Know-How Exchange : Research/Metrics

I don't have statistics, but experience tells me it takes about six calls to make contact these days even if the person wants to hear from you.

The important points are:
You need a process - without a process it is possible that you will make only one call then drop the contact.
With voicemail you need to call multiple times
It is important to try different times and different days

And, dont be surprised to discover that when you get through the person appologizes profusely for not calling you back.

Dear Swortman,

There's a rule of thumb. I don't have a source. But I do have the best part of 25 years experience and a gut feeling the size of Nebraska to rely on and back me up.

The rule of thumb is an average of seven.

Seven contacts before a sale is made. Seven benefit-driven, value laden contacts to cement a lasting relationship.

With newsletters, it's more like six to nine regular pieces of mail, every month, regular as clockwork, and that means newsletters that all talk to the customer about the things that are important to them.

Personally, I don't like sales calls. Don't like making them. Don't like receiving them. When I get a sales call over and over, day after day, from the same person, that person eats into my day and mops up my time.

Calls like this aren't marketing: they're an annoyance.

Want to see your sales charts dip?

Annoy people.

When I got a new phone system a few months ago, part of the package was caller ID. And finally, after years I'd rather forget, at last I got the chance to manage the sales calls I receive, for which read, ignore the ones I need to ignore and call that caller back when I'm good and ready to invest my time, not have it vacuumed from my day.

The process Frank talks about is all about creating a relationship. No relationship. No connection. No connection. No need met, no
call to action acted on. Which means no order. No sale.

What does this all mean? It means everything ... EVERYTHING relies on the relationship.

Get it right and you create the marketer's Holy Grail: customer loyalty. Screw it up and you're toast. Yesterday's fish wrapper.

It doesn't matter what niche or area you're serving: B2B, B2C.
The titles don't mean anything. Why?

Because businesses don't buy things, people do. What, even a long standing sales order? Yes, even a long standing sales order.

Think about it.

That document didn't just write itself. A long time ago, someone with a heartbeat and a genuine need found a solution that provided a good deal at a good price and they acted on it.

A person. Not a business. A person formed a relationship with a salesperson ... a salesperson who understood that more often than not, that the order ... the business ... relies on listening.

Not on talking.

Not talking means not calling again and again and again for no good reason other than to sell something.

But calling to say howdy? Calling to check on family, shoot the breeze, and ask "Say, how's business?"?

Those kinds of call are different. They're the kinds of calls that form relationships.

I hope this helps.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

For cold calls, I've seen: 60 calls for 1 sale (1 of 10 cold calls leads to appointment, 1 of 6 appointments leads to a sale). However, if you're calling to sell something that you don't know if the person needs, you're likely to be banging your head against the wall. Start by doing research before you make the first call, then ask and listen. Only then can you possibly sell a solution to their problem.