What to do: “Managers don’t call new clients”?!
The most common complaint addressed to the sales department by the manager is the lack of cold calls or an insufficient number of them.
How many cold calls should a good manager make?
There is no clear answer to this question, and here's why:
1. A lot depends on the number of potential clients. If you sell helicopters, then it’s unlikely that you will have more than 100 potential clients, and setting a plan of 30 calls a day makes no sense.
2. The call plan cannot be the same for a new manager who does not yet have his own client base, and a more experienced one who spends a significant part of his time processing applications from existing clients.
3. It is very important to understand what goal you set for a cold call. The preparation time for a call to send a standard commercial proposal is several times less than if the goal is to present a product to the director of the company.
4. The competence of sales managers also plays a significant role; a seasoned salesperson needs three to four times less time to prepare for a call than a newbie.
This is not the entire list of factors that can influence the number of cold calls, but the conclusion is obvious; in each specific case the number is calculated individually.
Why don't managers call?
In sales training, I often ask, are cold calling important in your work? If you make more cold calls, will you earn more? The answer is almost always “YES”. The employees understand that this is an important part of their work, but they do everything exactly according to the residual principle; if there is time, I will call (read as if there is a desire). There are many reasons for this: fear, lack of self-confidence, fear of rejection or a crown on the head; it can take a long time to figure out what the reason is for each specific sales employee. In this article I want to tell you how you can change this situation.
Five steps to change!
The first and most important thing is to set a goal for the cold call. The goal should be a specific outcome of the call that can be measured.
Based on the purpose of the call and taking into account the factors influencing the number of calls described above, we set a plan for cold calls per day and per week for each manager. Based on my experience, a new manager should spend 80% of his time searching for new clients, while a manager with experience should spend at least 20%.
The next step is to develop a cold calling script; this is a mandatory tool for inexperienced managers and desirable for managers with little experience. There is a lot of information on the Internet on how to create a cold calling script yourself, or you can contact professionals, such as us.
Next, you need to organize control. This is the most difficult stage and it determines whether the situation in your company will change or not. In the first two months, monitoring should be daily. Be prepared to listen to dozens of reasons why the call plan was not fulfilled today, sometimes these will be objective reasons, more often they will simply be excuses. With modern technologies, monitoring has become much easier; almost everyone has a CRM system and all calls are recorded.
The last step is to make changes to the motivation system for sales department specialists. It is necessary to display the fulfillment/non-fulfillment of the laid down plan for cold calls. From personal experience, I would not recommend getting too attached to the daily plan, since everyone has blockages, but the weekly plan must be completed.
Cold calling is the most effective way to attract new clients in most companies. Based on my practice, I can say with confidence that the work scheme described above is the most effective, but it requires a lot of effort, especially at the control stage.
In Russia, there is an ambivalent attitude towards telemarketing. On the one hand, this is a source of new clients, on the other hand, it is a primitive genus
activities. But the fact is that almost no company can do without it. This attitude often develops due to the fact that many companies themselves solve the issue of cold calling in a very primitive way. They allocate a room, 1-3 female students, give them a phone number and a pile of yellow press: “Call and sell!” The low performance of their work is guaranteed.
The girl looks for the phone number in the directory, enters it into a notebook/Excel (in the best case, into a program), dials the number on the phone, waits for an answer, then the conversation continues, after which the operator diligently enters the result of the conversation into the notebook/Excel. And then the same according to the scheme.
In principle, the process is logical, but have you ever wondered how many full-fledged calls an operator can make in a day?
Let me give you the following calculation:
The average conversation lasts 3 minutes, plus time for searching (2 minutes), dialing a number and waiting for beeps (1 minute), recording the result of the call (2 minutes), resulting in 8 minutes per contact. Thus, if you get through, it’s 8 minutes, if you don’t get through, it’s 2 minutes. This is 30 calls per hour (missing calls) and 7.5 calls (dialing), the average number of calls is 18 per hour. And then there are callbacks, which can take 30-70% of the time depending on the level of the person in the organization.
