I’m Often Asked, “What is the Real Increase in Productivity Gained by Using our Power Dialer?
28 July 2011 — Ken Krogue
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I was just asked again a question I get a lot. This comes from my friend Gail Milton, of The Bridge Group, Inc., “Do you have metric for the increase in productivity gained by using your power dialer?”
Here is my response:
Gail,
Thank you for thinking of us. As you know, we love research and I’m happy to share what we have:
1- The average inside sales rep makes 38 calls a day (your data I believe,) we help reps make 200-250 calls a day. Our internal lead gen reps make as much as 350 calls a day but that is all they do. We call them ‘Specialists’. Generalist reps who generate and close their own leads typically use us in ‘spurts’ where they will use the dialer for 1-2 days to book the following week with appointments or they use us for just a few hours a day. Their optimal rate seems about 130-170 calls a day in this mode, but they don’t do it day in and day out.
2- The average company responds to a web lead in 46 hours, we can help them respond in 9 to 30 seconds (depending on if […]
Inc. Magazine Highlights MIT / InsideSales.com Study “How to Best Harness Inbound Marketing Leads”
14 July 2011 — Ken Krogue
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Inc. Magazine has just become another major publication to note the importance of our research on responding immediately and persistently to inbound leads.
Eric Markowitz is a well known writer for Inc., Vanity Fair, and the Washington Square News and summarizes the research of Dr. James B Oldroyd, a former professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and our own CEO, Dave Elkington. His Inc. article on July 6th, 2011, is entitled “How to Best Harness Inbound Marketing Leads.”
Inc. Magazine links to the original downloadable MIT study here. It was originally titled “How Much Time Do You Have Before Web-Generated Leads Go Cold?” and has been quoted now by hundreds of blogs, speakers, and publications around the world.
Original MIT Study by Dr. James Oldroyd & Dave Elkington
Every now and again you discover something that changes the world. This did for us.
At last count we have had nearly 70,000 companies access and / or download this landmark study. A more complete summary of all the research started originally by Dr. James Oldroyd and InsideSales.com is readily available at […]
Here is a strategy to find the highest level of rapport or trust you can use to increase your results on a prospecting call. Using the Trust Ladder allows you to use your first few seconds so people are open to letting your conversation continue to where they find out enough about you to listen with an open mind.
Climb the Trust Ladder to Increase Rapport
Imagine a ladder with twelve steps leaning up to a destination you are trying to go. The destination is a relationship of trust with the person you are talking to. You are the salesperson standing at the bottom of this ladder that represents levels of inherent trust.
There is one important thing you better realize first…
They don’t trust you.
You are at the bottom of the Trust Ladder; you aren’t even on it. The person they trust the most is themselves. They are on the top of the Trust Ladder and there are many steps in between. The higher up you go on the Trust Ladder to begin a conversation, the more […]
The (Increasingly) Not-so-Secret Reasons You Need a Better Lead Generation Team
20 June 2011 — Ken Krogue
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The message of Monday’s blog this week is short and sweet:
If you’re a B2B sales organization, it’s more important than ever to have a dedicated lead generation and qualification team.
The Bridge Group’s Matt Bertuzzi showed recently that 43% of organizations surveyed by CSO Insights were increasing their sales team size by at least 10%, and 24.7% were increasing there sales force by 20% or more.
Our own research in 2009 showed that inside sales hiring in B2B was going to go up 7.5% a year through 2015.
In the same vein:
The Funnelholic recently provided a list of 54 things to do when building a lead qualification team.
Marketo’s Jon Miller provides Seven Ways that Sales Development Reps Drive Revenue.
Green Leads’ Michael Damphousse demonstrates that the “actionable” activity rate of phone vs. face-to-face prospecting is much closer than any of us think.
The point of all this is simple: inside sales and lead qualification teams drive revenue, period. As much as I respect and admire the work of marketing automation technologies, inbound marketing companies, search engine marketing, and the like, it’s becoming ever more clear that direct outbound prospecting, and fast, immediate response by a qualification team to inbound inquiries are a critical strategic advantage […]
Random Musings on the Real “Competitive Advantage” of Customer Service
10 June 2011 — Ken Krogue
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In some ways, this article by Josh Bernoff at Forrester is nothing we haven’t already heard: “In the Web/Sales/Marketing/Customer 2.0 world, the buyer has all the power.”
But I was interested by his particular take because it pits “customer engagement” against traditional competitive advantages: “A customer obsessed company focuses its strategy, its energy, and its budget on processes that enhance knowledge of an engagement with customers, and prioritizes these over maintaining traditional competitive barriers.”
The forces of disruption mean that unless you’ve got a huge competitive advantage in a critical market area—and maybe not even then—at some point during its life cycle, your business will have no other true value differentiation other than:
customer satisfaction, and
the processes you use to create it.
It’s very similar to something Guy Kawasaki mentions in this interview with Brian Solis. Customer “enchantment,” he states, comes from the recognition that traditional competitive advantages are incredibly difficult to attain, and even more difficult to keep—and thus customer engagement becomes a critical factor for success.
