It's a little past mid month. Time to give each one of your inside sales reps a mid month diagnostic check up. There are many different keys that make up a successful month's prospecting and it's important that you check in with your people mid month to see how they are doing with each.
When Laney and I evaluate and review our inside sales reps mid-month, we look at their performance in three separate areas. We don't just look how they've done, but we all look at whether or not they have what they need to finish strong for the last 2 weeks of the month.
1. List: I'm not talking about the quality of the list. I assume that if you read my blog you may also read that of our resident list expert Craig Ferrara. If you are a disciple of Craig, then your list is fine from a quality standpoint. What we focus on mid month is whether or not the inside sales rep in question actually has enough people to call. How big is the list of suspects? In order for a teleprospector to be optimal and meet the metrics of his\her call plan they need a minimum of 500 companies in play at all times. If you are short of that number mid month....then you better find some more or your inside sales rep may not hit their goal.
2. Lead Quality: When you are managing people making outbound dials you've got to find a delicate balance between volume of calls and quality of the opportunities passed to sales. Take some time mid-month to review the quality (assuming you have a closed loop feedback process in place) of the leads passed by each inside sales rep and make sure they aren't playing too much of the volume game. If you see their quality score is low, have a sit down and review each lead with them. Gently reinforce that quality is just as important as quantity. You'll see immediate refocus.
3. Moral: When your occupation involves as much daily rejection as teleprospecting, you can get a little down. Don't ever forget that your guys and gals on the phones take a lot of heat over the course of a day and may need a little pep talk now and again. Run your Leads Passed List by inside sales rep and start at the bottom. The folks having the slowest month are most likely to need a little reenergizing. Take them out to lunch, review the good things they've done, sing them a song...it doesn't matter, just make sure you let them know you understand their job is tough and that you are there to help them get back to a high level of performance.
These are just a few nice and simple ways to reconnect with your team and make sure you are all on the path to a solid month. Good Luck!!
Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you another guest entry from one of our BDRs, Jill Ryan.
Out of the 12 month year, these next 3 months are going be the hardest for inside sales reps. Sure, all year long our friends and family that are Firefighters, Nurses, Police Officers, EMTs, bartenders and servers have envied us for our guaranteed weekends off. Now the tables have turned, I know some of us were wishing we could catch a mid week beach trip, but we have a job to do. I am the first one to say that AG has a culture like no other and we are lucky to have such a good time at work, but let’s face it, cold calling while its 85 and sunny out isn’t the best.
I am the kind of person that cares about my performance all the time. I am obnoxiously competitive and work the best under pressure, so go figure, I love contests. What better way to honor the cube dwellers during the next couple of months then to roll out some new incentives. Here at AG, we are lucky. We have an incentive in place that if we exceed production standards for the week, we can have a half day on Fridays. A lot of businesses are gone early on Fridays, so it makes for an effective work week. But what else can we do to spice it up during the summer?
- One thing I know my coworkers and I enjoy is time off. A monthly incentive to get some time off is most definitely something people will work towards. Everyone has trips they would like to take over the summer, and a chance to bank some days for the beach or lake is an expense most organizations can manage, and people would appreciate.
- Team contests! In sales, we all do a lot for each other in a pinch, why not have contests within your teams to boost the spirits and give each other that extra push. Some of the previous contests that have been great were a mix of meeting inside sales related benchmarks with a fun skills contest to cap it off. For example, our last contest combined meeting certain goals with a putting contest – the teams who had the best results towards these goals, putted from a shorter distance. These contests get people to work hard to meet the goals and have fun in the process.
- Something affordable but fun for the entire group. Whether that be a summer party, a day to head to a Pawsox game, or just the beach. Make it something the management can budget for and the company as a whole has to work hard to obtain, whether that be through lead goals or call expectation.
Let’s face it, we all work hard, but it can get difficult to stay focused in the summer when nothing changes in the routine. Summer is a time to throw the routine out the window, get outside, be active and enjoy each other. Why not continue that theme within the office to keep everyone on their feet, willing to work hard to play hard.
