The CRAP Report

Now, I’m not really much of a racing fan, car, horse or otherwise.  What I do know about the sport of racing, however, is that whatever method you choose to use to race, you’d better make sure that it’s in top shape.  It always amazes me, whenever I do catch an auto racing event on TV, is how fast the pit crews are when a car comes in.  Even for a flat tire, they’re so fast at changing them!  They have to be though, right?  I mean, there’s a ton of money riding on those races.  You can see where this analogy is going, right?  Your sales machine is typically the money maker of your organization, and the “pit-crew” of your sales machine are the folks who are fully qualifying leads for them.  If you want to keep that crew at a level of high performance, how do you go about doing that?

If you’ve got your own in-house teleprospecting team, or maybe you’re partnering with a vendor to supply you with sales qualified leads, this question has to be answered.  Typically, in the teleprospecting/appointment setting/telemarketing industry, the turnaround for the ground-level, in-the-trenches, phone-jockey job is pretty high.  It is the rare organization that is able to keep their top producing folks around for a while.  The way I see it, there are a few ways to help ensure that the folks who are great at qualifying sales opportunities for you to stick around longer: 

1. Inspire them consistently.
2. Keep them challenged.
3. Have them mentor new BDR’s.

The first way you maintain a high performing BDR is to inspire them consistently.  Let’s call a spade a spade here, okay?  Teleprospecting is not rocket science.  That being said, it is by no means any less important to the organization utilizing teleprospecting services, be they in-house or outsourced.  The job that teleprospectors do is so important!  Every dial they make should have a purpose behind it, so that they don’t feel like all they’re doing is smiling and dialing until the 5:30pm whistle blows.  If you’ve got a high performing BDR, you want to make sure that they feel like what they do is important; not because you want to manipulate them, but because it’s true.  If you really don’t see the value in teleprospecting, then that is a completely different story that I would be happy to talk about.  Thomas Edison said that, “genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”  If that is true (and if you’ll allow me the stretch of “genius” being analogous to “high performing”), and you’re not inspiring your BDR’s to be better today than they were yesterday, than you really can’t expect them to be at their best.

Second, to maintain your high performing teleprospector, you need to keep them challenged.  This can look like different things to different folks.  If you manage a team of teleprospectors who work on various campaigns for different solutions, you may want to put the high performing BDR on the struggling project.  Maybe you’ve got a project that’s only yielding five or six sales qualified opportunities per month.  Give that project a shot in the arm by putting in place one of your better performing reps.  The really great ones will rise to the challenge.  A couple of things will happen here – one, if that BDR is really good at what they do and the lead flow doesn’t change, you’ll know it may be an issue with the project, and two, if the BDR blows it out, then you know the rep that was first on the project may need more help than you thought.  If you don’t have the luxury of switching BDR’s and placing them on different projects and have an in-house team, you still need to challenge them.  This may come in forms of their metrics or the quality of their opportunities.  Challenge them to set personal records and then break them.  This is simple stuff, folks, but it bears mentioning.  Kudos to the manager who can challenge a BDR to break his or her older records because they actually did the job, too!

Lastly, another great way to maintain your high performing teleprospector is to have them mentor new BDR’s.  Let your BDR know that the reason why you’re using them to help train new reps is because of their high level of performance, and that you expect them to keep up that same level as the new employees sit with them.  Better yet, find a way to incent them on the effectiveness of the rep that they’re mentoring.  When I was a rep, I made sure I did everything I could to hit my bonus numbers, and would have jumped at the chance to earn more because I was able to train someone to do the job better than myself.  Training people should, theoretically, keep your skills sharp, too.  The sharper the skills, the more effective you can be.  The same should hold true for your BDR, too. 

What do you think?  What are some other ways to maintain your high performing teleprospectors?