During our 22 years of providing lead generation and appointment-setting services to a wide variety of B2B clients, VSA has learned plenty about the ins and outs of cold calling.
One of the most important lessons is that the most successful cold-calling campaigns tend to be marathons, not sprints.
Sure, there are some programs that deliver exceptional results from the very start. VSA’s thorough onboarding process, skilled and experienced Business Development Representatives (BDRs), and close collaboration with our clients on prospect lists, messaging, and industry-specific best practices ensures that immediate success is always a possibility.
In many cases, though, it takes a little time before we begin to meet and beat client expectations.
This challenge is exemplified by recent cold-calling statistics, which reveal that making at least six cold-call attempts can increase contact rates by 70%.
But the quantity of calls alone usually isn’t enough to achieve the desired results for a cold calling campaign. After all, if you’re simply doing the same thing over and over again, you’re unlikely to change your fortunes.
That’s why VSA is a very data-driven organization. We give programs time to develop, then analyze results to see where changes and improvements can be made. Whether that means modifying the phone script, streamlining the target list, altering the calling hours, or any other strategic adjustment, we’re always looking for ways to improve production for our clients.
Our Quality & Training team and Program Managers also provide our BDRs and sales team with continuous support and coaching to help them hone their skills.
All of this has come into play for a current client with a complex offering. After falling short of the client’s lofty expectations early in the campaign, we have seen a steady rise in scheduled appointments and are consistently booking multiple meetings a day for them and providing a solid return on investment.
Here are four of the ways we’ve achieved this:
1. Extra QA and training
As mentioned above, VSA’s training and management teams work closely with BDRs on every client program, both in one-on-one and group settings. In the case of this client, we devoted extra time to that endeavor, diving deep into call recordings to find potential areas of improvement.
And it wasn’t just unsuccessful calls that we focused on. The Program Manager shared one particular call with the BDRs that resulted in a scheduled appointment, but she centered on elements of the call that might have caused a different prospect to decline the meeting. She asked the BDRs to listen to the call from the client’s perspective, and to focus on the things the client might have preferred to be done differently.
During the next week following the review of that call, the team set a record-high number of appointments for the client.
2. List enrichment
The most successful VSA programs often require multiple iterations of the prospect list. With this client, we have continuously worked to enrich the lists with direct phone numbers for our target decision-makers, increasing the chances of making connections and having meaningful conversations.
We have also developed follow-up lists and strategized the optimal amount of time to devote to the different lists, as well as which BDRs are better suited to call on each list.
3. Detailed data analysis
Scour the internet for cold calling statistics and trends, and you’ll find multiple studies claiming that calling at certain times on certain days gives you the best chance of reaching a prospect. Surprise: They’re not all the same!
Truth is, every calling program is different, based largely on the industries and titles you’re targeting. The only way to learn the ideal calling times for certain is to actually spend a few weeks dialing, and then study the data firsthand.
That’s what we’ve been able to do for this client. In the words of the Program Manager: “We watched all the data for the first couple of weeks of calling, analyzed it, and saw what steps we needed to take to improve production. We really dug into the call data and results, and started having the BDRs call on the days and times when we were seeing good results. We also looked at who we were setting meetings with, and started focusing on those type of targets.”
4. Extra motivation for the BDRs
VSA is not a commission-based organization. But that doesn’t mean we don’t provide a few extra incentives for a job well done—a complimentary cup of coffee, a company-wide shoutout, and other small gestures to let our BDRs know they’re appreciated.
In this case, we did offer some added team- and individual-based incentives for reaching a certain number of weekly scheduled meetings. It’s likely our BDRs would have risen to the occasion regardless, but a little extra motivation never hurts.
Conclusion
VSA’s goal is to help each and every one of our clients see a positive ROI from their partnership with us. It sometimes takes longer to achieve those results than the client would prefer, but we never stop working to make that happen.
In this case, we are happy to now be delivering results more aligned with our client’s initial expectations, but we know that it’s no time to grow complacent. There are always new obstacles to come, and we remain committed to rising above those hurdles.
If you’d like to learn more about how VSA can support your lead generation strategies and fill your sales pipeline, give us a call. We’re always excited to learn new ways to help companies grow their business.