Did you ever have a Magic 8-Ball?  You remember that, right?  You ask it questions, shake it up, and then look at the bottom of the ball to see which side of the twenty-sided die inside floated to the top.  There were answers like, “It is certain,” “Ask again later,” and “Very doubtful.”  I had one as a kid and always thought they were pretty cool.  If the Magic 8Ball said that I was going to win a basketball game, then of course it was going to happen, right?  If only predicting the future was as easy as shaking one of those things.  Of course, with some of the answers you’d receive, I’m not so sure I want to leave the future up to fate.  So what does this all have to do with teleprospecting?  Well, it got me thinking about self-fulfilling prophecies and a conversation I had today. 

I had lunch with a friend of mine who’s a sales rep, and we were talking on the way back about the teleprospectors that provide him with sales qualified leads.  He said that his territory had recently changed, and that he was really excited to be working one-on-one with his BDR.  I asked him what was one of the more challenging aspects of working with BDR’s in general, and for him, he said that it’s helping BDR’s out of a rut.  He said that when they have a string of dry days (no leads), it’s really tough to help them stay positive.  That got me thinking about the whole self-fulfilling prophecy thing I mentioned above.  I remember being on the phones and trying to find sales ready opportunities, and if I had a run of a few bad days, it was hard to not think that I couldn’t get over it.  I kept expecting prospects to say, “not interested,” to me, and I was expecting them to hang up on me or never get back to me.  And what do you think happened?  They said “no” and hung up on me more often.  But was it because I was expecting them to?  I think so.  

You can’t think like that in sales, let alone teleprospecting.  The job requires momentum and you’ve got to keep it as positive as possible.  Here’s three ways I see that we can help teleprospectors to stay positive: 

1.  Remind them of the number of prospects they have to call:  If your teleprospectors have a large number of contacts that they can try to qualify, remind them that a “no” is just like dirt on their shoulder.  They need to dust it off like Jay-Z and move on to the next name.  There is no time to waste on people who aren’t interested. 

2.  Remind them to focus on their successes:  Here’s an easy way to keep things positive for your BDR’s.  You wouldn’t have kept them around if they weren’t successful in the past (gosh, I HOPE you wouldn’t), so go back to those past wins with them.  By helping your teleprospectors to revisit leads that they’ve passed before, you’re going to remind them that they can do the job, and have done it well in the past. 

3.  Remind them that every day brings a clean slate:  There is nothing as refreshing as that thought.  No matter how bad yesterday was, tomorrow is brand new.  Tomorrow we can make more calls, talk with more prospects, qualify more of them in OR out of our sales process, and close more business.  Focusing on what has already happened does no good. 

What about you?  What do you do to help your team out of a rut, or to keep them from falling into negativity?

*Photo Credit: misplaced in the city on Flickr

Where do you get inspiration from?  Better yet, how do you inspire your teams to bigger and better things?  To pass more leads of higher quality?  To make more calls today than they did yesterday?  To make more calls tomorrow than they’re going to make today?  To talk with more people who will probably hang up on them?  To initiate interest in a product that the prospect knows nothing about but after a ten to fifteen minute phone call now has to have?  How do you get them to do that if you’re feeling burned out yourself?  If you’re a manager of BDR’s, you can’t afford to burn out.  You can’t afford to do anything BUT burn bright.  You’ve got to keep yourself ablaze if you expect your reps to even glow, so how do you do that? 

For me, I listen to music.  Music like Jay –Z and Alicia Key’s Empire State of Mind.  Check it out: 

This song has vision and hope!  Can a song have those?  I’m not sure, but if it can, this one has them.  If you have a team of teleprospectors or you’re partnering with someone to provide you with sales qualified leads, you need to make sure they’re being managed by someone who has vision and knows HOW to manage.  How to motivate.  How to inspire.  The job of making phone calls and qualifying sales ready leads is not glamorous, but it is no less important.  It is no less necessary and it is no less needed whether you’ve hopped on the inbound marketing bus or not.

So today, I’m asking for feedback.  What do you do?

If you’re like me and my friends, you were pretty hyped up for last night’s season premiere of LOST.  I came to the game late on this one, having to watch three seasons on DVD (which by the way, is actually more fun because you can just keep watching episode after episode).  If you don’t know what LOST is, it’s a show about survivors of a plane crash and their adventures on the island that they crashed on.  To tell you anymore within the confines of this blog would break the space-time continuum.  I’d say it’s probably one of the most well developed shows in TV history; that’s just my limited opinion though.  As I was discussing last night’s two-hour opening with some of the BDR’s at work today, it got me thinking – how can you keep your teleprospectors from becoming “lost” on their sales prospecting calls?

