Business Insight Zone

Maybe because I now bear the title “Social Media Manager,” I’ve been getting substantially more sales calls lately. Receiving a cold call is not my favorite thing in the world, but I am sympathetic to anybody working hard in this market to drum up business — and I’m impressed at how well some cold-callers go about their work. Commonalities among the good ones:

• They seriously want only a minute or two of my time at the outset — they don’t drag things out or go into an overlong spiel.
• It’s clear that they have an idea about what Hoover’s does and what I do for Hoover’s.
• They’re genuinely friendly. I was talking with a colleague today about a woman who works the counter of a restaurant nearby: she’s great at it because she’s sincerely a friendly and happy person — exactly the smiling face you want to present to customers. Your sellers should convey the same thing.
• They try to find out what I need and where I’m coming from. If what they have and what I need don’t fit, they don’t try to force it.
• All the basic technicalities are covered: they speak clearly, the connection is good, background noise is low, etc. It’s easy to talk to them from a mechanical standpoint.
• If I ask them to e-mail me more information so that I can look it over, they don’t try to keep me on the phone too long — they just send the information, then follow up later.

And then there was the call I got earlier today:

• She didn’t speak clearly — I wondered if her headset was adjusted wrong — and there was a lot of background noise.
• In particular, I barely caught her name (and may have gotten it wrong) and didn’t catch the name of her company.
• Her opening spiel and “probing” questions were vague to the point of worthless.
• She said a lot of the right words, but the whole tone was that she was only going through the motions. She might have been IM-ing a friend while she was talking to me, for all I know.

And, what do you know, it’s been a little while now . . . and still no e-mail from her. Guess who I won’t be eager to speak with again?

Many of our own subscribers use Hoover’s for sales prospecting and lead generation, so I’ve got a sense of how hard it is to get the right people on the phone and have a relevant conversation with them. But what if you’re getting the right people on the phone . . . and then losing them through lousy sales efforts?

Internally here, I know we do a lot of quality control and coaching for our sales team. But I don’t know how pervasive these good practices are across sales teams in general.

What I do know: some companies are tying both hands behind their backs with their sales execution.

Now, questions for you:

• What does your company do to improve the quality of its sales calls?
• What are your own horror stories of being cold-called?

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Photo by Bruce.

Category: Marketing & Sales