My prospecting journey

After you've said the reason for your call, continue with: "Say, before we go any further, I usually find two kinds of people this time of year. The first is pretty much checked-out on holiday, and won't be doing a thing until January. The second is still hard at work, 'business as usual'. Which type are you?"

And let them qualify themselves into or out of a conversation with you right now.

Spend your energy on those who want to talk to you.

The others you can call back in January.

But sort fast.

Make more calls and make them faster. Had you just done it like a regular job, you would have generated several appointments a day, just with the averages you've shared.

And guess what? You get better. Eventually, one in six people you talk to will set up an appointment, and half of them will buy.


Really, pretty encouraging results.

106 cold calls over ~14 or so working days?

Most full time TMs go thru that in half a day.

"In regards to the number of calls real TMs make a day, even when I get to a point where I am more consistant with my calls, I doubt I'll be able to hit anything more than 100 calls per day as I don't use an autodialer and I'm investigating my prospects and finding their number all at the same time."

~ If you want to contact more, you can outsource someone to do the research and data entry the contacts and contact info into a speadsheet that you can load into an auto dialer.
Neither of these is expensive relative to the value of your time and you will find that with the dialer, you don't have such call reluctance because the call is already being made.
You'll get better faster and you'll get much better results. The law of large numbers and the fact that you improve with repetition and practice. You hear what seems to get the response you are seeking, monitor the results, adjust your delivery, monitor your results, repeat and improve. You have a base line of results now - simply spin the wheel faster and improve on that base line. Press On - you've already gotten past the hardest part and that is beginning. Make it a game between now and Jan 1. Resign that many are not responsive right now and challenge yourself to see how many appointments you can get this coming week. Good luck.

Hi Mindtech,

Great that you are holding yourself accountable, prospecting can be one of the biggest hurdles for many. I am just wondering if you might want to focus on getting more qualified leads so the prospect of calling cold leads doesn't seem so daunting.

You might get a better conversion rate and that will start to make you feel more confident about phoning people. What are you trying to sell?

Where are you getting your current list from?

Thanks for throwing this out there for everyone to view. The numbers seem pretty low especially with 1 in 10 who were interested in the pitch actually setting an appointment. This could be a problem with where you are getting your leads or it could be an issue with the pitch itself. Is this typical for this particular pitch? Or lower than normal due to the holidays?

Congrats, for making 8 calls a day! Cold calling, is a numbers game, the more you call, the more chances you have at getting appointments. Try to scale up those calls to at least 50-100 calls a day. You are taking action and that is the most important thing.....

Its been a while since I've posted my numbers (just plum forgot about this thread), but here I go:

February 4, 2014 Cold calls

Calls Made: 60
Contacts With Decision Makers: 22 (36%)
Decision Makers Interested In My Pitch: 2 (3%)
Appointments Set: 0 (0%)

Notes:

Today was a day where I heard more beeps from machines than I did actual voices. I started at 10:00am and ended at 3:30pm

Its kind of frustrating when your not using an autodialer and you waste a lot of time getting voicemail greetings or just no pickup

Of the two who expressed interest, one likes the idea but needs to speak with his wife and requesting an email with more info. The second wants to meet and asked me to email him some dates as he needs to check his calendar. Are they blowing me off? We'll see.

February 5, 2014 Cold calls

Calls Made: 23
Contacts With Decision Makers: 12 (52%)
Decision Makers Interested In My Pitch: 2 (8%)
Appointments Set: 2 (8%)

Notes:

For a short day, it was quite productive. Was able to get two meetings booked. I will attribute the higher percentage number of contacts to weather. Where I am, there was so much snow, that it was difficult to get around and people were being told to stay off the roads until the storm was over. In my opinion forced people to be at their desks and resulted in more pickups and pitches.

February 6, 2014 Cold calls

Calls Made: 50
Contacts With Decision Makers: 11 (22%)
Decision Makers Interested In My Pitch: 3 (6%)
Appointments Set: 2 (4%)

Notes:

No snow today... less percentage of calls were picked up. Wishing there was more snow coming....

I think this is one of the better posts on this forum.

1. I hear ya on the procrastination, you're going to be your own worst enemy so try to get in a routine EVERY day. Just make lead gen part of your every day routine.

2. Call back EVERY person who pushed back the meeting until Jan... Now Feb lol. I always like to make it seem like I finally had the time to get back to them and I'm filling up the few remaining positions available to take on new clients. If others want you, they will automatically want you too.

February 10, 2014 Cold calls

Calls Made: 42
Contacts With Decision Makers: 17 (40%)
Decision Makers Interested In My Pitch: 6 (14%)
Appointments Set: 4 (9%)

Notes:

Despite 60% of my calls going answered, I was very impressed that I got 4 of the 17 people I spoke with to agree to making appointments. Both my pitch and tonality have greatly improved throughout the 184 calls i've made this month