RELATED: The Seven Rules Of Cold Calling [INFOGRAPHIC]

In this article:

1. Introduction
2. Is Cold Calling Dead?
3. Cold Calling Lead Generation: Predictive Sales Technology
4. Why Modern Sales Reps Are Neglecting Cold Calling Techniques
5. How to Encourage Sales Reps to Learn How to Cold Call Better
6. Cold Calling Is NOT Dead
7. Conclusion

The Cold Calling Experiment – Building Up Your Sales Leads

Introduction

Why cold calling still works—this was the subject of a heated debate we had with Mario Martinez from Vengreso.

During our webinar, we discussed which method is better to build a quality pipeline fast: cold calling vs digital prospecting via social media, email, or LinkedIn. Things got a little heated, so we decided to put our cold calling to the test.

We wanted to see how many appointments and how many pipelines we could generate by cold-calling using a predictive dialer.

We had our sales development representatives call thousands of leads. They spoke to cold prospects and gave them an idea of what XANT is all about.

For this week, we drew the line to see the results.

Is Cold Calling Dead?

Cold calling has always been an intimidating method of working a lead.

You basically pick up the phone and call a prospect to deliver a sales pitch about your service or product. The prospect has never heard of your company and doesn’t know who you are or what you do.

It’s what ‘old-school’ sales reps do and what new, digitally-savvy marketers would say is a waste of time and a sure-fire way to annoy your leads.

We think cold calling is NOT dead, and it still has better results than contacting prospects via social media, or email, or anything else, so we put our theory to the test.

It might seem like a lot, but the truth is, their efforts were rewarded times ten:

• Our sales reps had 632 meaningful conversations with prospects. This means 5.08% of all cold calls turn into meaningful conversations, which is a great rate and certainly better than email, which sits at 1-3%.
• They set 64 appointments with their leads, and 70% of appointments held.
• Out of the appointments that held, about 50% turned into opportunities

…and this is how they built $1.68 million in sales pipeline over five days!

This has been an amazing experiment to show the power of cold-calling in the age of digital sales and marketing campaigns.

The phone still works, and here at XANT, we are big proponents of picking up the phone and calling your leads.

RELATED: Cold Calling Secrets: How To Eliminate Fear, Failure, And Rejection

Cold Calling Lead Generation: Predictive Sales Technology

Now, something can be said about our cold calling strategy.

You can’t just pick up the phone and blindly call people. Our team used an Artificial Intelligence-powered sales dialer, which means they had a smart lead scoring system to guide them to the best leads only.

Cold Calling 101 – The basics you need to cold call properly:

• A list should be clean, well-targeted, and accurate before you begin cold-calling.
• Sales reps need to know your sales pitch by heart and avoid stumbling when talking to decision-makers.
• You need an awesome predictive dialer system for lead scoring that allows sales reps to get to the most valuable leads first, rather than gut-guessing who their targets should be.
• Make sure your dialer can suggest the correct phone numbers for targets, using predictive functions.
• Have a LocalPresence system that displays a local phone number, increasing your chances of prospects answering the phone.
• Make sure you have a click-to-call system so your reps don’t manually dial a phone number. This one is a no-brainer, and the technology has been around for a while, so there’s no reason not to use it.

Cold calling has changed since the age of the Rolodex. Make sure your tech stack can keep up with the needs of modern salespeople.

Why Modern Sales Reps Are Neglecting Cold Calling Techniques

There are many reasons why sales reps are hesitant about picking up the phone to get their leads. Here are three of them:

1. Cold Calling Has No Shortcuts

Cold calling is a numbers game. Only about 5% of the calls sales reps make are going to lead to a productive conversation, which is why reps have to make more calls.

The level of hard work required to get results is the reason why people think it’s an ineffective way of connecting with leads. Still, the numbers show that cold calling is still a pretty effective way of getting leads, so it’s worth it.

Unfortunately, these results don’t come easy. Plus, it doesn’t help that people think of cold calls as nuisance calls.

Nonetheless, if a sales rep is serious about reaching potential customers, cold calling is the way to go. It definitely shouldn’t be left out of the conversation.

2. They Think Cold Calling Is Ineffective

Another reason why sales reps might not be using cold sales calls to reach their potential clients is they think it’s ineffective in producing results.

Cold calling success is more likely to happen than other means of cold contact with leads. If you want to motivate reps to start cold calling, you’ll have to convince them it brings results.

3. They Don’t Have a Solid Cold Call List

Sales reps need to figure out how to make their own client base for sales prospecting. This part is important when it comes to developing stronger calling techniques.

A possible reason why sales reps aren’t actively cold calling is they may not know who are the right people to contact. Poor prospecting and development of cold call lists can affect the results of your cold calling efforts negatively.

This is why it’s a must that you develop a good cold call list to supplement any calling techniques you have.

How to Encourage Sales Reps to Learn How to Cold Call Better

1. Develop and Optimize Your Cold Calling Scripts

Your calling scripts should be solid enough to be used for different types of calls without appearing too stiff or robotic. It should also be able to adapt to any situation easily enough.

