Make the calls and the prospects will be there; Whether you’re communicating via LinkedIn, sending e-mails, calling on the phone, or just knocking on doors, if you do the work, the prospects pool will only grow larger.
A recent e-mail I received about the base metrics that sales people need to hit each week got me thinking. This particular e-mail stressed the fact that there needs to be 100 phone cold calls a week, which I’m in total agreement. Sometimes you’ll eat the bear and get more and sometimes the bear will eat you and you’ll make less. In any case all you need to do is come close and you’ll see better results.
Let’s make that 100 calls a week right, then it’s 400 calls per month and 4,800 calls per year. That’s a lot of phone calls, however there may be a different way to look at those 4,800 calls. Forget about your salary (if you get one), forget about the commissions and just associate a dollar cost to every call you make. Newbies, if you don’t like making calls, you can look at it this way. Every time you pick up the phone you’ll get $10, pick it up a hundred times and you’ll get one thousand dollars. If you can last the first year and you make 4,800 calls then I would bet dollars to doughnuts that you’ll make a cool $50K! No bad, eh?
For the seasoned reps, and that includes me, there are days (most days, they do call me the curmudgeon in the office for nothing) when the last thing I want to do is pick up the phone. But, what if I associated $20 per phone call, those calls will then log me in at $100K per year.
More importantly, what happens if you turn up the heat? Let’s say you bust the 4,800 calls by another 1,000. For newbies that’s an extra $10K and for someone like me that’s an extra $20K. Now, we’re smoking!
Don’t rely on your company to feed you leads. Don’t rely on your customers to give you referrals. And don’t rely on leads from the manufacturer. But do rely on yourself to make the calls. If you feel like you’re getting nowhere then just think about the next call and the call after that. Every call pays you money no matter what the outcome is.
Good selling!