So: 9 hours work day - 1 hour lunch - 4 * 15 minutes break = 7 hours on the phone. This results in 126 calls, of which conversations 63 , and there were 19 (30%) callbacks. Totalnew 44 contacts.
Now let's see how many successful calls there will be. In Russia, cold calls result in sales in the range of approximately 1-5%. Moreover, this is not a direct sale, but more often an appointment. Average percentage - 3%,
63*3%= 2 effective calls per day.
The figure looks very unprofitable. That's without even calculating telemarketing costs.
How to increase the effectiveness of telemarketing? There are the following options:
1. Create your own contact center with automation of all operator processes. According to third-party calculations, this can cost at least 200,000 rubles for 5 operators, and monthly maintenance will cost about 30% of this amount. This option is often chosen by large companies.
2. Turn to an outsourcing contact center, but this will again cost a substantial amount and it will be difficult to monitor the quality of the operators’ work, because they do not know your product/service.
3. There is a profitable and effective option - your own remote contact center. Like this? Very simple. You register in a program that works through a browser. Load your contact database, choose the dialing option that is most convenient for you, pay a subscription fee (200-300 rubles per operator per month) and you’re done. One of such remote contact centers is the Skorozvon service -Do you know the story about the insurance agent who made millions selling insurance over the phone? Selling insurance is hard work. Meetings, lengthy consultations, step-by-step explanation of the final benefit are required...
He came to the office every morning, pulled the phone towards him - an ordinary telephone with a rotary dial, printed out a chocolate bar and opened the Yellow Pages where he left off yesterday. His working day began with the words: “Hello, do you need insurance?”
After twenty-five or thirty attempts, most often unsuccessful, he would break off a piece of chocolate and the next thirty calls.
It is clear that in most cases he was refused, sometimes even rudely. But he went about his business - methodically searching for those who would say “yes” using the law of large numbers. One in fifty? Fine. One in a hundred? Amazing. Every time he managed to get an appointment, he made a deal. At the same time, which is typical, he did not miss a single name in the directory.
If you want to know the very first secret to increasing your cold calls, here it is. Thirty calls for one piece of chocolate!
How many deals and appointments can be made with this method of working? The famous entrepreneur Edison said that success is running from one failure to another with increasing enthusiasm. When our agent was asked what makes him successful, he gave a simple answer: I don’t pause between calls.
How many cold calls can you make in one day?
Opinions differ, but the “run” is large. Many agree that the average daily rate for a “ringer operator” is 60-80 calls. More radical adherents of “cold” marketing talk about 150 and even 200 calls per day.
It is clear that there is a certain ceiling above which you cannot jump, but even if one person makes 100 scheduled calls to complete strangers a day, getting him to make 120 is already more difficult. Then we ask the next question.
Why is it necessary to increase the number of cold calls?
1. To make more appointments.
If a specialist on a cold call makes appointments for himself, he will make exactly as many calls as required so that he has one meeting per day. At the same time, he will try to eliminate ineffective calls already at the start.
In some businesses, the “call yourself, go to the meeting” model pays off. Small advertising agencies, sales representatives - here the agents themselves create a database and determine a quota of cold calls in order to schedule the first meeting with a potential client. Then there may be five or ten cold calls a day, but the agent has already done a preliminary filtering and weeded out “unpromising” clients at the entrance. Or postponed this contact for another time.
Another situation. “One called, the other went.” The “Stakhanovite” principle is already at work here. One breaks the rock, two or three drive away full carts. Only in the case of calls it’s the other way around. Those who “fend off”, that is, the salespeople who go to the meeting on a call, must have good negotiator skills so as not to lose contact. Much depends on which seller goes to the meeting. You can compare the types of sellers with dog breeds:
- Bull Terrier. The success of this seller is strength and fearlessness. He'll take you in a stranglehold and won't let you go until he sells it.
- Shepherd – will not appear at the client’s house until he finds out everything that will help in sales.
- Poodle - makes a stand and conquers with charm. He has impeccable manners and is a pleasure to talk to!
- The hound is just waiting for a command and will rush after the client to the ends of the earth.
It is clear that in this case, increasing the number of cold calls only makes sense when there is someone to send for negotiations. And with such a statement of the problem, the norm for a “ringer” is 70-100 calls per day.
