Dial! Dial! Dial!
I work for a company. Let's call it Company H. I have actually worked for this company twice: once in sales and now as an advisor - sort of a min-project manager.
This company is a Fortune 100 company and easily makes more than a billion dollars a year. I work at the headquarters and always have. Recently my company has bought up most of it's competition and is the largest company of it's size in the world. We have tentacles in just about every western nation and serve a very important need.
I won't get into that as it will give the company away.
Over the years I've had many sales jobs. Some were fun, some were not. Some were lucrative while others ... well, let's just say, not every industry is for every person. Know who you are, your strengths and convert that knowledge into selling to the right people.
I'm not what anyone would call a great sales person. I'll easily admit that. In fact, I'm not a huge fan of sales, I just enjoy having discussions with people where I can identify a need and offer a solution and sales is where I get to practice that skill every single day.
Before starting in the sales department at my current company I had never worked inside sales. My job was always a combination of making calls and following those calls up with on-site meetings, e-conferences and the like. I'd make my calls, prospect, develop leads and make more calls. Maybe somewhere in there I'd find the time to do some research, read some industry materials, network and more.
And then I started at Company H. I needed a job and this company was named one of the best places to work (locally). And it is. Company H's sales department has regular happy hours in the office, bicycles for people to use as they want, pinball machines, billiards, skateboards and basketball courts.
It's a place designed for the millennial mind to escape from their workload and recharge or reset before getting back to work.
In sales we had to dial the phone over 250 times a day and have over 4 hours of talk time. Every. Single. Day. It didn't matter if the prospects answered, answered and hung up or just didn't answer - we still had to talk 4 hours a day.
When you're falling behind the manager would come over and tell you to dial more. Only let it ring twice. Don't leave voicemails, that's a call or two you could have made. Why didn't you make that guy stay on the phone with you?
There were all kinds of ridiculous metrics the company kept track of, not caring if you were being a great brand ambassador or cultivating a prospect - they only cared if you had a one-call close in 20 minutes or less. In fact, in sale training they pushed this practice hard: here's your script. It's designed to be no more than 20 minutes of a call and if you stay on script you'll have their payment information and social security number in no time.
The problem was, it never worked like that. The prospects always derailed the script, argued with you, told you your product was a scam, whatever they could to waste your time so you couldn't make that next call. And the sale teams responded by harassing - or, should I say, haranguing - the prospects, doing their best to make them mad at a company that was just going to call again in a few weeks to see if they'd changed their mind.
I had problems with that method, but it was their SOP and the successful people were the ones who pushed and cajoled the prospects until they signed. It was horrible.
But, the mantra was: dial, dial, dial! It was the equivalent of throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks. Oh, no one's answered the phone in three hours? Well, the next call might.
I left sales for poor performance. My previous positions in sale took a consultative approach this company just didn't want to practice. Dial! Dial! Dial!
A month after I left, HR called and offered me my choice of positions in another department. I took them up on their offer as it's more a consulting role and less a pushy sales tactic role.
And so, I became an advisor. This department talked all about customer service, branding (I even had a lecturing for not saying the name of the company enough during conversations), ensuring our customers were repeat customers and I swallowed it up.
Then, for some reason, my performance started to slip. Maybe it was my homelessness or maybe I was just getting burnt out with dial, dial, dial! Oh, did I mention I have to dial the phone some 200+ times a day and have over 3 hours of talk time whether or not people answer, give me the time of day or want to talk about their projects?
Typically this isn't hard, but when you dial 50 calls in a row and either get hung up on or go to voicemail, it can become cumbersome at best.
For the first few months I was showing strong consistent numbers then my performance slipped. A co-worker who had been with the company for over a decade never had the numbers I always had and his slipped. But somehow people were still posting record numbers. Not just on my tram, but all the teams. People who struggled in training were now posting twice the numbers I had. People who couldn't work a computer were surpassing my numbers by the tens.
So, I went to my boss: how do I do better? He showed me how he did it and then said I was good to go. He listened to some of my calls, offered advice, usually QA checking me and less process checking me. His only real advice? Dial more.
I sit there for eight hours a day and dial. Sure, I walk away from my desk, have to go ask a question or get clarification sometimes and that affects my ability to dial, but I'm still at 3-4 hours of talk time every single day.
The theory being that if I dialed more it would increase my ability to make connections which would in turn increase my ability to close deals. But there's a flaw - a few of them, actually - in that plan:
This company is a Fortune 100 company and easily makes more than a billion dollars a year. I work at the headquarters and always have. Recently my company has bought up most of it's competition and is the largest company of it's size in the world. We have tentacles in just about every western nation and serve a very important need.
I won't get into that as it will give the company away.
Over the years I've had many sales jobs. Some were fun, some were not. Some were lucrative while others ... well, let's just say, not every industry is for every person. Know who you are, your strengths and convert that knowledge into selling to the right people.
I'm not what anyone would call a great sales person. I'll easily admit that. In fact, I'm not a huge fan of sales, I just enjoy having discussions with people where I can identify a need and offer a solution and sales is where I get to practice that skill every single day.