There is no better time during the year then right now to utter the phrase "call blitz" to your teleprospecting\inside sales teams. It is a phrase that causes groans across any team. Despite the general hatred of the "call blitz", I am a fan, and a firm believer that it is still a viable way to build pipeline quickly. While you'd be hard pressed (at AG anyways) to find a rep that "LOVES" a good old fashioned call blitz, none of them will argue that they aren't a healthy exercise to make your team go through. Here are my guidelines for running a one day teleprospecting blitz...
1. Set a high, but realistic activity expectation. Take your average daily outbound activity requirement and add 30% to it. That is more than reasonable unless you run a true sweat shop already. Don't go too high on your required number or you'll just end up with a bunch of meaningless activity from people just trying to hit an astronomical goal.
2. Break it down by hour. As you introduce your call blitz parameters, make sure you break it down hourly for your reps. Do the math for them so that they know what they have to do per hour as opposed to focusing on a large goal that may seem too overwhelming at the very start of the day.
3. Buy some lunch. Control the lunch hour by being a stand up guy\gal and buying the crew food. Pizza is my meal of choice, but I'm pretty unhealthy. Salads, tofu, whatever, just buy them lunch. This is a great way to say thanks for the extra effort and it also allows you to keep folks in the building so as to not lose any dialing time.
4. Send updates. Make sure you or a member of your staff is sending periodic updates on activity to the entire team throughout the day so people know where they stand and aren't wasting time checking the system for themselves.
5. Reward the "winners". Take the rep with the most calls and give him\her a small, but useful prize. Then do the same for the rep that had the most quality conversations over the course of the day.
Those are the basic parameters that we operate our call blitzes under.
The best time to run blitzes is the last two weeks of June. You are nearing the halfway point of your calendar year as well as entering what we have found to be the slowest two weeks of the year (July 1st - July 15th). Running one or several call blitzes during the last half of June accomplishes some very strategic objectives for your organization.
1. Increased activity in June makes up for the drop in activity that July will bring. July is one of the most popular vacations months of the year. The July 4th holiday when we celebrate this great nations independence can be a real bloodbath for business that rely on outbound teleprospecting to drive their pipeline development. Blitzing before and after those two weeks helps keep the overall activity at a level that offsets both the internal vacation that you probably will have as well as the external vacation time taken by your prospects. Your reps maintain an overall acceptable 30 day (June 15th - July 15th) call volume number thanks to the blitzes. They also focus more of their activity during times when prospects are more likely to be in the office.
2. Running several call blitzes at the end of June helps to clean out the pipeline and give some healthy cleansing to your database. You've spent half a year working your lists and have probably started spinning your wheels a little bit on many accounts. The extra activity means more conversations and more conversations lead to faster dispositioning of accounts. When you disposition an account it makes room for the new lists that you are inevitably going to be entering into the system in July for the second half of the year. A couple of well timed blitzes will accelerate some much needed purging of bad data and not interested accounts.
3. It's a good thing for your team. Whether or not people choose to admit it, competition and a challenge brings out the best in sales minded professionals. The call blitz is a great way to bring out the best competitive juices from your employees and helps to build even better moral through some healthy competition.
So, get your lists in order AG team...we are having a blitz tomorrow!
Sales Prospecting Perspectives is very pleased to bring you a post from Laney Pilpel, Manager, Client Operations. Laney is an AG veteran, who recently returned to AG after a 10 month hiatus, we are extremely lucky to have her back, and we are happy to have the opportunity to share this entry from her with our readers. Thanks Laney!
Two new additions to the AG teleprospecting team completed their first day of work recently. Before leaving on their first day, me and two of my colleagues sat down with them to ask how their day went. When asked "How do you feel about your first day here?" their enthusiastic expressions immediately told us how they were feeling. One of them exclaimed, "I feel really excited to be working here!" This recent hire was not sucking up to us, nor was she being sarcastic - she was being sincere. Everyone knows that cold calling is not always the most glamorous job, so what is it that we do that makes the business development representative role enticing right from the start?