Remind sales reps that sales scripts are just a roadmap to guide you where your call is supposed to go, but they shouldn’t rely on it too much. Sales scripts are also meant to be checked and optimized regularly.

2. Remember to Try and Get to the Decision Makers

Another thing to remind reps is to avoid wasting time and effort by making sure they’re talking to the decision-maker of a company. These are the people who can give a yes or no on whether or not they can purchase your product or service.

3. Master How to Deal with Cold Calling Rejection

Given the low 5% rate of cold calls that lead to success, knowing how to deal with rejection is an important skill for sales reps to develop. It can be disheartening, but sales leaders can train them on how to handle rejection and keep pushing forward.

One way you can do this is to incorporate rejections into the sales scripts, so they’ll be prepared to handle them once they come.

Cold Calling Is NOT Dead

Some sales reps think that digital sales are now the new big thing and that cold calling is dead. But after seeing the results of this experiment, I just don’t buy it.

Don’t ever contact leads directly on social media, thinking you have no shot of getting to them over the phone. You are wrong, and if done right, the phone still works today.

Cold calling is the single most effective sales strategy you have today to build a pipeline without complex marketing strategies that take weeks to put together or without creating content.

Granted, sales reps have to put in a lot of work to make sure it is successful.

Conclusion

I have news for you — nobody is ever thrilled to receive a phone call from cold callers.

Even using a predictive sales technology stack, our numbers show you need to make 19.7 calls before you land ONE meaningful conversation with a prospect. To set just one appointment for a meeting with an account executive, SDRs need to ramp up 194.6 calls.

Cold calling is hard work, and you can see why sales professionals are quick to shy away from the phone and say, “it just doesn’t work anymore.”

It’s your job to show them why they needed your cold calling solution yesterday and how it solves their problems. We’ll be starting a social selling experiment soon to see how results compare to this one, so stay tuned for more!

What do you think about cold calling and how effective it is? Let us know in the comments section below.

Up Next: 

• What Is Cold Calling | Everything You Need To Know
• Social Selling And The Law Of Reciprocity
• Top Tips For Sales Development

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on May 22, 2018, and has been updated for quality and relevancy. 

In this article:

1. Reps Make Mistakes – A Lot of Them
2. The Four Bad Behaviors That Mess Up Sales Pipeline and Forecasting
   1. Pipeline Stuffing
   2. Sandbagging Deals
   3. Overestimating Deal Size
   4. Underestimating Sales Opportunities
3. Inaccurate Sales Forecasting Costs Companies Millions
4. How Artificial Intelligence Can Help the Sales Pipeline Management and Forecasting

Sales Pipeline | Get Accurate Revenue Forecasts by Avoiding These Bad Behaviors

Reps Make Mistakes – A Lot of Them

Sales teams can make actions that can impact the sales pipeline in a negative way. The sales forecasting process is riddled with errors in most organizations, whether human errors or the lack of predictability in the marketplace.

Around 79% of sales organizations miss their forecasting mark by 10% or more, according to SiriusDecisions data. In turn, they don’t reach their targeted sales goals. What we like to call human “errors” are often poor habits of sales reps or an entire sales team. Some of these occur repeatedly throughout the sales cycle.

One habit, in particular, is the end-of-the-month rush in sales, which can cost companies millions. It’s so widespread a customer now waits until the end of the month to buy a product. They know they have a chance to get a discount from a sales rep desperate to close a deal.

Data shows stakeholders are increasingly looking to invest in companies that are good at producing predictable and sustainable growth.

Sales leaders need to get used to handing over more accurate revenue projections.

The Four Bad Behaviors That Mess Up Sales Pipeline and Forecasting

There will be factors that influence your revenue projections outside of your control. These include the growth of the economy, the state of the industry, and the production costs. Some sales rep behaviors also play a part in inaccurate revenue forecasts.

Here are a few of the bad sales rep tendencies you need to cull to make forecasting more predictable and increase revenue:

1. Pipeline Stuffing

People in charge of lead generation and management stuff the sales pipeline with opportunities at the end of the month. It is to make sure they become high performers. Studies show that on the last day of the month, sales reps triple the number of opportunities they have in the pipeline. They also make many more calls to prospects. It’s a form of procrastinating and then panicking before your deadline.

2. Sandbagging Deals

There are different ways to describe the sales process. Two of the most popular are sales funnel and sales pipeline. Both can illustrate the buyer’s journey, but they do have notable differences.

A pipeline creates a visual on where in the sales pipeline stages the sellers and prospects are. Depending on the stage, they may be qualified leads or sales-ready leads.

Other reps might keep good opportunities from moving into the next stage in the pipeline in the current quarter. They will eventually move them into the next to make sure they make quota.

This might help them in the short term, but long-term, it paints a distorted picture of how the company is actually doing. This can have repercussions on how it can obtain financing or hand out compensation.

3. Overestimating Deal Size

Sales reps are notoriously optimistic. Hey, you have to be to work in this profession. Most of the time, they will overestimate how good sales opportunities really are. This leads them to input inaccurate numbers on the deals they have. They end up being disappointed at the end of the quarter due to not meeting their sales metrics.