2. In order to sell immediately during the call.
For example, such a simple product as bottled water. Now this market is already oversaturated, but recently one call was enough to obtain consent for a trial delivery and subsequent sale.
Reconnaissance in force. In every house there are perhaps ten percent of residents who for some reason still have not installed plastic windows. On a city scale, this is still a large figure. However, it is more likely that calls with offers to service windows and update fittings will be successful. The likelihood that the subscriber still lives with the “joiner” is still high. However, a wave of consumers is coming who installed plastic that was not of the highest quality fifteen years ago, and are ready to exchange it today for a more technologically advanced product.
During such a call, according to the scenario, the seller needs to talk a little with the client, at least find out whether he has plastic windows installed and make an offer. The same 70 calls a day.
3. Cold calling is not for sales.
This category includes calls to collect information for businesses.
- Polls, questionnaires
- Increasing the base
- Search for decision makers.
- “Reconnaissance calls” will also require up to 5 minutes per contact. You can target 70-90 calls per day.
Manage tasks
One of the main laws of dialectics is the transition of quantity into quality. In sales, this law works best: experienced sellers know very well that the more refusals, the greater the likelihood of concluding a deal. Therefore, the question of how to increase the number of cold calls is not idle.
When there is a clear and reliable system that helps accumulate data, manage information and calls, it is necessary to “set up” a person. Modern dialing systems allow you to create many control points. And these points can be divided into quantitative and qualitative.
Quantitative:
- Time to call
- Call duration
- Period between two calls
- Number of calls per hour
- Number of calls per day
- Average time spent on one call
Quality:
- Employee voice timbre
- Clarity of diction
- "Smile" in the voice
- “Mechanical” nature of reading the script
- Quality of script execution
- Call time management
Frederick W. Taylor carried out similar studies and ways to improve the optimization of the use of working time. He timed every action of the worker. Taylor discovered that by optimizing certain actions, a worker could increase his productivity by 60 percent without straining himself.
Can Taylor's principles still work today? Why not, this requires three simple conditions:
- Do not allow the employee to “dream” and make his own conclusions, offer precise and reasonable instructions,
- Find the “right” candidates for calling: the “hunter” will not sit in front of the computer for long, and the “farmer” will not engage in cold sales. A third, special category of sellers is needed,
- Collaborate with experts, offer informed plans
Thus, increasing the productivity of cold calling, if not by 60%, then at least by 30%, is no longer such a difficult task.
Qualitative parameters can only be studied by listening to recordings of telephone conversations. And here, too, it’s easy to determine by ear which moments can be optimized to speed up the process. For example, it is easy to distinguish how a quick and energetic greeting differs from an imposing one.
There remains one point that cannot be crossed. Human factor. But here you just have to agree that sellers who go “to the fields” and “ringers” who work on the telephone are two completely different categories of people and specialists, with their own selection and training criteria.
What helps increase cold calling?
Finally, let's briefly outline the factors that help increase cold calling.
- Systematic increase in the base in the long term. If there are only 1000 contacts in the database, then you can’t make more than 1000 calls. Constant updating from other databases, information resources and enterprise directories will help to reach any large number of subscribers.
- Increasing the “army” of callers. To do this, there is no need to increase the number of seats in the physical call center. Read the third point.
- If your call center or sales department is connected to a cloud-based remote calling system, all you need to do is grant access to a new member of the call team.
And in order to check how the remote calling system works, it is enough to register and take a test drive of one of the systems, which has everything for expanding cold calling: timing and recording of conversations, an integrated CRM system, the possibility of endlessly expanding the client base, and the number of operators.
Any business is faced with the fact that at some point sales lag behind their goals. You need 100%, but fulfillment occurs at the level of 70-80%. And that’s not bad, but maybe 50-60%. How to change the situation? What can be done to ensure that sales reach the designated targets?
There are few answers. And one of them, perhaps the key one, is to increase the efficiency of sales managers and force them to sell more.
