As we talk with companies who are seeking guidance about outbound teleprospecting and lead generation services, the following 4 questions are the most common ones we hear.

1. How has the pandemic impacted prospecting behaviors? – Our world and our “back to normal” is evolving back to the way it was before the pandemic.  Not everything will go back to the way it was, but in business, most human behaviors seem to be going back to, or get close to, normal – “normal” defined as pre-pandemic.  In our office, we are as successful today as we were before the pandemic with scheduling appointments.  Things were confusing during the pandemic, mostly trying to determine if a target contact person was working in the office or working remotely.  People are still working remotely, but they have become reachable via phone calls.

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2. What do you mean, multiple call attempts? Persistence – we are firm believers in “tactful persistence is the key to success”.  If someone tells us they are busy and asks us to call them back, we call them back.  Most often we feel like a non-response to a phone call simply means the person is busy and is unable to talk, or they are not ready to talk.  This is fine.  We do not assume that they are not interested in what we are calling about.  We do a very good job of balancing persistence with politeness - with this balance we will continue to develop a prospect over time until they are ready to talk to us, and hopefully earn a scheduled appointment.

3. Does cold calling really work?  There are many terms for it – cold calling, outbound prospecting, teleprospecting – no matter what you call it, the question remains the same. Does it work? This is always a very good question and there are several key elements that factor into the answer.  The answer can be different based on these key elements: 

• Outbound teleprospecting works if you have a good plan and process in place for making calls and managing the data (CRM)
• It works if you have a sales team that hustles and goes after new business opportunities
• It is a beautiful way to cover lots of territory and geography without having to travel
• Lastly, and often overlooked, historically we have learned that there are fewer competitors involved when you generate opportunities through teleprospecting.

4. Why cold calls rather than social media or other digital approaches? – It does not have to be one or the other. Incorporating multiple methods can complement rather than compete against each other.  Both do a very good job of generating sales opportunities and together, you end up with more prospects to sell services to.  Both social media and teleprospecting have the ability to overlap and impact a larger group of people, where separately, they both touch people who respond to either digital approaches or phone calls, but not both.

There is a process that needs to take place when building a campaign – whether we coach you on building your own or build it for you. There is also a frame of mind that needs to be present.  You can do an outstanding job building your campaign but if you do not have the correct frame of mind, it becomes difficult to succeed with the campaign.  We will teach you both: the process and the frame of mind.

Maybe this article answered the question(s) that you have, if not, we are happy to talk to you.