4. Underestimating Sales Opportunities

Other times, they might simply pass up good opportunities. They follow their gut and intuition rather than the predictive scores. It often happens when they don’t have all the information about the factors that influence their deals or their sales performance.

Predictive sales tools that tap into crowdsourced data can change this. They can analyze billions of data points in an instant. They can send reps alerts in real time on internal factors that influence their deals. These can be past transactions and their outcomes, as well as changes in account information. They can also add information on external factors. These are weather, traffic, stock information, company acquisitions, and mergers.

Inaccurate Sales Forecasting Costs Companies Millions

Out of all these pitfalls of forecasting, opportunity stuffing at the end of the month is the most common. It is also the most toxic for accurate sales forecasting.

Sales reps are under the pressure of performance review calls, and this means they will either:

• Scramble to work harder than they did the whole month (and as a result, their closed won rates fall by nearly half)
• Try to push any deal over the finish line at all costs to increase their numbers, giving away discounts in the process (this leads to a median drop in the deal size of 34.5%)

The results are inflated sales pipelines and inaccurate forecasts. Overall, this lowers the confidence in the ability of the team to produce reliable financial projections.

How Artificial Intelligence Can Help the Sales Pipeline Management and Forecasting

New predictive sales tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI) is just one type of technology sales managers can use to avoid bad sales rep behaviors. AI can dramatically enhance human judgment when it comes to sales pipeline management and forecasting.

AI sales systems can analyze data from the company’s CRM software, as well as the external data and crowdsourced information, to reach more accurate conclusions about the following:

• What has changed in the pipeline and how can this impact deals?
• Which deals will close and which are at risk, and how do you to focus only on what matters?
• Who are the sales top performers, and how can you coach others to success?

To err is human, but some mistakes may be costlier than the others. They can hurt the pipeline velocity and conversion rate, among others. Sales managers can explore using an AI-powered sales pipeline platform. This tool can help ensure the reps avoid the above-mentioned behaviors.

Do you know of other sales behaviors that can hurt the sales pipeline? Let us know in the comments section below.

Up Next: 12 Tips For Evaluating Sales Reps Performance

Editor’s Note: This post was published on July 16, 2018, and has been updated for quality and relevancy.

Sales Leaders Living in Spreadsheets

Sales reps and managers spend hours getting ready for the weekly pipeline call. Leaders in particular can sometimes spend up to four hours just gathering information ahead of the call. Data is often hosted in disparate, legacy systems, and they often need to put it together in a spreadsheet to make sure they have a clear picture of their sales results.

Yet they still miss sales targets, miss out on commissions and sometimes even lose their jobs. XANT data shows that by far the biggest challenge for sales leaders is building quality pipeline.

But sales leaders spend an inordinate amount of time just collecting the data and making sure it is being reported correctly. They spend too little time analyzing it and figuring out a way to overcome their sales challenges.

14 Questions to Ask During a Pipeline Call

Pipeline review calls fail to positively impact the business when they are not structured, consistent or data-driven. It becomes a dreaded meeting for both sales leaders and sales reps, and it shouldn’t be.

A great way to reverse this trend is to answer the right questions during the pipeline call.

Every sales team should be able to answer on pipeline review calls, beginning with:

• How are we trending to quota?
• What has changed in our pipeline?
• Which reps require attention?
• Which deals should we focus on?

Download our cheat sheet — “14 Questions to Ask During a Pipeline Call” below. It will help you strip down the pipeline information to the bare minimum and help you formulate a plan on how to attack your sales goals.

Why Pipeline Review Calls Are Painful

Sales reps will sometimes over-estimate or under-estimate their deal sizes, sandbag opportunities or stuff just any questionable deal into the pipeline just to get managers off their back. All this leads to inflated pipelines and inaccurate forecasting.

This means manager can’t always have confidence in their ability to predict growth or revenue.

This makes pipeline review calls a pain, and unfortunately there’s no manual on how to do pipeline management.

The XANT team has been working on a blueprint on how sales leaders can run a pipeline review call without dealing with most of the problems of traditional sales forecasting.

Learn the Secrets of Running a Perfect Pipeline Review Call

Aaron Janmohamed, head of product marketing for XANT, and Scott Smith, principal product manager,  will explain how you can avoid most of the headaches of pipeline review calls. Join the webinar from XANT to learn:

• How predictive sales software can help increase forecasting accuracy by 30%
• What sales managers really need to make their pipeline review calls more efficient
• The 5 secrets of forecasting a sales leader must know

But experienced salespeople have their own ways of generating sales pipeline without needing a marketer’s help.

We asked sales leaders about strategies for building pipeline without marketing, and here’s what we got.

Rely On Your Current Customer Base

Your current customer base is usually low-hanging fruit when it comes to building pipeline, told us Mike Schultz, president of RAIN Group sales training. When it comes to building the pipeline, 51 percent of sellers revealed that making phone calls to existing customers/accounts was highly effective, said Mike Schultz, quoting the Top Performance in Sales Prospecting research.

“Reaching out to your current clients works well because you’ve already developed a relationship and established trust with them. Thirty-seven percent of sales reps shared that making phone calls to prior customers/accounts was also very/extremely effective,” added Mike.

