1. Companies
2. Independent Professionals or Individuals
3. Partners

Companies: For all businesses, finding new customers is a relentless requirement. Regardless of what percentage of annual revenue must come from new customers, few companies have a successful “dialing for dollars” program to deliver those new customers on a consistent basis, year after year. For companies, we can help you if you see yourself in one or more of these scenarios:

• We cannot create a sustainable program to adequately feed the pipeline.    We seem to try one thing after another, and sometimes get a brief increase in productivity. However, it doesn’t last long; we can never operate consistently at an enhanced level.  
• We do not have metrics or management tools to measure our progress.    Every part of our business can be measured and then improved, except for our telephone prospecting. We are a metrics driven company, but have no metrics for the first step in the sales cycle. Sales managers are ill equipped to manage telephone prospecting.  
• We don’t seem to be building territories over time even with continuity within the sales force. Compounding the problem, all of our territory development data leaves when the sales rep leaves.    We have no concept of developing a territory over time. Every new rep starts at square one because the previous rep left with all the prospecting history in his / her head, laptop or failed to put it into our CRM.  
• Our sales turnover is much too high.    We hire sales professionals that can close business, but our business model requires a lot of “Cold Calling” and it seems that we lose too many sales professionals because they are unable to set enough appointments to fill the sales funnel.  
• Our sales turnover is much too high.    We hire sales professionals that have a “rolodex” of prospects to call on their first day on the job, but as soon as they run through those names, they don’t get in front of enough new prospects.  
• Our sales turnover is much too high.    We’re not sure we’re recruiting and hiring the right skill set to be successful in our selling environment.  
• It takes too much time and money to figure out which of our new hire sales professionals will “make it” and which will not.    We don’t know which sales professionals will succeed until a reasonable ramp up time has expired plus a normal sales cycle. It is costing us too much money in salary, training and / or supervision.  
• The Marketing department complains that the leads they generate are not being pursued.    We invest a lot of money in lead acquisition, but don’t know what happens to those leads when they are turned over to the sales professional. This has lead to a rift between sales and marketing.  
• Our sales team is constantly complaining that they don’t have enough leads.    Even though we do supply some leads to our sales team, they seem to go through them like a hot knife through butter.  
• Our cold calling performance is the “elephant in our sales bullpen”.    We think we’re addressing the Cold Calling challenge through programs that apply to the entire selling process, but it doesn’t seem to be moving the needle forward. We don’t seem to be willing (or able) to truly address this issue as a separate business challenge. We just seem to think it will take care of itself.  
• We don’t seem to be able to transfer solid “Best Practices” on appointment making across the sales force.    We do have stellar performers in the area of getting enough new business appointments, but we don’t seem to be able to replicate that success across the sales force.  
• We don’t have a set of well thought out processes or a set of proven “Best Practices” across the organization.    The whole appointment making process looks like the proverbial “Black Box” to us. We not quite sure how to build those “Best Practices” that include things like how many times to call, how much time to commit to calling, or how to turn a NO into an appointment.  
• We do formal sales training, but don’t have a process to reinforce it back in the field.    We have formal sales training programs that occur as a part of new hire training or as a part of periodic company sales meetings. However, we don’t do a very good job of reinforcing those techniques and methodologies back in the field. The result is that much of the methodologies are never implemented.  
• Our sales team says that it is either too difficult or too time consuming to make appointment making calls.    It seems like half our sales professionals tell us that it just takes too much time to make the necessary calls to set their appointments. The other half tells us that they struggle to get through to decision makers and / or turning the conversations they do get into appointments.  
• We’re not sure where to go to define and acquire the right targets for our sales team to call on.    We leave it to our reps to do their own prospecting and we know they are spinning their wheels trying to do so.  
• Our sales team either cannot or will not prospect.    We have given up on our sales team setting appointments, so we have outsourced that process as a last resort. It is not what we’d like to do, as it is difficult to train callers on our value propositions and monitor the results of that process.

Independent Professionals or Individuals: Prospecting has a lot of moving parts that can impact performance. We have helped many sales professionals set more appointments in less time, and with significantly less daily effort. We can help you if you see yourself in one or more of these scenarios.

