When Less Sales Calls Are More

“I want you to make 25 sales calls a day”

Those are the words a boss uttered to his new sales rep. The number itself is not unreasonable. Armed with only names and phone numbers, a sales rep can easily blow through 25 calls and have enough time to get in nine holes (Hey, golf doesn’t play itself!). After all, how difficult is it to make this phone call (assuming that they get through to someone):

“Hi. Can you connect me with the person who buys your printing?”

Trust me, nothing good will come from that call.

What’s needed here is some backwards thinking: make less but better calls. At the bare minimum, by taking a few minutes to scour over a company’s Website, looking for information to use in that initial conversation, you aren’t guaranteed to make 25 calls but you are guaranteed that the calls you do make will be of higher value and ultimately more effective.

Honestly, I don’t disagree that handing a brand-new sales rep the phone so that they can cut their teeth and get used to the process is a good idea. But that exercise should be temporary (a week, tops) and replaced by a process that includes some pre-call research and then a phone attempt just so that the rep can see the difference.

Like arguing with a boss, a mother-in-law, or a crazy ex-girlfriend (so I hear), when making those initial sales calls, less is more. Less, but better, that is.

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