Make Sure Your Data is Clean

Good leads come from good data, as both sales reps and marketers know. Make sure your database is accurate and information is up-to-date. This gives sales development reps a higher chance of contacting and qualifying leads. At Jellyvision, the employee communication platform, they aim for having 70 percent of lead gen needs covered by the sales development team.

“In terms of successful BDR and AE lead and sales meeting generation, nothing is more important than accurate data and a deep consideration for AE:BDR alignment as it points back to your overarching strategy. We also deeply subscribe to the cadence approach and harness sales automation to maximize BDR/AE efficiency,” said Jessica Hay, VP of Sales at Jellyvision.

Speaking at Events and Tradeshows

Events are a boon for salespeople, because they can share their knowledge in the industry to a new audience (making new connections), or simply speak to their current target audience. This, of course, provided you have the list of event attendees and it’s the right type of customer.

“Thirty-two percent of sellers claim that an effective tactic is ‘presenting/speaking at conferences, seminars, or trade shows.’ If you’re planning to speak at an upcoming event, get a head start and reach out to the event organizers to obtain attendee lists so you can begin doing your research and determine who you want to connect with at the event,” said Mike Schultz.

Networking to Find New Clients

Networking is the age-old advice for anyone looking for a new professional role. But it can work just as well for salespeople. Keep making new contacts, and being friendly to everyone you meet– you never know who your next customer will be.

“You can network via social media or during business functions. Talk to other people, not just about how they can help you, but also about how you can help them – that is the best way to attract customers,” said Nate Masterson, marketing manager for Maple Holistics.

Aside from networking, Nate advises salespeople to not shy away from using tools that are traditionally in a marketer’s arsenal: creating content that will interest your target audience is a top tactic.

Old Leads Are The New Black

Old leads are just that– old leads, right? Not quite. Prospects will say they don’t have enough budget, or they work with a competitor, or give you some other reason they are not ready to buy. But that may change in three or six months. So make sure to keep notes on your conversations and revisit all of your leads after some time, to see if anything has changed.

“You likely have years of information on individuals who ran into budget issues, delayed decisions, or even hired a competitor. Now, months or even years later, departments may have allocated bigger budgets, industry dynamics may have changed, and competitors may not have lived up to expectations. This is a great time to reconnect and reengage with them,” said Mike Schultz.

Get Customer Referrals

Customer referrals are a great way to show your product or service works. This is why you should permanently be collecting them like your most precious trophies. A customer referral always works better than tooting your own horn. It comes from someone who has actually tried the goods.

“When you are looking for a new service or product, what is the first thing you do today? Read reviews, or ask friends for referrals. Customer referrals are by far the most powerful, yet underutilized marketing method. Since we trained and implemented a referral program this year, our sales are up 27%, and our close rate is up 40%,” said Ian McClarty, CEO and President of PhoenixNAP.

While many referrals will be organic, do not be afraid to reach out to customers and ask them if they would recommend you, he added. Referrals also have a much higher closing rate than other leads, he said.

“Directly ask your customers if they know one or two people with the same needs which could benefit from your services? If each client tells five people about our service, and then those companies tell other companies, then you see exponential sales growth potential. In turning each customer into a referral, it is like having an unofficial salesperson without that expensive salary,” added Ian.

Give Customer Referrals

And while receiving customer referrals will help greatly, do not discount the idea of giving a referral whenever you have the chance. Giving back is always a good strategy to raise your sales karma.

“If you want to get referrals, you should also give referrals. It is a two-way street. This is what I call the ‘referral mindset.’ Assist your contacts and grow their businesses by connecting them with people in your network, and they will return the favor,” added Ian McClarty.

Want to know what sales pros are doing to nearly double their pipeline? 

Join the Sales Leadership Conference, the virtual event where sales leaders learn from their peers.

Recent research from XANT, “State of Sales Development 2017″, gives us a glimpse into the life of a Sales Development Rep with a few statistics.

Sales development reps have an average of 14.1 meaningful conversations a day. They set an average of 23.1 appointments per month, send about 36 emails per day, make 35 phone calls and send about 15 voicemails per day.

You can read the executive summary of the study that included over 900 companies here.

We caught up to a real sales development champion, Jonathan Dyer, to discuss the findings of the report and get some insights beyond the numbers.

Jonathan Dyer, Outbound Sales Development

Jon is constantly at the top of the rankings at XANT, by setting the most appointments and building qualified pipeline. Here’s what he told us.

There are about 670k sales development reps in the United States, but few are constrained to either an outbound or inbound sales role. About 54 percent of sales development reps are a combination of both. Tell me a bit about what you do at XANT, Jon.

I’m an outbound sales representative. Outbound sales are sales reps who connect with new prospects. These are potential customers that have not had any contact with the company.

We don’t work blindly with leads, though. We first do some research into that lead’s title, job, what their needs and pain points might be, or their social media activity.

Of course, there is a balance here and you don’t need to spend too much time on research – but it certainly helps kick-start the dialogue.

So, you’re cold calling a lot. How do you feel about that?

The outbound sales role is a unique position. Cold calling teaches you a lot about the art of conversation.  I feel like the skills learned in this position I will use for the rest of my life, especially if I stay in a sales role.

