process in their typical pursuit plan. If the fourth attempt is always a ‘Move-on Message’, (the most effective voicemail we recommend) then use 3.5 as the average number of attempts. Similarly, if you use a five step pursuit plan (or Cycle), use 4.5.
 
The reason for that is most dials today are met with voicemail. This final attempt provides the sense of urgency for those that are interested to call back as you’re telling them you won’t be trying again for a while if they don’t return this call.
 
 
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called 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 817 224-9900 or at barry@coldcalling101.com. You can also find answers to many of your challenges in our books: Contrary to Popular Belief, Cold Calling DOES Work! Volume I: Effectiveness, The Art of Appointment Makingand Volume II: Efficiency, the Science of Appointment Making.
]]> http://coldcalling101.com/how-many-targets-should-be-in-a-territory-3/feed/ 0 How many targets should be in a territory? http://coldcalling101.com/how-many-targets-should-be-in-a-territory-2/ http://coldcalling101.com/how-many-targets-should-be-in-a-territory-2/#comments Thu, 28 Feb 2013 06:41:26 +0000 Barry Caponi http://coldcalling101.com/?p=1587 Question One – How much time can I commit to telephone prospecting each day?
 
In last week’s blog, we addressed the issue of how many targets can a sales professional handle per year in a given territory. This week, we’ll address the first of the six questions we must answer in order to determine that number—time.
 
Using our activity calculator, we can help determine the number of dials necessary to be made each day and the time required to make those dials. This is the first number that must be plugged into the sizing tool.
 
The components for this part of the process are as follows:
 
1.   What is my financial target for the year? (Quota/goal/budget.)
2.   What is the average size of a sale? (Measured in the same fashion as above.)
3.   How many prospecting days do I have available each year?
4.   What percentage of the time do I get through to the person I want to meet with when I dial the phone?
5.   What percentage of the time am I able to turn one of those conversations into an appointment?
6.   What percentage of those appointments turns into sales?
7.   What is the average time per dial?
 
Knowing these variables will provide you with the amount of time needed each day to telephone prospect a territory. Again, we can provide a free activity calculator to help you through these calculations. Most companies discover going through this exercise that there are not enough hours in the day for the average sales professional to hit their goal using their current skill and tool set after going through this exercise unless one gets lucky and finds a deal that is well beyond the typical average size of the normal sale.
 
If you would prefer an estimate of the time per dial without the calculator, use six minutes per dial. Assuming one wishes to keep track of the progress of the pursuit and record information per dial, our benchmarks reveal an average of right about six minutes.
 
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called 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 817 224-9900 or at barry@coldcalling101.com. You can also find answers to many of your challenges in our books: Contrary to Popular Belief, Cold Calling DOES Work! Volume I: Effectiveness, The Art of Appointment Makingand Volume II: Efficiency, the Science of Appointment Making.
 
]]> http://coldcalling101.com/how-many-targets-should-be-in-a-territory-2/feed/ 0 How many targets should be in a territory? http://coldcalling101.com/how-many-targets-should-be-in-a-territory/ http://coldcalling101.com/how-many-targets-should-be-in-a-territory/#comments Thu, 21 Feb 2013 06:33:55 +0000 Barry Caponi http://coldcalling101.com/?p=1585 Six simple questions to ask to determine how many targets should be in a territory.
 
Last week, we talked about reducing sales professional turnover in a particular territory by concentrating on better defining that territory and prospecting it over time. The question a sales manager must answer is what should be the appropriate size of a territory for one of my sales professionals? There are six variables that must be considered in answering that question.
 
1.   How much time can I commit to telephone prospecting each day?
2.   How many times will I reach out to someone before the law of diminishing returns hits? Should I make three attempts before I put the name away for a while, or should it be eight attempts? We call this a pursuit plan, or ‘Cycle’.
3.   How many attempts do I normally have to make before I get through to the person I want to meet with? In a four step Cycle, do I average getting through on the second attempt? Is it the fourth attempt?
4.   When I do put the name away for a while, how long should I wait before I engage in another Cycle?
5.   The number of days I will telephone prospect this year.
6.   How well defined is my territory? In other words, how many names will I remove from my list during my calling this year because I either make them a customer or determine they are unqualified and want to replace them with another target. We call this the Replacement Metric.
 
Here is an example of how we figure that using our easy to use activity calculator. If you’d like to have some help determining what a territory should look like, send me an email to bcaponi@caponipg.com.
 
 
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called 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 817 224-9900 or at barry@coldcalling101.com. You can also find answers to many of your challenges in our books: Contrary to Popular Belief, Cold Calling DOES Work! Volume I: Effectiveness, The Art of Appointment Makingand Volume II: Efficiency, the Science of Appointment Making.
 
]]> http://coldcalling101.com/how-many-targets-should-be-in-a-territory/feed/ 0 Is prospecting easier this year than last? http://coldcalling101.com/is-prospecting-easier-this-year-than-last/ http://coldcalling101.com/is-prospecting-easier-this-year-than-last/#comments Thu, 14 Feb 2013 06:28:24 +0000 Barry Caponi http://coldcalling101.com/?p=1583 One simple way to make it so.
 
