Find out why sales is a numbers game and why using a daily phone cold call lead activity tracker and prospect management system such as a team goal tracking spreadsheet or calendar is vital to success.
Ever found yourself staring at the phone, unable to pick it up to make some
prospecting calls?Ever convinced yourself that you must research a company’s website first, pour through their social media posts until you have the golden nugget that will get someone to speak with you?Ever ended the month below your sales quota?Guess what? These two things: resistance (fear) of picking up the phone and cold calling, and not making your sales goals are 100% related!I know this is going to sound “old-school” (and it is), but it’s also completely true:
Sales is still a numbers game. The more calls you make = the more people you speak with = the more qualified sales prospects you meet = the more sales you make.Period.I work with hundreds of sales reps and teams every year, and I’ll tell you right now, call reluctance seems to be getting worse. So many sales reps are scared these days of actually getting on the phone with someone if they don’t know everything about them first. It paralyzes them to the point of making just a handful of calls per day. In fact, they think that if they make 25 “well-targeted” calls a day, then that’s a good day…But ask yourself this: How many of those calls result in you actually getting through to the decision maker? And how many of those contacts result in qualified leads that turn into a sales presentation?If you’re like most of the sales reps out there, the answer is: Not many.And how many of those so-called leads actually turn into a sale? In other words, what is your closing rate?Hate to break it to you, and you can compare your own results, but he national average is 2 sales out of 10 presentations. And if you then divide the number of sales needed to make your numbers, you will probably realize that you need A LOT more presentations, don’t you?Related:
The Sale Is Always in the Follow UpAnd this leads back to number of phone calls…So how do you overcome this fear of making more calls? The answer is simple: Just recognize that about 8 out of 10 people you actually get to speak to aren’t going to end up being a sale.In other words,
most of the people you finally reach aren’t going to result in a qualified lead!And that’s okay! Expect it! The saying you need to turn into your mantra is:
“Some will, some won’t, who’s next?”As soon as you adopt this attitude, cold calling becomes much easier.I often teach that qualifying is more about disqualifying than it is about qualifying. Your job when you cold call, prospect, (whatever you want to call it) is to find, reach, and disqualify as many leads as you can—as quickly as you can—so you can move on to and find the real buyers (who are few and far between).
And this brings us back to: Sales is a numbers game.
So, do yourself a favor and stop spending hours of your precious time every single day searching through social media looking for the Golden Goose. And stop thinking that if you found just the right email or voice mail message then you’ll finally get buyers to call you back…Instead, your goal should be hundreds of actual dials—cold calls, warm calls, prospecting calls, again, I don’t care what term you use—each and every week.Keep track of those calls on an hourly basis and
record: 1) How many dials did you make per hour? 2) How many decision makers did you reach per hour? 3) How many qualified leads did you get per hour?These are the stats that are going to make a difference in your sales results and success.And if you’re a manager or business owner, these are the metrics that YOU should be measuring and studying each and every day as well.Remember: the thing that hasn’t changed in sales—and isn’t going to change—is that sales is still a numbers game.And remember: Some will, some won’t, who’s next?So, how many calls are you going to make today?