It’s not an easy job. Sometimes it can be intense. You’re talking to dozens of executives per day – most of them at Vice President or Senior Vice President level. They have been in the industry for a long time. You don’t know them at all, sometimes you don’t have anything to refer to.

But it’s really rewarding. I enjoy my job, I like doing it. It develops an extremely important skillset, that will be useful in any sales role.

What’s the one thing you love the most about your job?

When you are reaching out to people you’ve never met before, the best feeling is when you find their pain point – a problem that you can solve for them.

The goal for us is to find what their pain points are – and see if it aligns with how we can help them. If we can get through to them and have a good conversation, we can set an appointment for our field reps. That’s the best feeling and my favorite part.

Also, just being with a group of guys that are doing the same thing. I think we have a good culture here, coming to work is fun and you really feel like you belong to a good team.

The State of SDR study revealed that sales development reps have a mix of base and variable earnings. It was about a 60/40 split with 59.7% for the base and 40.3% for the variable. How do you feel about the variable income part of the job? If you’re honest about this, does it help you or does it stress you out?

I am a big fan of the variable income. It drives performance, it motivates me. I have a goal in mind that I need to hit, and that makes me push harder every day.

I don’t see a lot of people being uncomfortable with the variable. Knowing that they’re coming into a sales role, then they expect variable income and that they are going to have to hit a quota.

This is where we get to the pain point, the quota. Companies report only a 63.5% average quota attainment for sales development representatives. What do you think is preventing them from achieving quota, and how can they do better?

It’s a balance of both working smart and overall effort – these are the two things that matter most. Your skill on the phone is important, but it comes in second to the effort that you put in. It’s always been that way, and it will always be.

The people who genuinely love their job, they are the ones that put in the most effort, and you’ll find them here in the trenches day in and day out.

They are self-motivated and they want to advance their careers. They are the ones who will have the best results overall. It’s the passion for sales which leads to results.

How do you think technology plays in here? What systems are you using that help you get the job done and hit your quota?

Technology helps a lot. That’s the part about working smart. You need a good sales technology stack in place so you can be more efficient. An automated process helps you get to your goals faster, and you stop wasting time doing things manually.

Once you have the tech stack in place, it’s just an effort game to get to your quota.

I know at XANT you use a lot of tools that make your job easier. Which of these tools is your favorite, or helps you the most in your profession?

We are very lucky here at XANT, because we have a lot of different tools – we have Sales Navigator, ZoomInfo, Salesforce. We have our own technology – Playbooks and it makes things a lot easier from a lead management perspective.

My favorite tool is Salesforce. I utilize Salesforce the most, it offers total transparency into everything you do.

That being said, I don’t know how much I would love Salesforce if I didn’t have Playbooks. Playbooks gives me so much more information that I wouldn’t have if I just utilized Salesforce.

The combination of tracking tools – emails, calls, history of every lead’s touches – with the AI-generated NeuralScore, which shows you which leads are more likely to close, it’s a real winner. It really does help my game a lot.

What are some of the challenges you have in sales development every day?

It’s very important to have alignment between business development (or sales development) and sales executives (or the field reps) – especially when these two sales departments work separately, or they are in different regions.

The sales development reps who have a good relationship with account executives are doing better and getting more pipeline than the ones who are disconnected from their closers.

We need to work together as a team and understand that we have the same goal, and that is finding a customer’s need and ultimately closing the deal.

Well, OK, I was expecting that you would tell me about rude customers here, I guess you get a lot of that. What’s the rudest thing a customer has ever said to you, and how do you deal with it?

Of course, people will tell you to F* off on occasion. It doesn’t happen all the time. You’ll get the one guy who has received way too many phone calls that just is way too angry. He just will tell you off. You need to brush that off, that’s going to happen.

You need to have patience, resilience. And the ability to just look past it and just realize that he might’ve just had a bad day, you don’t need to take offense.

The worst customer is not the one who just tells you “No” right off the bat. The worst customer, by far, is the one with which you have a good phone call or a couple of meetings, and then just goes cold. They disappear.

Those are more frustrating than people who just turn you down, because they’re leading you on and that’s painful. It’s a time waster.

So, what’s the best type of customer you can have, as a business development rep? Obviously, you want them to get an appointment and eventually close a deal, but is there something more here?

Absolutely. It’s when you’re talking to a guy who’s not too happy to talk to you at first, but you can turn the conversation around. You can find pain points and have him open up about what he needs to improve in his business. When you can make him realize that his team needs something like the platform that you’re offering. And that eventually becomes a closed deal.

It’s not the ones that just come in and request a demo and already know what they want, not at all.

It’s the ones you must work for – those are the best customers you can have.

