It's a question I'm often asked by the newbie’s in the office. My answer is, it's a lot, I don't have any breakdowns for numbers nor do I bother to keep track of that stuff. I just go about my business making calls and lots of them.
It's very rare to get an appointment on the first call, unless you found the right person at the right time, it does happen from time to time. If I had to guess, I would tend to think it's about 10 times of reaching out to that person would be the average for me.
Over the years I found that you need to be cool, confident, and precise and deliver your benefit statement quickly to the right person.
First rule is to make sure who the "right" person is, meaning if you're selling copiers there's a chance that the CEO, CFO may not be involved in the preliminary discussions. The key for me is to ask the person who picks up the phone that is in charge of purchasing or evaluating this product or hardware at your company. More than half of the time they'll tell you who that person is, and then getting a hold of that person could be a horse of a different color.
What happens when the "gate keeper" won't give you the name of the "right" person? Well, for starters you could move on to the next call, and then schedule a follow up call in another week or so, and move the timing of the call to the early morning or late afternoon, you may get someone else that will give you the name of the "right" person. If that doesn't work, you can always look them up on the internet and see who's who in the company (try contacting someone else and ask for help). When that doesn't work take a trip over to LinkedIn and see if any of the key people are listed over there. Above all, the best answer I can give anyone is to not give up, sooner or later you'll get the "right" person.
Once you have the right person, you can do a "box" approach, such as leave them a voice mail, follow up a week later with a letter, and then either do a "drop off" or an email. Doing this will increase your chances the next time you call; the "right" person will at least speak to you. Of course then it's up to you to give a clean, clear and crisp pitch with an open ended question to gain the appointment.
I'm just as happy with getting to speak to the "right" person and them telling me that they don't have a need for my services now. Once I hear that I can then ask, what would be the best time to contact you in the future (I then get to move the call out "a" amount of months and concentrate on those other calls), and or what would be the best way for us to become and valued vendor? Either you'll get, call us in "x" amount of months, or the "right" person will ask you when you are available for an appointment (this has happened and happens more than you think).
Calling for appointments is part of your job, you do whether you like it or not. Have fun with it; see it as a challenge rather than a problem. Give yourself congrats when you get an appointment, and while you're at it make another appointment, they seem to come in bunches.
In closing, about two years ago, I cold called a company, and as luck would have it (the harder you work, the luckier you get), I met the right person. I was at the right place at the right time, we scheduled an appointment and I sold him a new copier, we'll the next day he called and cancelled and stated he just wasn't ready yet to commit to a long term lease. Well, yesterday he signed another order and did not cancel so after an additional geesh 100 phone calls and maybe another 100 emails I got the order back. It took two years, and you know what he told me, he told me that he would have not bought a new copier from anyone else but me, because of my work ethic and knowledge. Hope this helps!!
-=Good Selling=-
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