• I am not consistently committing enough time to setting appointments each week.    Many of us sales professionals find it difficult to commit the necessary weekly time to prospecting. If that is the case, then an increase in performance will come from our willingness to “work a program that works”; one that is easy to operate because of better Science (the mechanics of the process), and better ART (messaging and technique) to help us know what to say in order to be better prepared.The most common reason for not committing the appropriate time to Telephone Prospecting is that it is too hard and it seems to have so little value that we just don’t do it. When it becomes easier to operate and we’re more confident in our approach, finding the time for Telephone Prospecting becomes a snap!  
• I commit the right amount of time per week to calling but would like to do it in less time.    Many of us sales professionals are ‘making the time’, to call, but have less than an acceptable number of Initial Meetings result. If that is the case, then an increase in performance will come from increasing the “speed of operating the process” with better Science (the mechanics of the process).Prospecting is a business process, and a challenging one. To make operating the process as efficient as possible we must have everything needed to move from “call to call” quickly, easily and precisely. This will result in our spending more of our time on the phone (making more dials) rather then on the preparation or documentation phases.  
• I do not have a repeatable prospecting process.    Many of us sales professionals have improved the value of each dial by designing a precise, repeatable Best Practice. The value of our “dialing” resource is improved when we make every dial count by employing an ideal pursuit plan.Without a proven plan to follow, we waste a large percentage of the dials we make and the time it takes to make them.  
• I don’t know what to say to turn the conversations into appointments.   Many of us sales professionals struggle in the most critical element of Telephone Prospecting; converting a conversation into an appointment. If that is the case, the Art (messaging and technique) of controlling the flow of the conversation and handling the NO response we inevitably hear when we ask for the appointment can literally be a life changing experience.Our approach to the Art has helped many sales professionals have more meaningful conversations, not confrontations, when setting appointments.  
• I canvas but don’t follow-up on the telephone very well.    Many of us sales professionals that canvas (knock on doors) have no repeatable process to follow-up on those leads. If that is the case, then an increase in performance will come from having a “Best Practice” and the Science (the mechanics of the process) to follow-up on leads uncovered through canvassing.Canvassing has become a very expensive approach to prospecting, both in terms of time and money (because of the cost of gasoline). Without a proven plan to follow-up, we waste a large amount of expensive effort.  
• I use a CRM to manage my calling, but I am not very efficient. I seem to spend more time on the software than on the telephone.    Many of us sales professionals struggle to achieve the “best and highest use” of our calling time. If that is the case, we must spend more time on the phone and not on the software. We must spend less time thinking about and then operating the software to record our steps in the calling process.CRMs are actually counter-productive to Telephone Prospecting. Our benchmarks consistently show that those of us, who prospect using a CRM of any kind, spend more time operating the process in the software than we spend on the phone. In many cases, CRMs increase the average time to take a step in your Best Practice by double or more.  
• I don’t know how many dials I need to consistently hit my numbers.    Many sales professionals tell us that they don’t know how much time or dials they need to commit to in order to hit their numbers. If that is the case, just knowing those elements of a Best Practice will help increase performance as the goal is known and can be managed to accordingly.Our clients have used our tools to help determine those variables so that they have more granular yardsticks to measure their progress against.  
• I lose track of people I talk with who tell me to call back in a few months when they will be in a buying cycle.    Many of us sales professionals lose the investment in time (and therefore dollars) we’ve made in a previous dial because we forget to call back on “Warm” leads that have given us permission to do so.This occurrence not only wastes time, but is disheartening because we’re constantly making more of those ‘Cold Calls’ instead of building a territory that consists of targets that might have not been in the market for what we were selling when we called, but do use our solution. If that is the case, then an increase in performance will result from having automated the “Science” (the mechanics of the process). This will result in more appointments with less effort as we’ll actually have to make fewer “Cold Calls” in order to hit our numbers.  
• I never seem to have enough leads to call and too many of those tend to all be “Cold”    Many of us sales professionals are consistently looking for more leads to call because we call a name a few times, don’t get a hold of the person and give up. If that is the case, then an increase in performance will result from having a “Best Practice” that includes a well thought out business rule that realizes the cumulative value of a dial (and leaving voicemails and / or sending emails).Why do we believe that just because we can’t get a hold of someone, they are not a prospect for our solution? Advertisers say that it takes approximately seven “touches” before a person will even recognize our name. So we’ve helped our clients build “Best Practices” that take into account this basic rule of prospecting.  
• I have someone who calls for me, but I don’t know how to manage them or to coach them to be more productive.    Many of us independent professionals employ someone to set appointments for us. If that is the case, then an increase in performance will result form having “Science” (the mechanics of the process) that provide the ability to see accurate effectiveness and efficiency results on a regular basis. That allows us the ability to focus specific remedial help where and when necessary.The result is money and time better invested.

Partners: The moment of truth in telephone prospecting is what you do when the target answers the phone. This is the Art of the telephone prospecting process. ColdCalling101 uses The Appointment Making Formula™ from The Caponi Performance Group, specialists in the Art of appointment making. It is a proven approach to effectively converting conversations into appointments. We can work with partners in a variety of ways:

• Part of your larger solution.If your solution does not contain a good proven solution like ColdCalling101, outsource that component of your solution to us. Still maintain control of your client and let ColdCalling101 be part of your larger sales solution and make money off of each additional piece of business.  
• Your own version of Cold Calling 101    If you have your own Art (skills training curriculum) and would like to use it instead of the Formula, we can also do that easily enough.  
• Use our Art    If you don’t have any Art and would like to personally train your customers on telephone prospecting, The Formula can be licensed.