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

• Why Europe is more productive than the US
• Why Europe is appears to have better skilled sales people than the US
• What companies need to think about when setting a global sales organization

Links and Resources Related to This Episode:

• How Reviews Can Change the Sales Game w/Derek Levine @Trust Radius
• How Working Out Collegiate Basketball Players Taught Me To Develop Top Sales Talent w/Jake Larsen @Weave
• The Secret to Data and List Services w/Jake Shaffren @DiscoverOrg

Subscribe to the Playmaker Podcast here:

Many sales people find themselves on an island. They run their business with little support and little interference from the corporate office. This can be a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is that sales reps are empowered to do what they need for their territories but the bad thing is, they often overlook critical elements that would make their lives a lot easier. One of those things is the power of story telling, especially from the eyes of customers. Stories help prospects see how transformational products and services can help change their lives and when these stories are told from real people who experience real results, the impact can be lasting. Sadly, most organizations don’t see this and most sales reps can’t do it on their own. Great customer stories therefore never get shared and never are fully utilized. In this episode, James O’Gara, CEO and Founder of OnMessage and StoryDimensions, talks about the importance of stories and how organizations should start thinking about building and sharing important customer stories.

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

• How to build impact stories
• The power of stories and why your organization should care
• The importance of sharing stories so sales reps can be successful

Links and Resources Related in This Episode:

• Story Dimensions
• 117: How Many Deals Are You Missing Out On Right Now
• XANT Labs

Subscribe to the Playmaker podcast here:

Jeb Blount was a speaker at the XANT Sales Acceleration Summit and he spoke on the Playmakers Podcast, in episode 45: “How to be a Fanatical Prospector.”  You can hear the podcast below:

The Myth That Cold Calling is Dead

Cold calling is dead, proclaim some. However, thousands of top salespeople use the phone daily to successfully qualify prospects, set appointments and open sales conversations. The cold call itself is changing and morphing into a diverse mix of sales and marketing activities. But for Jeb Blount, the myth that the phone doesn’t work because people don’t answer the phone anymore is just that – a myth.

“You’re getting the information about the phone not working from the same people you say won’t make calls. […] If you lack the managerial courage to sit in on phone blocks, to coach your people and to hold your people accountable for results, your people will snow you into believing that the phone doesn’t work,” said Jeb, during the Playmakers podcast.

Statistics show between 15% – 80% contact rates on the phone depending on industry, product and the role level of the contact, says Jeb. Regardless of industry, engagement rates when using the phone are higher than response rates on email – and light years higher than those social selling.

Read More: The Lies Your Sales Team is Telling You About Their Sales Cadence

Prospects Are Answering the Phone MORE, Not Less

Statistics offer even better news for salespeople, shows Jeb – prospects are actually answering the phone MORE, not less. Research on phone prospecting going back to the early 90’s show that there is a clear trend in rising contact rates via the phone – they are now around 5% higher.

“We don’t know the exact reason why more props are answering their phones more, but we suspect there are three drivers of this. First, phones are anchored to people, not desks. It’s common for prospects to answer their mobile phone when you call them. This is either because mobile line is their only line, or because their office line rolls over to their mobile phone,” says Jeb.

“Number two, no one is calling. So much sales communication has shifted to email and social inboxes. Phones are not ringing nearly as much as they did in the past. Those sales people who are calling are standing out in the crowd and getting through”, he adds.

“And finally, prospects are burned out by impersonal irrelevant and automated prospecting emails. The fact is that your prospect’s email and social inboxes are getting flooded with spam. Prospects are hungry for something different – a live, authentic, human being,” he explains.

The 5-Step Process for a Perfect Sales Prospecting Call

The simple prospecting call is sometimes over-complicated by sales reps, shows Jeb. He advises using a simple 5-step framework for creating the perfect prospecting call, detailed below:

1. Use the prospect’s name to get their attention
2. Introduce yourself and tell them why you are calling (what you need)
3. Give them a reason why they should give you more of their time
4. Ask for what you need and then offer them the opportunity to respond.

The 5-step framework makes you agile and adaptive because you can leverage it in different situations. This way, you have more time to focus on the message rather than rethinking your process each time.

You need a consistent and repeatable process, that doesn’t sound like a script and focuses on the prospect’s needs and is respectful of their time.

Read More: Best Lead Generation Methods for Creating Pipeline

Example of a Telephone Prospecting Call Script

Here’s an example of a telephone prospecting call script, as given by Jeb Blount in the Playmakers podcast:

“Hi Ian,

This is Jeb with Acme Kitchen Supplies.

The reason I am calling is because I read in the paper you are building a restaurant over on the 44 bypass. I wanted to learn more about your process for purchasing kitchen equipment supplies.

I know I am calling early in the game. However, I found that when we get our design team working with your team before you make critical decisions about kitchen layout, you’ll have more options in layout. You can often save a ton of money in construction costs and future labor costs with a more efficient and streamlined kitchen.

Can you tell me how you make those decisions and when selection process will begin?”

Secrets of Telephone Prospecting

Having a script is just one part of the ecuation. Jeb Blount further offers some phone prospecting tips and tricks that are sure to make your execution perfect, increasing your chances for a positive response from your prospect.

1. Make Your Call Quick and to the Point

When you pick up the phone and call a prospect – cold, hot, follow up, referral, inbound lead and even a customer – and they are not expecting your call – you are an interruption in their day, shows Jeb.

Prospects who are interrupted will want the caller to get right to the point and get off the phone quickly.

“Think about your prospects, because they are people just like you. Your goal is to make the call quick and to the point so that you can achieve your objective and they can back to what they were doing,” shows Jeb.

