Am I Calling Too Much?

If you work in B2B sales, the answer is probably "no."

I recently had a conversation with some peers about why salespeople struggle to build their pipeline, and we found a common theme. In a variety of companies selling a variety of B2B products, underperforming reps have a tendency to avoid telephone prospecting.

Perhaps you've heard some of the reasons from your own reps, or perhaps you're a quota carrier who has told yourself these stories:

• I get better results by meeting people at tradeshows, or being introduced by a partner or analyst.
• My best leads are the ones that Marketing nurtured and delivered to me.
• Nobody ever answers the phone, and they delete my voicemail without listening to it.
• I've called three times and nothing happened.

There's no denying the validity of the first two points - warm introductions are absolutely going to be higher quality leads than those developed cold. But unless you're in an organization where reps can expect 100% of their pipeline to be built by someone else for them (in which case - let me know if you're hiring!) you need figure out how to develop leads on your own. Warm contacts were once cold strangers. And my experience is that cold calling is a critical part of the lead generation process.

So what to make of the "data" in the second two bullets? I beleive the answer is that the rep has not made nearly enough calls into the account to hve been successful.

In fact, most B2B sales expereinces suggest that it takes between 10 and 17 touches with a potential prospect before the message is received - and the data I've seen in my last three roles finds the same. So if a rep has made three phone calls and wonders why they haven't gotten a meeting set yet, my coaching to them is that they've got another dozen or so touchpoints to make before they should give up.

Touches Aren't Just Phone Calls

When I talk about "touchpoints," of course, I don't just mean calling. But I also don't mean "everything except calling." In fact, my experience with lead gen teams is that a mix of online engagements, emails, phone calls, LinkedIn interactions (and yes, many left voicemails) work together to get the best results.

These touchpoints also need to come pretty close together - one touch a month across an entire year is not nearly as effective as the same dozen touches across three weeks. A typical sequence might look something like this:

In this example, note that not only have I mixed the format of communication (email, phone, LinkedIn), but I'm also coordinating a rep's action with marketing and BDR activities - so that the prospect is hearing from different voices that have similar, resonating messages.

Note, too, that I'm targeting multiple people in the same organization for multiple touches - with a sequence built for the CFO and CIO, as well as a general ABM web campaign for everyone at the company. This increases the possibility that I'll connect with at least one decisionmaker there - or that they'll have their own interactions with one another about my latest message.

The Best Available Alternative

Is it a lot of work? Yes, absolutely.

And industry peers report that a "great" response rate on an email or calling campaign may range anywhere from 2-10%. Given the simplicity with which anyone can run a mail merge and press "send" on an email, or queue up interactions through a marketing automation tool, the volume of sales communications is going up - which will continue to make it even harder to cut through the noise.

There are tons of vendors with ideas on how do to that - video email! A/B testing subject lines! Offers to give money to charity if you takea call! Over the years, I've seen many of these fads come and go - and there's no denying that the fresh idea of the month is helpful to reduce the number of touches needed.

However, I'm convinced that none takes the place of making a personal connection through the phone - and that calling (in conjuction with a well thought out series of other touchpoints) is still more effective than other methods (like direct mail, email, and others). That's why it must be a tool that reps use on a regular basis.

Please let me know if you agree - and be on the lookout for my next post in this series on #NobleSales prospecting, where we'll look at how to craft 17 different touchpoints that won't annoy your prospect.