How many calls does your sales manager make per day? I think that you are recording such information, and you can easily answer my question (although from experience working with clients of the Sales Development Agency, I know that such information is often missing). Now compare with the average in the B2B sector:
Segment. Number of calls per day:
- B2B: small, medium business - 100.
- B2B: medium, large business - 50.
- B2B: if there are meetings - 20.
It is clear that each company has its own business processes, on which both the length of the transaction and the employment of employees depend, but these figures will be an important guideline for comparison and adjustment; they will allow you to see what can and should be expected from the work of your sellers. And if the indicators of your managers do not suit you, I offer several ways to achieve the indicated indicators.
And an important element of achieving these average, I repeat again, average call rates, This is a properly designed work plan for managers.
What needs to be done to make the sales plan feasible?
- Describe your business processes, set standards for managers.
- Determine the optimal structure of the sales department.
- Set up reporting.
- Motivate staff.
Now let's look at these points in more detail.
Description of business processes, establishment of work standards
Here you need to describe in detail the sales sequence specific to your company. It is important to outline the algorithm for working both with existing clients and for attracting new clients. The stages of the business process can be: contacting the decision maker, sending a commercial proposal, making an appointment, issuing an invoice, and so on. Vague formulations such as “the client is thinking”, “under approval”, “in progress” are unacceptable. Only precise wording that allows you to determine the deadline. Then you will not have problems moving from stage to stage in your “sales funnel”. This will make it possible to set intermediate goals and norms (standards) that managers are required to fulfill (number of calls, sequence of operations, duration of certain types of work, etc.).
Test standardization of managers' work over a period of one or two weeks. And you will immediately notice where your problem areas are, because of which you are losing your customers. This step alone will allow you to increase sales by 5-10%
Choose the optimal department structure
When fulfilling this point, the key will be the distribution of responsibilities among sales managers. It is important that everyone does not do everything, because as a result everyone will do nothing.
Divide managers by region, by customer acquisition channels, by working with retail and wholesale, and so on. It is necessary to distribute clients by “size” and industry, since such clients require a separate approach and different sales techniques.
Set up reporting
This step will help you see the real situation and soberly evaluate the work of managers, comparing it with the plan.
“Digitalize” the work of your managers - the DA (digital aprouch) principle. You will need the following reports:
- Weekly report on sales channels: how many potential clients (leads) you receive and, accordingly, from where;
- Weekly report on the conversion of leads into a deal: will differ by industry, but on average, the following figures can be taken as a basis: conversion of warm leads - 20-30%, conversion of cold leads - 1-3%;
- Daily report on the actions of each manager (plan/fact);
- Daily report on the duration of a telephone conversation. An employee must sell, that is, talk continuously for 3-4 hours a day, otherwise he is not a sales manager. Don't take your salespeople's jobs, give them the opportunity to realize themselves. A simple increase in the daily number of calls will quickly lead you to an increase in revenue by 10-15%;
- Daily reports to track the structure and types of calls: by potential (new or current) and by duration (1 minute, 1−3 minutes, more than 3 minutes).
Motivate your staff
Your sales managers must clearly understand what they will be rewarded or punished for. Within one minute, the employee must calculate how much he currently earns. Determine intermediate results, for example, achieving 50% of the plan within the first two weeks. The difference between the remuneration of managers who fulfilled the plan and those who did not fulfill the plan should be significant (certainly not in the amount of 10,000 rubles). Do everything to make selling your products or services both interesting and profitable.
This article lists points that can improve the efficiency of sales managers. After all, the fulfillment of your sales plan, and therefore the success of your business, largely depends on how you organize the work of your salespeople. And the key indicator of the organization is the number of calls from sales department employees. Which must be planned and compared with industry averages. But it's important to remember not to revolutionize your calling plan. It is better to do this evolutionarily, so that managers have time to rebuild, develop certain skills, and physically and mentally prepare themselves for new achievements.
Growing sales to you!
How to organize control over managers to understand that they are really working.
The most obvious indicator that sales managers are actually working and not just slacking off while waiting for the next paycheck is the number of deals closed and profit margins. However, it happens that a manager has no deals for more than two weeks, or his personal sales have stopped growing, or he has not fulfilled the plan this month, although he always did before. In these cases, before parting with the seller, it is worth understanding the reason for the failure. In this article I will describe how to organize control of managers by sales.
