Sales Chump

Most sales positions require cold calls.  Whether it is to set up appointments where the sales rep visits prospects or where the sales rep tries to get more prospects to visit them; it is a necessary practice to stay successful. 

Most sales managers and sales reps focus on the total amount of cold calls per day.  This is generally because they know how many calls it will take to make X amount of sales.  This can get very tiring and a lot of reps get defeated when starting each day with such a big number of calls to make.

Instead of looking at total cold calls, try focusing on total prospects each day.  A prospect is someone that can be closed (whether it be via call, visit to prospect or visit by prospect) in the next 30-60 days depending on your industry.  This varies on each industry but typically it will take 100 calls to get 3-5 prospects.

So instead of 100 cold calls a day, a rep can focus on 4 prospects a day instead.  This not only has a positive effect psychologically on the sales rep it also puts an emphasis on quality over quantity.  Most likely a rep will make him or herself get better at each call so they don’t have to make 100.  After using this practice for a few weeks, the reps ratio will probably get better and be 75 cold calls to get 4 prospects.  After a few more weeks it may further reduce to 50 cold calls to get 4 prospects.  It will level off at some point but the ratio of cold calls to prospects almost always gets better.  This will either relieve the sales rep of stress or allow the rep to make more calls to be more successful.

Try focusing on prospects instead of gross number of cold calls daily and watch your sanity and success improve.

Selling around the holidays can be a hard proposition.  A lot of people ake off time during November and December and can be very hard to track down.  If you can get a hold your decision maker, other key people in their organization like legal, accounting or other executives may be out, and make you unable to get a deal done before January. 

So, what is the best approach to keep sales coming in even when prospects aren’t?  I like to work on smaller accounts, specifically mom and pop and owner/operator operations.  Why?  Because these small business owners usually never get a vacation.  Their bottom line and income depend on it.  They don’t have money to give to someone else or even the trust to let someone else run their company while they are out.  Because of this, they are still around even when your large commercial or key accounts are out on vacation.  Who knows, this could even lead to bigger things if they are a franchise or affiliated with another larger company.

If you don’t deal with smaller prospects, the holiday’s provide an excellent opportunity to get organized and build up your potential prospect list for the new year.  If you can get caught up, organized, spruce up your sales material and find good qualified leads, by the first of the year you can hit the ground running.  Many times you can still call a larger account and get someone on the line.  That person may be in a good mood due to the holiday’s and may be more likely to give you the decision makers name and extension or direct number.  Again, this will allow you to build up your potential prospect list for 2009. 

The worst thing to do is nothing.  Sales for the 4th quarter and the 1st quarter will reflect this time, for the good or bad.