Sales Prospecting Perspectives

5 Secret Keys To Running An Effective Teleprospecting Campaign

  

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Alright, so I’ll admit the suggestions I’m about to make really shouldn’t be considered a secret to anyone. Most of us who’ve been mired in the muck of trying to run effective calling campaigns shouldn’t be shocked by what I’m about to recommend.

It’s not like we don’t know the answer to this question but - what do you feel are the ingredients necessary to run an effective campaign?

Believe me; I am by no means saying I have all the answers. What I’ve learned, by taking a few beatings over the years, is that there are a few things that are pivotal in the success or failure of a campaign. Most of us that have been doing this long enough should understand what those core areas are.

We all have the best of intentions as things get kicked off, but a consistent problem inevitably inhibits us from getting the best results possible. Execution and follow-through!

Here are the 5 core areas of running an effective teleprospecting campaign that marketers know, but don’t regularly execute and follow through on:

1. Providing Quality Lists –Pretty simple, the crappier the quality of the names you have to call on, the less success you’ll have. Sure, you can task your team with finding names on their own, but as we all know that can be extremely time consuming. In addition to providing your team with better quality data, I highly recommend using an automated marketing tool to move your leads further down the funnel.  This will result in providing your team with more targeted leads to follow up on.
2. Volume of names to call on - As important as the quality is, if you don’t provide enough names to call then you’ve got a problem. Consistent results from a campaign are driven by continually putting fresh names in front of your team.
3. Ongoing training - This may be time consuming, but we can’t assume that doing a little front end training as a campaign launches is all the training that will be needed. Training should be an on-going effort that takes place over several months….. especially with your greenhorns.
4. Culture - Teleprospecting will grow old very quickly when you feel like a number. I’ve been there. Since we all know it is not glamorous there is alot we can do to keep the team engaged. What I've seen that can have the biggest impact is making them an "active participant" in their success (a.k.a strategizing on their calling effort). At the end of the day it is actually possible for cold calling to be FUN, but it starts with your team culture.
5. Devise effective tracking metrics - I’m sure there are a variety of metrics that are very important to you such as lead rate, conversion rate, total activity..etc. Before you ramp any campaign, make sure to determine the metrics that are most important to you and your sales team to adequately track effectiveness from the outset.

When I’ve struggled to get my campaigns off the ground over the years, inevitably I’m falling short with at least 1 of the 5 areas above. Are there any other areas you feel get in your way?