I was talking with a sales manager the other day who was lamenting the fact that he is experiencing a lot of turnover in his prospecting territories. I asked him a simple question: “What are you doing to make the territories stronger for the next sales professional who will inherit a given territory?” I could have also asked him what it was that is making the job so difficult. Each question will get us to the discussion I want to share with you.
 
Many companies are repeating a singular mistake which exacerbates turnover. They are not thinking about how to strengthen the territory, they are only thinking about hiring the sales professionals. They think that better hiring or training will fix the problem. While I’m certainly not going to say better talent or training will not improve the situation, I’m assuming you’re already doing that. What most companies miss is not controlling the database that is the territory that their sales professionals use to define their list of potential buyers. In other words, rep number two (and three, and four…) wind up calling on the same unqualified targets that rep number one did because management was concentrating on the rep, not the territory. As Bob Howard, president of Contact Science, is fond of saying, “Reps come and go, territories are forever.” So, the same targets that were too small, too big, couldn’t buy here, etc. for Rep number one, are called on once again by Rep number two.
 
What happens here are two very important human nature oriented events. The first is that the follow on reps are subject to the frustration of the targets who are repeatedly telling your company (one rep at a time) to quit calling them. The frustration builds and they take it out on the next rep that calls and asks the same questions. No one likes to be yelled at, particularly when it is not their fault.
 
The second event that occurs is that the follow on reps can’t make enough money to get them through the start-up period, so they quit just like the rep before them. Think about it this way. If I have a relatively clean list of 1,000 targets that I know can and does use what I sell, and make 1,000 dials over, let’s say, five weeks, I’m doing very well if I get through to the decision maker 10% of the time, convince 25% of those to meet with me, and then close 20% of those. If those are my metrics, I will close five deals. The first time through a list isn’t even close to those metrics. Maybe, I will maybe make one sale. So you see why your sales professionals are getting frustrated and quiting?
 
The solution is to manage the targets in a territory. Do not allow your sales professionals to control this key component of prospecting and selling. It is a valuable company asset. It does not belong to the sales professional. The solution you adopt should:
 
1)   Be able to determine how many targets a reasonably sized territory should contain so that sales professionals reach out to the targets the appropriate number of times per year for what you sell (see next couple of blogs).
2)   Use an automation tool designed specifically for prospecting (not one designed for tracking customers—like CRMs). It should allow your sales professionals to:
a.    Minimally make twice the number of dials in the time available. (It will potentially double your sales.)
b.    Keeps track of the targets that are cast aside.
c.    Makes the territory warmer and better defined each time a rep goes through the list of targets.
 
Finding the tool that will help you build territories over time will reduce your turnover. If you’d like some guidance on this tool selection, reach out to us at bcaponi@caponipg.com.
 
Next week, we’ll show you a simple way to determine the right number of targets that should be in a territory.
 
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called 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 817 224-9900 or at barry@coldcalling101.com. You can also find answers to many of your challenges in our books: Contrary to Popular Belief, Cold Calling DOES Work! Volume I: Effectiveness, The Art of Appointment Makingand Volume II: Efficiency, the Science of Appointment Making.
]]> http://coldcalling101.com/is-prospecting-easier-this-year-than-last/feed/ 1 One simple way to engage gatekeepers. http://coldcalling101.com/one-simple-way-to-engage-gatekeepers/ http://coldcalling101.com/one-simple-way-to-engage-gatekeepers/#comments Wed, 06 Feb 2013 09:29:02 +0000 Barry Caponi http://coldcalling101.com/?p=1580 Ask yourself how they could benefit from their boss using what you sell.
 
We have second company that helps the executive teams of our clients improve their employee engagement. Companies with high levels of employee engagement wind up on the ‘Best Places to Work’ lists—consistently. And just in case you didn’t know it, it has been proven that companies on those lists consistently outperform their peers who do not pursue employee engagement with a passion in about every financial measurable way—from profitability to stock price. It’s a fun business to be in because one of the ways we help those executives improve their employee engagement is by helping them leverage their second most expensive employee benefit, vacation pay. And who doesn’t like to talk about vacations?
 
So what does that have to do with appointment setting? We cold call to get appointments. Because we deal only with ‘C’ level executives who take a strategic view of their companies, we do run into our fair share (and probably some of your fair share, as well) of human gatekeepers. How we get those gatekeepers to help us is by appealing to their selfish interests. Can you think of anyone who would not like to take more and better vacations—and do so for less money? I don’t know anyone either.
 
Your product or service may not be so easy to spin in that way, our sales training certainly isn’t. But gatekeepers are also charged with helping their bosses’ succeed. In fact, the more successful their bosses are, odds are, those gatekeepers get rewarded as well.
 
The bottom line is this. Spend some time thinking about how you have helped HERB (Highest Executive Responsible for Buying) in your current customers profit personally from what you sold them. It might be as simple as a bonus or as big as a promotion. Then think about how to take that story and tell it to your target’s gatekeepers. Now you’ve got something to talk to the gatekeeper about.
 
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called 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 817 224-9900 or at barry@coldcalling101.com. You can also find answers to many of your challenges in our books: Contrary to Popular Belief, Cold Calling DOES Work! Volume I: Effectiveness, The Art of Appointment Makingand Volume II: Efficiency, the Science of Appointment Making.
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