If you’ve got an in-house team of B2B lead generators or maybe you’re partnering with a vendor to provide you with sales qualified leads, naturally you want to make sure that the folks representing you and your organization over the phone are as effective as possible.  Teleprospectors, for the most part, make a ton of dials every day, and depending on who they talk to, there are times when conversations can be very dizzying.  I think there are three ways we can help BDR’s from becoming “lost” on their teleprospecting calls: 

1. Ensure they know who they’re calling.
2. Know when to call your prospects.
3. Help them to control the conversation.

The first way we can help teleprospectors from becoming “lost” on their calls is to ensure they know who they’re calling.  I’ve had many clients who’ve told me that they’re not sure who they want my BDR’s to speak with.  Okay – big red flag here!  Help your BDR’s by nailing down the top two or three titles in an organization who would want to buy your product or service.  If you’re doing your due-diligence, you should already be creating buyer personas, as marketing strategist David Meerman Scott points out in The New Rules of Marketing and PR (which by the way just came out with a second edition).  By understanding exactly who is going to buy your solution or service, you can help your BDR’s to target those titles on their teleprospecting calls.  They’ll keep from becoming lost because you will have given them a mark with which they can align their lead-gen compass by.

The second way we can help teleprospectors from becoming “lost” on their calls is to know when to call your prospects.  Appointment setting guru Mike Damphousse blogged about the best time to make lead gen calls after reading sales management expert Gerhard Gschwandther’s highlights on an MIT/InsideSales.com study of outbound prospecting lead conversion.  Mike points out himself the most effective time to make teleprospecting calls, and you can read that here.  The take-away from this is that if we can help our BDR’s figure out the most likely time that they’re prospects are going to be in their office, we can increase the possibility of those prospects becoming sales qualified leads.

Lastly, we can help our teleprospectors from becoming “lost” on their calls by helping them to control the conversation.  There have been plenty of times when I’ve sat in with rookie BDR’s who have had prospects run them ragged on a call.  They get off the phone, head spinning, saying, “What the hell just happened!?”  We can help our BDR’s take control of the conversation just by giving them better qualification questions to ask.  I think we can agree that most folks like to talk about themselves, and by helping our BDR’s to ask more poignant, pain-eliciting questions, we keep the ball in their court by keeping the prospect talking.  It’s not always going to work, because we’re dealing with another human on the end of the line, but for the most part, if we can help our BDR’s to control conversations with better questions, and then couple that with a better understanding of the technology or service their calling on, they’re certainly going to get “lost” less.

What do you think?  What can you add to the list?

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?

Wow, so the first “official” work day of 2010 is over, and I can’t believe I’m just sitting down to blog at 10:30pm at night.  So sorry for the delay on this!  If you recall, last week I started talking to you about what I want for your teleprospectors this year.  I shared with you that I would want them to have more courage, because courageous BDR’s are more likely to pass fully qualified sales opportunities.  They’re not afraid to ask tough questions and they’re certainly not flustered when presented with difficult objections.  I also talked with you about how I want your BDR’s to have a better source of data from which to prospect from and a compensation plan that pays them out on the quality of their work.  Tonight, want to finish up this little series with numbers four and five of my “wants” for your teleprospectors in 2010.

The fourth desire I have for your teleprospectors in 2010 is a plan to be better BDR’s.  Chances are, if you’re managing a team of teleprospectors or if you’re partnering with a vendor to provide you with sales qualified leads, not every one of the folks on the phone for you are what you would call “A” players (and that’s okay).  Not everyone is going to be an “A,” and chances are also good that when the “A’s” realize they’re at that level, they move on to do something else.  You may have a lot of “B” and “C” level BDR’s, and that’s okay, too.  Okay for a while.  How are you going to bring those folks up?  How are you going to raise their skill levels?  What are you going to do when your “A’s” leave for more money or a different opportunity?  These are questions that if you haven’t yet, you need to start asking yourselves now.

You see, if there’s one thing that you take away from any of the “wants” that I have for your BDR’s, it’s this one.  Help them to better their skills.  Help them to prospect better.  Help them to mine for opportunities better.  Help them understand your solutions or services better.  Saying that you want to do that is one thing, but it is a whole different story to take this seriously and plan something for them.  They need skills enrichment programs if you’re expecting them to pass more and more qualified opportunities.  The money you invest in the training of your BDR’s is only going to serve to bring better sales qualified leads to your sales team.  Better leads mean better forecasts, and better forecasts means more closed business, which is what we’re all looking for.  I want your teleprospectors to have a plan to be better BDR’s in 2010.

Lastly, my fifth “want” for your BDR’s in 2010 is for them to have managers who have “been there” before.  I understand this cannot always be the case, but if it is at all possible, you should have someone managing your BDR’s who have made teleprospecting calls in the past.  The job of a BDR is not the easiest.  They typically talk with people who do not want to talk with them, and when they need a pep talk or a sounding board, a manager who has made those same calls before goes a long way.  I know that when I made teleprospecting calls, it meant a lot to me that my manager had made calls right by my side months ago.

If you are in the position to place someone in charge of your teleprospecting team who’s actually MADE B2B lead generation calls before, do it.  Your reps will see the authenticity in their leadership abilities (at least when it comes to teleprospecting) and chances are their production will increase.  It’s been my experience that BDR’s respond better to someone who has been in their shoes before.  In 2010, I want your teleprospectors to have managers that have “been there” before.

There you have it – my top five “wants” for your BDR’s in 2010.  What did I miss?  What else belongs on this list?