For example, Guy states, Apple’s real competitive advantage isn’t “engaging” with customers, at least not in the “social media/customer feedback” sense. Based on his first-hand observations working for the company over the years, […]
For the past 3 or 4 years, “Zappos” and “incredible customer service” have been essentially synonymous.
Bring up the the little ‘ole online shoe retailer that Amazon bought for a cool $1.2 billion, and invariably someone starts spouting stories of the company’s legendary customer satisfaction and loyalty.
The 365 day return policy. Pre-paid shipping of shoes both ways. Service reps spending 4, 5, 6 hours on the phone getting an order or a return right. The empowerment of front-line service reps to take care of problems on the spot (including issuing credits/refunds without management approval).
I bring this up because late last week, Robb Young, InsideSales.com’s Director of Operations and I got back from a visit to Zappos corporate headquarters just down the dusty road of I-15 in Henderson, Nevada.
The visit was nothing short of a revelation.
Are the stories true?
Most of them. Here’s my 3 Biggest Takeaway’s from the visit:
Takeaway #1
Customer service is a culture, not an action item.
If I could convey one thing from the visit, it would be the feel, the atmosphere in the building.
This was a company with an identity. The culture from top to bottom intrinsically reflected leadership’s values. Conversations, employee activity, even the physical space design reflected […]
Everyone goes through sales slumps. If you haven’t yet, you’re either too new to the profession . . . . or you just haven’t been doing it long enough.
We’ve got some sharp sales reps here at InsideSales.com, so I thought I’d talk to them about what they do to get out of their personal pipeline woes.
- Separate the real opportunities from the fluff: “When I hit a slow period, sometimes I’ll throw some stuff overboard and just start over. When your pipeline sucks, it means you’re wasting time chasing stuff you can’t really close. Focus on generating better deals instead of chasing garbage.” — R.J. Tracy
- Focus on “touch” quality, in addition to quantity: “Our software [the InsideSales.com Lead Response Management Suite] has built-in safeguards to make sure we do enough follow-up, but let’s be honest, not all follow-up activity is created equal. A call is a call, as far as your numbers are concerned, but being ready and engaged . . . .
High Performance Sales: The First 5, the Last 5, and Everything In Between
26 May 2011 — Ken Krogue
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It’s a tough pill for new and inexperienced sales reps to swallow, but it’s absolutely true: it’s just as easy to lose a deal on the last five percent of the journey as it is on the first five.
High performance sales reps know you can get a deal 95% right—and still leave a customer highly dissatisfied.
A co-worker related an experience last week that proves this point in absolute clarity. Apparently he had gone in to get a new pair of eyeglasses from a local retailer, and 9/10 of the experience was unaccountably pleasant. Service was prompt and efficient, the optometrist demonstrated a high level of competence, and the business carried a quality selection of frames and lenses. He chose a style of frame that suited him, the order was placed, and it arrived a day ahead of schedule.
So far, so good.
Except when the lenses and frames arrived, the lens makers had sent the wrong size (for this business, the frames and lenses were generally ordered separately and assembled on location).
At this point, the company had two choices:
Fix the problem by re-ordering the right lenses, even though it meant the customer wouldn’t get their glasses for […]
Rather than avoiding black cats and cowering in fear from triskaidekaphobia, the team at InsideSales.com decided to spend some time on Friday, May 13 at the Food & Care Coalition offices in Provo, Utah. Ten InsideSales.com volunteers worked and cleaned the kitchen, and served meals to Coalition patrons.
Robb Young, Director of Operations stated afterwards, “This was so much fun and they [the Coalition] were extremely grateful for our time and effort serving their facility. We will be participating in more of these service projects throughout the year and we encourage employees to come and participate. This is a great way for us to contribute to our community and help those that are less fortunate.”
The Food & Care Coalition was founded in 1986, and incorporated as a 501c(3) non-profit organization in 1988. Since that time, the Friends of the Coalition has expanded its operations from meals and clothing to providing community workshops, job training for patrons, an in-house dental clinic, and more.
By the end of 2011, the Coalition hopes to complete its new live-in residence facility for Utah County at-risk populations, and establish new training opportunities […]
As sales reps, we occasionally forget that sometimes a prospect isn’t looking to solve a problem, they’re trying to alleviate the symptoms of something else.
This isn’t to say that you can’t make money selling solutions for both. Just be clear with the prospect about what it is you’re actually attempting to solve.
Inexperienced sales reps can be particularly susceptible to the fallacy of assigning need based on the requested solution—”Well, they’re asking about X, so clearly their problem is Y” (even though your solution is massaging a symptom, not solving the root cause).
Carried to its logical conclusion, the idea can apply nearly universally. For instance, if you’re selling outsourced HR services, you’re not actually solving your buyer’s need to eventually improve its own internal resources—you’re just applying a particular band-aid to it (i.e., your services). As soon as the value of managing HR in house is higher than the cost of outsourcing, the buyer will inevitably make the switch.
Does this mean you shouldn’t pursue deals if you’re not meeting the direct need? Of course not; that’s why service-based solutions and outsourcing exist to begin with. But it does mean you should be careful . . . .