There are many factors leading up to the happiness and success of our business development representatives from the get-go, and here are 5 reasons why this is the case:
- We stay organized. It's important to present new hires with a schedule on their first day that will last throughout the entirety of their training so they know what to expect from you, and what will be expected of them. We like to include their schedule in a new hire binder which includes all training materials, along with local restaurant menus to make them feel welcome in the area and add a personal touch.
- We keep it interesting. There is nothing worse than a drawn out training process that bores a new hire. Keep the training to one week if possible and within that week, develop a schedule that will make them excited to get to work everyday. Listening in on calls with fellow BDRs is a necessity during the training period, and it's a good idea to keep these sessions to one hour each. I have found that most new hires start to demonstrate with their body language that they are bored at this point, so send them on to be introduced to the next BDR and let them learn about someone else's style.
- We communicate. Every company has processes that they have developed that makes their reps succeed. It is important to stick to these processes, but it crucial that new hires know they can feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas. One of our new hires told me today that she was used to being scared of sharing ideas with her manager in a previous position, and that she did not feel that way here at all. I have felt that way in the past and it makes it difficult to enjoy your job everyday. New hires value communication-let them know the importance of their opinion from the start.
- We introduce our technology. You spend thousands on CRM every year - make sure to allow for adequate time to train on how to use it correctly! Test your new hire's ability by having them drive your CRM system while your reps are making dials. Also introduce other technologies (like outside databases that you use to access contact information, lists,etc.) that you spend your sales and marketing dollars on, otherwise I can guarantee they won't utilize them. We like to spend an entire workshop on "Resourcefulness" to get new hires feeling comfortable with these tools.
- We give homework! Remember in school when you hated studying for tests, but you knew you wouldn't learn the material any other way? That's exactly why we give homework. Everyday, you should make your new hire accountable for the information that they took in the day before. How do we make this enticing? We make it fun. If you spend hours teaching someone how to close for an appointment, have them call you the next morning on your direct line for a role play. It works!
Making a positive first impression on a new hire is crucial, otherwise they will quickly lose interest in the role and your company. How do you entice your new employees?
Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you another guest entry from one of our BDRs, Jill Ryan.
"Your prospect can sense a smile over the phone". How many times have you heard this coined in some way in the sales world? Sure it seems like a no brainer. We all keep our "screw you's" and thanks for nothing" on hold until we've finished squeezing our cheeks and praising them for the minimal amount of help and time of day. It's the concept we are trained on "always dial with a smile". No one ever talks about how difficult it is sometimes to sit in your cube for eight hours and really smile for cold calls.
I'm sure your wondering, where is this girl going with this? Just on a rant about her job? Actually the complete opposite. I think its common sense that a person in sales is more successful when they are focused, relaxed and happy on the phone, but that is evident of the culture they work in. If anyone watches the Office, they are prepared to laugh through a minimum of 60 percent of the episode. The show is based on a sales position out of Scranton, PA for paper products. On "paper", no pun intended, this sounds like the most boring job in the world. How could there be a show about a sales office selling paper be so funny? Because Dunder Mifflin has an office culture that makes an 8 hour day fly by, while getting the job done. Whether they are convincing Dwight that it's the wrong day of the week, or having public speaking meetings in the conference room, these people are constantly having a good time while somehow leading the paper industry.
I often compare AG to my own little mini TV series, much like Dunder Mifflin. I have never walked into this office angry to be here, except for the occasional Fridays when I wish I had gone home at a reasonable hour the night before. Our team has no problem "smiling and dialing". When I first came to AG, part of my interview process was to ensure that I would not contribute negatively to this culture. The president of this company's main mission with his business is to ensure a great company atmosphere. Specifically, we have no problem taking a little time off to have an office mini put tournament or leaving a little early on a Thursday for some Coronas. These perks come from a two things: Incentives and Respect. AG knows that cold calling is one of the hardest jobs out there, and everyone that works here has been on the phone crunching dials. As a result, management puts incentives in front of their BDR's (business development reps) to keep the client relationships strong and the lead rate high. A prime example of our main incentive here would be "summer hours". At AG, if we meet our level of expectation during the week, we can leave at 12:30 on a Friday. I guarantee that from 8:30 Mon morning until about 12:15 Friday afternoon, this is the #1 goal of each and every BDR here. We all strive for it, and the majority gets it done.