Before starting in the sales department at my current company I had never worked inside sales. My job was always a combination of making calls and following those calls up with on-site meetings, e-conferences and the like. I'd make my calls, prospect, develop leads and make more calls. Maybe somewhere in there I'd find the time to do some research, read some industry materials, network and more.
And then I started at Company H. I needed a job and this company was named one of the best places to work (locally). And it is. Company H's sales department has regular happy hours in the office, bicycles for people to use as they want, pinball machines, billiards, skateboards and basketball courts.
It's a place designed for the millennial mind to escape from their workload and recharge or reset before getting back to work.
In sales we had to dial the phone over 250 times a day and have over 4 hours of talk time. Every. Single. Day. It didn't matter if the prospects answered, answered and hung up or just didn't answer - we still had to talk 4 hours a day.
When you're falling behind the manager would come over and tell you to dial more. Only let it ring twice. Don't leave voicemails, that's a call or two you could have made. Why didn't you make that guy stay on the phone with you?
There were all kinds of ridiculous metrics the company kept track of, not caring if you were being a great brand ambassador or cultivating a prospect - they only cared if you had a one-call close in 20 minutes or less. In fact, in sale training they pushed this practice hard: here's your script. It's designed to be no more than 20 minutes of a call and if you stay on script you'll have their payment information and social security number in no time.
The problem was, it never worked like that. The prospects always derailed the script, argued with you, told you your product was a scam, whatever they could to waste your time so you couldn't make that next call. And the sale teams responded by harassing - or, should I say, haranguing - the prospects, doing their best to make them mad at a company that was just going to call again in a few weeks to see if they'd changed their mind.
I had problems with that method, but it was their SOP and the successful people were the ones who pushed and cajoled the prospects until they signed. It was horrible.
But, the mantra was: dial, dial, dial! It was the equivalent of throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks. Oh, no one's answered the phone in three hours? Well, the next call might.
I left sales for poor performance. My previous positions in sale took a consultative approach this company just didn't want to practice. Dial! Dial! Dial!
A month after I left, HR called and offered me my choice of positions in another department. I took them up on their offer as it's more a consulting role and less a pushy sales tactic role.
And so, I became an advisor. This department talked all about customer service, branding (I even had a lecturing for not saying the name of the company enough during conversations), ensuring our customers were repeat customers and I swallowed it up.
Then, for some reason, my performance started to slip. Maybe it was my homelessness or maybe I was just getting burnt out with dial, dial, dial! Oh, did I mention I have to dial the phone some 200+ times a day and have over 3 hours of talk time whether or not people answer, give me the time of day or want to talk about their projects?
Typically this isn't hard, but when you dial 50 calls in a row and either get hung up on or go to voicemail, it can become cumbersome at best.
For the first few months I was showing strong consistent numbers then my performance slipped. A co-worker who had been with the company for over a decade never had the numbers I always had and his slipped. But somehow people were still posting record numbers. Not just on my tram, but all the teams. People who struggled in training were now posting twice the numbers I had. People who couldn't work a computer were surpassing my numbers by the tens.
So, I went to my boss: how do I do better? He showed me how he did it and then said I was good to go. He listened to some of my calls, offered advice, usually QA checking me and less process checking me. His only real advice? Dial more.
I sit there for eight hours a day and dial. Sure, I walk away from my desk, have to go ask a question or get clarification sometimes and that affects my ability to dial, but I'm still at 3-4 hours of talk time every single day.
The theory being that if I dialed more it would increase my ability to make connections which would in turn increase my ability to close deals. But there's a flaw - a few of them, actually - in that plan:
- There is still no guarantee someone will answer.
- There is no guarantee someone will answer and want to talk.
- There is no guarantee someone will answer, want to talk and want to actually engage.
- There is no guarantee someone will answer, want to engage and want to purchase more.
I used this analogy today with a co-worker and he seemed to this it an apt metaphor:
Telling the hamster to run faster in the wheel won't make him reach the other side of the cage any quicker.
Sure, statistically, if of every 10 dials one person answers and of every 6 people you talk to one will engage and of every three engagements one will give you a sales, then more dials will equal more sales, but there is no guarantee this will happen.
This is especially annoying when we have nothing to offer the customer. Imagine for a moment you're selling a car: you're reaching out to past clients and asking them if they're ready for an upgrade. Someone finally says yes and you invite them down to the dealership the next day. They come checkbook in hand and you're going to show them the great four-door sedan with 100MPG and leather seats you promised them you had waiting in their favorite color.
They arrive. You walk them out to the lot only to discover the purchasing manager never ordered them in the first place. Now you look like a fool, your dealership doesn't look like it's running very efficiently and you have to try and convince the buyer they should take this list of other dealers as they might have the vehicle you promised.
That's my job. And more often than not I have to over-promise and under deliver. I don't like that. It makes everyone look bad and doesn't help the brand at all.
So, why are we calling when we have no product to deliver? Hoping the customer will want a product they didn't ask us for in the first place?
And yet, the solution to the entire process is Dial! Dial! Dial!
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