“With shorter, more impactful calls, you make more dials during your phone blocks and have better conversations with prospects,” he adds.

2. Don’t Pause During the Conversation

There are no pauses during the prospecting conversation, shows Jeb. The moment you pause, you lose control of the call.

“As soon as my prospect answers the phone I walk through the five-step framework without stopping. The goal is to respect their time by getting to the point and get an answer: yes, no or maybe – fast,” shows Jeb.

If you pause, ask them how they are doing or leave any awkward silences, the instinct to hang up the phone or give you objections kicks in, he adds.

3. Be Transparent with Your Prospect

Telling your prospect who you are and why you called is a powerful tool to bring down their defences, shows Jeb. The transparency has two benefits: it shows you are a professional and you have respect for your prospect’s time.

“By telling them why you are calling, you reduce their stress. People are more comfortable when they know what to expect. One thing I know about prospects – they don’t want to be tricked, manipulated, or interrupted. They want to be treated with respect. And the best way to show respect is to be truthful, relevant and to the point,” explains Jeb.

4. Give Your Prospect a Reason They Need You

During step four of the prospecting telephone call, we need to give our prospect a reason why they should continue the conversation. Think about the obvious benefits of your solution and how it applies to that particular prospect.

Prospects don’t care much about products, services or anything else the salesperson is interested in. So, it’s a good idea to have your message pinned down before making the call, shows Jeb.

“Message matters. What you say and how you say it will generate resistance or it will pull the wall down and open the door to a “yes”. So a voice saying things like “I want talk to you about my product“ or “I’d love to get together to show you what we have to offer” or “ I want to tell you about our service “, these statements are all about you and the words talk tell and show send a subtle message that what you really want to do is pitch,” shows Jeb Blount.

5. Use Words That Convey Powerful Emotions

A short compelling message that connects emotionally with what is important to your prospect goes a long way, adds the sales expert.

“Use phrases and emotional words like: “learn more about you and your business”, “share some insights that have helped my other clients”, “share some best practices that other companies in your industry are using”, “gain an understanding of your unique situation”, “see how we might fit”. Use words like “flexibility”, “options”, “piece of mind”, “save”, “frustrated”, “concerned”, “stressed”, “waste”, “time”, “money”. These statements and words are all about them. Prospects want to feel that you get them and their problems,” adds Jeb Blount.

He adds that the most effective way to craft the right message is to simply stand in your prospect’s shoes. You need to use empathy to sense their emotions and consider what might be important to them.

6. Give Your Prospect the Opportunity to Respond

The most important step in the telephone prospecting call is asking for what you want, shows Jeb. It is crucial to allow your prospect to respond, if you want to have a successful call.

“The single biggest mistake that salespeople make on prospecting calls is they keep talking, instead of giving their prospect the opportunity to respond to their request. This increases resistance, creates objections and gives your prospect an easy way out. So, shut up and let your prospect respond,” advises Jeb.

Read More: Phone Prospecting vs Cold Calling – What’s Best?

Phone Prospecting versus Email, Voicemail or Social Selling

Sales representatives who ignore the phone deliver mediocre results and they cheat themselves out of cold, hard cash, says the CEO of Sales Gravy. However, he opts for balance when it comes to communication channels. He advises anyone to use all of them, to increase the chance of fast pipeline generation.

“I believe in a balanced prospecting methodology, in which you are leveraging all prospecting channels: email, phone and social selling, text, networking, chat, networking, in person prospecting and the phone. By balancing your prospecting across all channels, you give yourself the best statistical chance to keep your pipeline full of qualified prospects,” says Jeb.

The phone is more effective than email, social and text. When you are speaking to another human being there is a higher probability that you will set appointments, gather pertinent qualifying information or move to directly to a sales conversation that will potentially close the deal, adds Jeb.

“The telephone has always been, is and will continue to be the most powerful sale prospecting tool. […] There is no other tool that will deliver better results, fill your pipeline faster and help you cover more ground in less time than the phone,” concludes Jeb.

Sales departments are constantly lagging when it comes to forecasting, shows Gabe. “Most of us are flipping a coin when it comes to our sales forecast strategies,” says Gabe. Industry research shows that 79% of sales organisations miss their forecasts by more than 10%.

Why Is Sales Forecasting So Difficult?

So why is forecasting sales such a difficult task? One reason is its complexity, shows Gabe Larsen. Sales forecasting includes all the factors that influence whether a deal will close or not. The other reason is limitations of the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.

“The problem is a lot of people try to do forecasting inherently in CRMs. This is a multi-tool framework that goes about this deep in 150 areas. They lack a lot of the things they want to do around forecasting. They lack the system and the capability so that they end up maybe doing a lot on the side and it gets a little bit messy,” explains Gabe. “Specific forecasting tools are more like a chef’s knife. They’re designed for a specific tool and they’re going to do one thing 150 feet deep. This is one thing I find is often a problem,” he adds.