So while training your inside reps on "smiling and dialing", it is essential to have some respect for the job itself. Put some music on in the background, discuss some fun summer incentives and put together a leader board so these people feel appreciated. Speaking from experience, we have got a great thing going on over here at AG. People that leave and come back to us always say "you'll never find an atmosphere like AG". As great as that is to hear, it surprises me to hear that more companies don't take a similar approach. I have some talented friends in sales positions at different companies that are dying to have this type of work environment. If more management folks looked at the value their team is bringing and showed some respect and incentives, maybe they could form their own little mini TV series as well. If you want your inside sales reps to "smile and dial", take a look at your companies culture.
Today's Sales Prospecting Perspectives post is from Chris Lang, AG's Sales Director.
Your inside sales reps have a tough job. I liken it to asking women if they will tell you how much they weigh. 98% of them will tell you no (some more colorfully than others), 1% will give you a vague range and then 1% will actually tell you. Sometimes management makes it even tougher for the reps to do their jobs by setting up road blocks along the way. Take the same analogy I was using above only ask the question while wearing a t-shirt that says "Skinny Police" on it and see what happens. What I am trying to say, in my own weird way is, don't make your inside reps wear the "Skinny Police" shirt. The job of management is to make the inside reps as successful as they could possibly be. There are a couple of things you can do (or avoid doing) to help your team out.
Calls Come First
The inside sales team should focus on outbound dials. Don't fill their schedules with non-calling related activities. Sure, we all have meetings and there will be some occasions when your reps may have to do something other than make dials, but keep this to a minimum. Inside reps should be able to log 100 activities per day (mix of calls/emails). If they are constantly running reports, making their own lists and sitting in on countless sales and marketing meetings; they won't have time to do the most important task of the day, make calls. Cold calling is the number one priority, everything else can wait.
Hire a Second Inside Sales Rep
This pertains to a lot of the smaller companies out there with a couple of outside reps and one inside rep supporting them. If you have the ability to, you should bring on a 2nd rep. The inside sales job is a very lonely one to do all on your own. Inside reps can become discouraged during down months. Having that 2nd rep gives both of them someone to share ideas with, and more importantly someone to compete with. You can expect your production from your inside team to more than double when you bring on a second rep as they bounce ideas of off each other and compete for your love!
Compensate the right Behavior
A lot of companies compensate based on the number of "leads" passed on a monthly and quarterly basis. While this can and should be a factor, it should not be the largest portion of an inside reps bonus package. When you incent based on the number of leads you are asking the reps to pass a bulk of leads that hit the bare minimum qualification needed to get paid. Rather than compensate based on the number of leads, compensate based on successful leads. I suggest having two main categories in your compensation package: number of leads that go to move into a "next step" after the initial meeting with your sales team and % of leads that are deemed "successful" by the sales team. Compensating based on the number of leads that move into a second step will ensure there is a good flow of opportunities and factoring the % in will make sure the leads are of the highest quality.
"But Chris, how about paying them based on closed business?" Great question imaginary reader. Giving a kicker for closed business is something I do myself, but I wouldn't make this a huge part of the compensation package. That is putting a lot of their pay in the hands of other people. Your reps could pass great leads and not get paid because a sales rep botched a call, proposed the wrong solution, didn't put forth the right amount of effort, etc... It can create a contentious relationship between the inside and outside reps.
Show Them Some Love
Try to make your rep's day a little fun. As I said before, this is a tough job. Prospects make it a point to avoid inside reps and when a rep does have a conversation the prospect's tone is often filled with skepticism and roadblocks. It is our job as managers to foster an upbeat and positive attitude in their workplace. Run some fun contests. Recognize the rep when they are putting forth a big effort even if the returns haven't developed yet and make a sales executive tell the rep when they have delivered an outstanding opportunity to the sales team. It is unreal how much production will increase when people feel appreciated or when you offer a $20 Dunkin Donuts card for "Most conversations in a day". Conversely, it is very predictable that production will drop if you crush your inside reps and only focus on the negatives when they are having a down month. I'm not saying that you should sugar coat poor performance, but focus on what they do well and how they can get better rather than why they stink that month.