6 tips on how to organize control over the work of sales managers
1. Check the manager’s correspondence with clients. Ask how many emails the seller sent in a week. If he understands how important it is to keep in touch with clients, he will not hesitate to name the number of letters sent and even the number of responses received.
It is also useful to look into the seller’s email to assess the ratio of spam (when the manager found the contacts of a potential client on the Internet and sent him a commercial offer) and warm contacts (when the commercial offer was sent to the decision maker by prior agreement). For every 25 warm contacts, there should be no more than 10 letters sent “to grandfather in the village.” Then, from the number of warm letters, you need to subtract those that the client wrote first: in these cases, the employee was not actively searching, but was only processing the received application. If the bottom line is only three or four letters a week, it means the manager did a poor job.
2. Find out how the manager’s meetings with clients go. Find out the number of meetings, their location, and the final result.
The number of meetings should be compared with the norm in your industry.
The location of the meetings (on the customer’s premises or in your company’s office) often determines the result: the more often the manager invites the client to his office for negotiations, the lower his sales. Mainly due to the fact that not all clients make it, and some meetings are canceled. The normal ratio of meetings on the client’s territory and on the manager’s territory is 50 to 50.
In order to control sales managers, so that you can always correctly evaluate the result, ask them to keep a spreadsheet indicating the main parameters of the meeting: with whom, when, where, for what reason, agreements reached. The best thing is for the manager to provide you with a short report after each meeting.
3. Pay attention to the number and quality of the manager’s calls. A manager should have no problem answering the question of how many calls he makes daily. Depending on the specifics of the business, you can pay more or less attention to either warm or cold calls. But even if cold calls are not so important in your business, the seller must make them from time to time so as not to lose his skills. A good manager must constantly analyze how the market situation is changing, be able to break through secretaries and reach the right people, etc.
I once conducted an audit in the sales department of a company. When I asked a manager with three years of experience how many calls he makes a day, he rolled his eyes and replied that “about 100-120.” At that very moment it became clear to me that the man had no idea what he was talking about. Because even with the most efficient work, which begins from the moment the computer is turned on in the morning and ends with the arrival of the security guard who locks the office in the evening, the manager can make no more than 50 quality calls per day.
On average, an employee must make 20–50 cold calls daily, of which 15–40 become warm calls (the manager is asked to send a commercial proposal, is connected to the decision maker, and an appointment is made). And only 5-10% of the total number of calls on the other end of the line may hang up or immediately answer “no”.
4. Arrange a surprise check in the middle of the working day. Check whether all sales managers have a work plan for the day. This should be a detailed list of tasks prepared in advance: who to contact, when, on what issue and what to offer. A simple entry in a diary, for example, “call Vasily Ivanovich,” does not count. A manager who does not draw up a work plan on paper is unlikely to learn to act effectively.
5. Find out whether the manager maintains off-duty contacts with clients. Nothing is superfluous when working with customer loyalty; a good manager knows this, so he always personally congratulates his customers on their birthdays, New Year, February 23, March 8.
Recently, I was looking into why two branches of a large company miserably failed their annual sales plan, and I noticed that it was in these branches that managers paid the least attention to such “little things” as sending greeting cards to customers.
6. Conduct a quick survey among managers. Walk into the sales department unannounced and ask the employees five simple questions:- What is your largest transaction (by order amount)?
- When did it take place?
- What is your average transaction bill?
- What is your average trade length?
- What categories do you divide your clients into?
The last point is especially interesting: a good manager will definitely segment his client base, since he understands that working with all clients according to the same scheme is unproductive.
If a manager cannot answer these questions, it means that he does not analyze his work and is not interested in improving performance. Of course, you must know all the answers in advance in order to be able to compare real indicators with those that the manager will announce to you.
Evgeniy Kotov, Founder and General Director of Practicum Group, Moscow
For reference: VC "InfoSoft" is engaged in the construction of sales departments, as well as the implementationsystems for managing customer relationships and monitoring managers based on 1C:CRM products
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