Sales Prospecting Perspectives

A few weeks ago I went through the painstaking process of trying to find a decent list of IT contacts in the public sector.  Of course I've been down this road a million times and typically I'll go the standard route and attempt to work through the traditional list vendors out there, but I only ended up netting about 500 total names. Then I went to a company that specialized in public service, but they could only provide nothing more than the chief of police and main number to call and no email. Plus they could only provide me the data on cd-rom, yikes! Then I became desperate and posted the question up on an inside sales forum on Linkedin. Bad move. As you can expect I got bombarded with people reaching out to me from all around the world and I came up with next to nothing.

Over the years I've worked on a wide range of marketing campaigns for our clients and without fail each and every campaign represents a new and unique challenge to the team. We love it! One thing I've found is that rarely, if ever, can we apply the same template to each project and expect any kind of consistency across the board.

Last week I had the chance to attend an Oz Principal leadership workshop with my fellow managers. There were a variety of topics covered, and fellow Director Matt Fitts wrote on one of the topics covered. 

I wanted to take the opportunity to discuss one of the other main principles of the workshop, accountability. One of the biggest things that stuck with me during this workshop was the mindset that individuals share as it relates to accountability within their organization. Either you're "Above The Line" or you're "Below The Line" when it comes to situations you encounter during the work day. 

For many of us there is nothing more stressful than cold calling. If you really break it down, no one likes being rejected. Everyone we call should love hearing from us, right? 

No matter how you slice it, having been at this for as long as I have, there is never an easy day of cold calling. Most of us know that a typical day of dialing means a lot more NO's than YES's. On average we see about 5% conversion rate across every project we dial on. So out of every 100 conversations, we have only five people end up giving us the answer we're looking for.  Some days it can feel like an "up at a dawn, pride-swallowing siege" as Jerry Maguire puts it. That's simply how it is in the cold calling game. 

Over the years I've seen many talented teleprospectors struggle consistently to hit their goals. They could posses all the core skills necessary to be a top performer but the bad habits they develop can dictate the "ebb and flow" of their performance. 

There's a lengthy list I've encountered being in the trenches as long as I have, most of which you've likely seen me yammer on about in a blog here or there, but I figured it would make sense to narrow it down to the ones I see most often.   

Here are 7 of the most common habits that can have a negative impact on a teleprospectors performance:

Part of my daily duties as Director of Client Operations involves coaching my team on their outbound activities. As much as they enjoy the experience (wink-wink) I find it gives me the ability to learn a few things as well as teach and train my reps.

During a call training session a few weeks ago it occurred to me that, while I want to believe there is a perfect road map to follow while navigating organizations, we rarely end up following the same exact path in getting there. Every call generally tends to be a unique experience. As a result, I have always been a big proponent of allowing our BDRs to put their own unique spin that is more conducive with their style... as long as they produce of course. Since every experience is different with each dial, we need to encourage our reps to adapt an approach that works best for them.