Today is Monday. It is the toughest day of the week. Your reps are tired, possibly a bit hung-over (stupid late night Red Sox game) and they could probably use some positive motivation to get the week kicked off right. Have you put them in the best possible position to find out how much someone weighs?
I just got back from a ski trip in the Birkshires with my wife and two boys. I love vacation time, absolutely love it. Some people use the fact that "they have not had a vacation in 3 years" as a badge of honor. While I respect and live by a strong work ethic as one of the keys to success philosophy, there is a point of diminishing return. You can always make more money, you can't make more time. Enjoy your time, it's going by faster than you might think.
Clearly few people would argue that taking time to "charge the batteries" is not important. But for me it is more about the healthy shift in mindset that occurs when you get out of the office. It allows you to think about your business and goals from a whole different perspective. With my mind uncluttered by the day to day execution of my business plan, I can think about the philosophy behind what I am trying to accomplish, and what that means to my customers and my company.
So, I used this vacation to think about my sales philosophy. Yes I still think a lot about work when I am "charging;" I love what I do, and it's not work when you love what you do.
I have long believed that providing the customer with value above and beyond their expectations through the sales process and beyond is the most important goal. What I thought about a lot this past week was not what, but how we deliver that value. I find both customers and prospects find it very refreshing when they feel they are working with a trusted advisor who has their best interest in mind. It is much easier to say than it is to do, but when you embrace this philosophy the people you interact with can feel the passion and sincerity and appreciate it. I find it's not that common.
More than once I have sent a potential customer away when I could have convinced them to buy. More times than not, maybe every time, they come back into the fold as a referral source or a client when the time is right. I'm a big believer in karma.
So, I guess my point is keep it simple and straightforward, do the right thing and good things will happen. Someone once said, "give the customer what they need and you will get what you want". Sums it up pretty well, don't you think?
A few weeks ago, we had our
annual sales kickoff meeting. I presented a review of the past and present and laid out the vision of the future, and how we would get there; Operations and Marketing did the same. The theme going into the meeting was to keep the goals for each individual as well as the team, simple, clear and attainable. Given the feedback I received I am comfortable we got the message across effectively.
I felt a strong sense of optimism upon leaving this meeting and saw immediate results upon returning to our offices. Our success in generating leads showed improvement of 20% over the previous week. I have long believed is that nothing extraordinary happens without optimism.
Optimism is contagious. I believe it is my job as a CEO to create, maintain and spread optimism.
Over my 20+ years in sales I have seen the positive effect of optimism on individual sales people and entire organizations. I recall a quote which states “If you believe you can or can’t, you are probably right.” This succinctly states the power of an optimistic attitude.
Of course, optimism cannot be created out of thin air, you must create an environment where individuals believe passionately in the vision of their and their company’s success (a subject for another blog). But once created, it must be nurtured constantly. Celebrate success, learn from failure and always behave in a way that creates opportunity. With opportunity comes success, with success comes optimism. This is the self fulfilling, upward spiral that is optimism.
So, as the AG Salesworks team embarks on helping companies grow their revenues, I will challenge our internal team as well as the Sales and Marketing teams of our clients to make sure they replenish and nurture optimism every day. Nothing good happens without optimism.
*On a completely side note, I'm happy to announce that AG Salesworks is now part of the B2B Marketing Zone, which is a collection of blog posts and articles all about B2B Marketing. We're really excited about being a part of that wonderful community. There is a ton of great information out there about our industry, and B2B Marketing Zone collects it all; it's a great place to learn more. You can check us out there by clicking the badge beneath the authors' pictures to your left.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote an entry about motivating your teleprospectors and I spoke specifically about positive reinforcement. Today I want to share with you my opinion on another extremely effective way to motivate employees, which is giving them a level of "job autonomy." (I am not saying to give full autonomy to an employee as there are critical best practices that need to be followed in order to be successful at cold calling).
