cold calling tracking sheet

How about the industry the client is in?

Complicated!

Organize your sheets by niche, and all you need is:

* Company name

* Contact name

* Phone #

* Next contact date

* Notes.

Your Notes cell will contain website, customer conversation records, next step etc. Alt+Enter for new line in the cell. It is better to have one fat file than a bunch of skinny ones, and risk misfiling.

Conditional format your Next contact date column so that it highlights today's activities (highlight cell rules > equals > today() > red; I'm sure you can figure out others).

Now you can scan down the list and see today's callbacks to be made.

Keep it simple, spreadsheetuser.

This is good, but remember to also remind them not to spend TOOO much time between calls taking notes or it will kill your sessions momentum.

Not every call is worth taking notes on... tracking is excellent, just as long as you dont spend two thirds of your session making notes instead of selling... Just take notes on calls that are truly noteworthy, not every call.

On another note. a predictive dialer will take 90% of your notes FOR you, by the way you disposition the call, and it will record all your stats from every conceivable angle, if tracking is a priority for you.

Then you give all your energy to selling, very little to tracking, and at the end of the day you just print out your stats and look at them.

If I am dialing manually, using a phone book or printed list... I just make a quick note beside each listing

N/A- No Answer
N/I- Not interested (Doesnt matter why).
LM- Left Message
CB- Call Back
CB with a Star- "Good" call back
WC- "Will call" - For those who said they will call.
WC With Star = I really "believe" they will call, and if not its worth a call back.
Sale- For Sale, and I might highlight it in yellow.
DC- Disconnected
AM-Got answering machine

I only take notes on calls that are highly noteworthy.

On that "Note":

Its important to fly from call to call and not lose momentum. An average note shouldnt take 2 seconds to jot down- LITERALLY, and time between dials shouldn't be more than 3-5 seconds unless you are pitching- LITERALLY.

A HUGE mistake people make is they intellectualize about each call, more than they actually dial and move toward the prize. Most calls just arent that noteworthy.

As far as counting dials, at the end of your session its easy enough to count the listings you called....also you can just print out 200 numbers...call them all, and you know you made approximately 200 dials.

As far as call sheets:

If using a dialer, it takes all your notes for you, but if dialing manually, instead of fiddling with an excel sheet, I find its better to print it out and just scribble a quick initial beside each listing. No time to play.

It's less cumbersome to use a pen than to fiddle with a mouse and scrolling around... IMO

-John

If you are referring to creating these sheets simply as a tool. I use what I call "COPAS Sheets" which is an acronym for:

Calls - Any Live Answer
Owners - Any Connection with Decision Maker
Price - When the Decision Maker asks "How Much?" This is a sign of interest.
Appointments - Every Qualified Appointment that is set
Sales - Every time a sale is made

Just make a tic mark under each category. This is not intended for specific call info rather you will be able to look at the numbers very easily. In order for this tool to be effective you will need to learn how to compare each category against the next category. So it goes something like this:

Calls to Owner Ratio - If your caller reaches a lot of live pick-ups but gets very few decision makers then it usually means that he/she needs to hone their skills (or change what is said in the intro) to get past the gatekeepers. If the number is low there are not enough calls being made.

Owners to Price Ratio - If the caller is getting a good number of decision makers but very few Prices (Asking "How Much?") this means that the caller is not getting the prospect interested. If getting a lot of Price Tics then he/she is piquing the prospects interest enough to ask "How Much?"

Price to Appointment Ratio - If your caller is getting a lot of Price Tics but very few appointments then he/she needs to learn how to become more effective at closing on the appointment.

Appointment to Sales Ratio - This is the most obvious and it the number that most look at. Most refer to this as your "closing ratio."

I've attached a "COPAS" Sheet for anyone interested in using this tool.

Sorry Jason I added to my post after you quoted me, I thought it was important enough to go back and perfect... But yeah, we agree. Dont spend all your "call" time, fiddling with notes. Some calls are noteworthy, but many spend two minutes note taking for ever minute they spend dialing... might as well rename it a "note taking" session.

Like Kenny Rogers says "You never count your money, while yer sitting at the table...they'll be time enough for countin when the dealins done"

Listen to Kenny, he'll set ya straight! lol

Some good tips. I use a power dialer (love it!) so the contact management is not as easy as doing it other ways. But the most important thing is to learn the word "next". Keep calling!