Sales Forecasting, Done the Right Way

Gabe Larsen advocates for a model based on discipline and flawless execution, when creating a sales forecasting strategy. Here are the action items you should have on your list for a winning sales forecasting strategy:

1. Define sales stages
2. Determine stage probability
3. Build forecast categories
4. Use predictive forecasting
5. Establish a forecast cadence
6. Know what you’re measuring

He uses a few stages for creating this strategy, and optimizes based on company goals and specific factors that influence sales. These may be target audience, deal sizes or customer journey:

1. Understanding the model: transactional vs relationship selling
2. Create descriptions, milestones and outcomes
3. Ensure stages cover the entire customer journey
4. Define distinct sales stages

Transactional vs Relationship Selling

Whether the company uses transactional vs relationship selling is important for the sales forecast, as it influences building sales stages, shows Gabe Larsen.  The transactional selling model focuses on achieving quick sales. The rep will not have a deliberate attempt to form a long-term relationship with the customer. Relationship selling is about sales striving to develop a relationship with them first, and then try to close the sale.

“A lot of companies obviously want to move up stream. They want bigger deals. We all want bigger deals. The problem with moving up stream is that it’s going to be a relational selling model. It will be bigger deal sizes, longer sales cycles. Whether you like it or not, it is probably going to be a different business model than your high velocity [sales],” shows Gabe Larsen.

He recognizes that many companies try to use both models in their strategy, however they are not always successful. “Better companies are recognizing that they are very different and they have a completely different go to market strategy for their transactional business, different marketing, [they are] different sales plays,” adds the InsideSales VP.

Create Descriptions, Milestones and Outcomes

Creating milestones and outcomes you are expecting during the sales process is a crucial step in the sales forecasting strategy, shows Gabe. He recommends taking the time to build this document to understand how to optimize the process. Some of the sales stages might be (each can have its own different milestones, outcomes and description):

• Planning
• Opportunity Qualification
• Opportunity Strategy
• Executive Sponsorship
• Solution development
• Solution confirmation
• Closing

The milestones will help you progress each deal from one stage to the next. It will also give an accurate view of how much time sales reps spend on each of these steps.

“A lot of people actually take this to the next level and build some of these concepts into CRM to help people really be able to manage this more effectively. I’m a big proponent of systematizing it but I think the first step is really getting it down on paper in a way that allows people to know different sales stages are,” said Gabe Larsen, during the webinar.

The Probability That Your Deals Will Close

Successful sales forecasting has a lot to do with probability. Probability is the likelihood that a deal will close or move something into a closed state. To determine probability, you might use the following processes:

1. Have rep subjectively assign probability
2. Default a probability by stage
3. Run reports to determine probability by stage

Often, companies will use a default probability for their industry – or one built into their CRM, shows Gabe Larsen. He adds that he doesn’t recommend the first strategy: subjectively assigning probability. However, intelligent companies will use reports to determine probability by stage.

“You really want to get to that point where you’re starting to run some reports to be able to determine what the probability is by stage. […] This method is easily understood and depending on how you use your probabilities, it’s objective. There is no management call, […] a lot of the emotion is taken out of it,” said Gave Larsen.

One point of caution would be: probability must consider sales cycle length, he adds.

Building Forecasting Categories

Each organization will build different forecasting categories based on its goals, says Gabe Larsen. However, it is a crucial step of sales forecasting.

“You can just be completely subjective here and allow sales managers, sales reps, etc. to define forecast categories. A lot of organizations will actually bucket them into these different sales stages,” says Gabe. He adds that each company will have different verbiage (they may call their categories ‘pipeline’, ‘commit’, ‘upside’ or other).

Pipeline = a newly created opportunity that is not likely to close this quarter;

Best Case = identifies opportunities that are not guaranteed to close this quarter. They may close if everything goes as planned;

Commit = these are opportunities that are going to close this quarter;

Closed = you have received an order and closed an opportunity.

Using Predictive Forecasting

Predictive forecasting will take some of the subjectivity out of the sales forecasting process.  Predictive forecasting tools will look at the variables which influence results (predictors), to forecast outcomes for your sales results. The process uses data mining and probability to create a statistical model.

[Predictive forecast] looks at historical conversion rates. What’s winning percentage of similar opportunities that have been like this in the past? It’s going to look at current sales pipeline and number of opportunities in the time frame. It will also consider other variables: average deal size, time, engagement, the number of times something has been shifted. All of this data driven sales forecast rolls up into predictive forecast. This is going to make your sales forecast substantially a lot tighter than the intuition of reps,” explains Gabe Larsen.

Predictive forecast tools will account for these variables and help you get a more accurate number on sales forecasting. They will consider, for example, the commit risk. When a deal has shifted its close date three or four times, this reduces the probability to close and constitutes a commit risk.

“The predictive forecast gets you a truer number and it then becomes very effective at helping reps get closer to their number. […] Once we have sales stages identified, it helps show how effectively are people moving through them,” shows Gabe.  Moreover, predictive forecasting tools will flag any slowdown of the sales cycle.

“Predictive forecasting is best utilized when you have larger, complex deal sizes than transactional one call closes,” added the InsideSales VP.

Sales Forecasting With XANT

If you’d like to learn more about creating a winning sales forecasting strategy, watch the webinar with Gabe Larsen: “Building a Forecasting Strategy that Works.”