In the world of teleprospecting, "job autonomy" tends to be viewed as taboo. I am not from this school of thought and believe that, on a case by case basis, providing a teleprospector with some "job autonomy" can lead to a higher level of job satisfaction and in turn lead to a higher level of performance (the end goal for a manager trying to motivate employees). What I mean by "case by case basis" in providing a level of "job autonomy" is that it is something that works in a specific environment with some specific criteria.
The first and most important criteria that must be in place, the correct employee. I am sure you can think of an employee that you have managed that you needed to hand hold through everything and if you gave them any autonomy in there job they would use it to not do their job. Hence why having the right employee is critical; a strong work ethic, good business acumen, etc.
The second, and perhaps just as critical, is identifying those areas of an employees job that some level of autonomy can be given and can result in positive strides. For example you are not going to let someone just pick up the phone and make a call without formally training them on the value proposition they are trying to deliver (an obvious example and I am using it to stress that there are areas you have to remain rigid in your process). Some people might say that in order to be successful at teleprospecting you NEED to follow a set of rigid guidelines - when to call, how many times to call, how to deliver a message, tools (sales slicks, scripting material, etc) leveraged - I would agree there are pieces that are best practices and need to be adhered to. But on the flip side if you have a trustworthy, intelligent employee, try letting them work with you on messaging tweaks, creation of email templates, etc. I have found that this type of work is a very effective way to give a level of autonomy to an employee, and it helps the overall project by allowing the employee to develop something that will give them a better result. Of course, it is critical to sit down and review their work with them as a checks and balances to ensure they are not taking any liberties in messaging, etc.
Not only do I find that this autonomy results in higher job satisfaction and higher performance levels but it also can help an organizations attrition rates - and we all want to hold on to the employees that are successful at the job!
Are there things that you let your employees do that provide them with some autonomy in the work they do? I look forward to hearing some of your thoughts on this!
Each December, I like to reflect on the previous year's challenges and triumphs as I prepare my goals for the following year. 2009 will likely go down as one of my most challenging years. While not without considerable triumphs, this past year had it share of challenges, as the AG Salesworks team navigated through uncharted economic times.
The three major categories I like to look at are business, personal, and family.
A few business lessons:
- Live within your means. Luckily, I have always been pretty responsible in this area. Even so, I learned that I could have done much better. Some things that seem like a must have when times are good, turn out to really be a nice to have. Don't get me wrong, I love nice things, and believe they can add considerable value to our day to day. It's the waste that I can not stand. I love efficiency; it lets me have more resources for the nice things.
- Plan ahead. We can never know what the future will bring, but we can make and educated guess and prepare for the worst. I don't do this because I am pessimistic; I do it for piece of mind. Kind of like insurance, having the resources to weather a challenging year or two can make the difference between dying, just surviving and thriving.
- Don't over leverage. Borrowing is useful and necessary, but, as we have all learned this year, too much of a good thing can bring tremendous pain when the bill comes due. Use debt responsibly. There is a very good chance that if you don't have the money in the bank you can't, and shouldn't afford it.
On the personal side of things, I believe that exercise is critically important not only physical health but also mental health. In order to perform under pressure and stress most effectively, you need to let your body perform physically. I pushed myself harder physically this year than ever before. That reminds me, I need to get a workout in today, I've been slacking a bit lately.
Family is what makes it all worth while, prior to becoming a Dad; I could not have imagined how fulfilling that role would be for me. I count my blessings every day for my beautiful, loving family.
Richard April, our VP of Marketing Services, told me a story last week over lunch. We were discussing family and what our expectations were prior to having kids. Richard told me about a conversation he had with a good friend of his. Richard told his friend "Sometimes I worry about bringing children into this crazy, sometimes even scary world." His friend offered what I thought was very inspirational optimistic advice. He said "The fact that you would be so concerned Richard, all but guarantees you will raise your children to be wonderful people who will make this world a better place."
So, all the lessons in the world are great, but if we don't learn from them and pass them on to our families, friends and co-workers they will have been wasted. I hate waste. Be efficient, pass you knowledge on and help the people around you.
In my next blog I will write about my specific plans to put the lessons I learned in 2009 to good use.