If we don’t know how to effectively take someone who does not believe they are in the market for what we are selling when we pick up the phone and call, we will have to make many more calls for each appointment we set than we need or want to – and most of us have limited time to invest in cold calling.

Our surveys consistently show that less than five percent of any universe of suspects believes they are in the market for what we’re selling when we call. If we take our suspect’s word for it, that means that only 5 of every 100 people we talk to should have an interest in meeting with us when we call. Experience teaches us that we’ll not be able to convince all of those to meet with us for a variety of reasons, but let’s assume for the sake of argument that we can. So let’s do the math.

Assumptions:

Average time per dial = 6 minutes (including prep. time, calling, conversing & recording – trust me, we’ve documented it)
Typical Conversation Ratio = 10% (Dial to Conversations)
Typical Appointment Ratio = 20% (Conversations to Appointments)
Closing Ratio = 20% (Initial Meeting to Close)
Interest Level = 5%

Based on these averages, if we dial the phone 1000 times, we’ll get through to 50 people. Of those 50 conversations, we’ll only run into 2.5 that are in the market for what we’re selling right now. Even assuming that they’re all willing to meet with us, we’ve now invested 6,000 (100 hours) to get those appointments. So how much do you make an hour? Is it worth it just to play the numbers game, or should we be learning how to convince some of those people that we’ve got something that others in their position have benefitted from?

You do the math…