As 2009 comes to a close, I’m thinking about the fact that I love lists – you know, countdown lists.  The “top ten” this or the “top five” that.  Whether I really agree with the person making the list or not, I still like reading someone else’s opinion.  Over the course of the next week, I want to share with you a few thoughts on what I want for your teleprospectors in 2010.  You can call it my top five “wants” for your teleprospectors in 2010.

If your BDR’s are like mine, chances are they spend most of their day trying to get in touch with people who don’t want to be spoken to.  If and when they get those folks on the phone, they are, at times, subjected to some of the most “not so nice” attitudes that prospects can conjure up.  I don’t care how tough you are, teleprospecting can take a lot out of you; and it can drain your confidence if you’re left hearing a lot of “no’s” all day.

That being said, what I want for your teleprospector in 2010 is more confidence.  I want your telepropsectors to feel like no matter what they come across on the phones, they’re ready for it.  Help your BDR’s to prospect better by building their confidence on the phones in 2010.  I see three ways that we can do that:

1.  Knowledge is power – help your BDR’s to be as confident as they can be by making sure that they’re as knowledgeable as they can be about the solutions or services that they’re calling on.  Having a solid understanding about how things work brings confidence with it.

2.  If you build it, they will (be)come – help your BDR’s to be as confident as they can be by involving them in the process of developing the messaging that they’ll be delivering to your prospects.  If your BDR’s feel like they’ve been part of the creation process, they’re going to feel a greater sense of ownership to their teleprospecting script.  A greater sense of ownership means they’ll feel a sense of pride while using “their” script, thus becoming more confident in their work.

3.  Practice makes perfect - help your BDR’s to be more confident in 2010 by spending time role playing with them.  Put some thought into it, too.  Don’t just role play for the sake of saying that you’ve done it.  Put together a plan to take your BDR’s through the toughest role plays you can think of, and then take them through them again.  Will all of their prospecting calls go the same way?  No, not at all, but if they’ve got practice dealing with tough calls (even fake ones), chances are they’re going to feel more confident when the really difficult ones come their way.

That does it for today – stay tuned, though!  Tomorrow brings with it Part 2 of What I Want for Your Telepropsectors in 2010.  See you then!

I’m sure around the holidays that you, like me, will have a good number of parties to attend.  Now, some may be family affairs while others may be for work, but for the most part those holiday parties typically have the same thing in common – food.  Wherever you go, I’m sure that there’ll be plenty of food to eat.  Folks will have spent time preparing and cooking great appetizers and main dishes, and desserts, too.  One of the things that may run through your mind while you’re at an event, and probably while you’re eating, is “how can I make this at home?” For a lot of you, though, the better question will be, “how can I make this better at home?”  That’s what cooks, do, right?  They find something they like and then they make it better.  The same thing can be said for your teleprospecting efforts, you know?  You’re sales prospecting machine may be great, but there’s always a way to make it better right?  Of course there is!

Often times business development gets caught somewhere between Sales and Marketing, and though I do believe that teleprospecting bridges the gap between the two.  That being said, and speaking from experience, it typically is a Marketing responsibility.  For the majority of projects that I’ve worked on, both as a BDR and as a Director, my main point of contact has been someone from my client’s Marketing department.  Surprisingly enough, right, that there was little involvement from the Sales side?  I’m here to say, though, that if you want to make your BDR’s better, regardless of whose responsibility B2B lead generation is in your organization, get your sales reps involved.  I see three ways that your sales team can make your BDR’s (or your vendor’s on your behalf) better: 

1. Give them “dream” accounts to call into.
2. Let them listen in on sales calls.
3. Give them feedback on all leads.

You give your teleprospectors marketing lists to call on, sure.  Those names are from tradeshows and webinars, white paper and eBook downloads, and even purchased lists.  That data is great, no doubt, but if you want your sales reps help in making your teleprospectors better, have them give your BDR’s “dream” accounts to call into.  Sales guys all have this list – the name of marquee companies that they want to close, and especially the ones they haven’t even broken into yet.  Giving this list to your BDR’s helps them to be better because it gives them incentive to impress.  If there is one thing that I’ve learned most about the BDR’s that I work with, it’s that money is not always the number one motivator for them.  Maybe it’s their generation, or maybe they’re just better with their money than I am, but for the most part, they would MUCH rather receive recognition for a job well done than extra money (crazy, I know!).  I know that when I was a BDR, if a sales rep told me that he or she “couldn’t” get into Company A, that I busted my ass to make sure that I did.  Getting a list of “dream” accounts to call into made teleprospecting fun for me, and it helped me to raise my game because I understood the importance of getting my sales rep in front of that important account.

Next, your sales team can make your BDR’s better by letting them listen in on sales calls.  I’ve talked a lot about shadowing in on calls with your BDR’s, but they need to shadow your sales reps.  Giving them that opportunity lets your BDR’s hear how objections are handled by the folks in your organization who are the best equipped to handle them.  Listening on sales calls also allows your BDR’s to focus on an important skill without any pressure – listening.  There is a lot of pressure to listen while on a prospecting call.  At the same time you’re supposed to focusing in on listening to a potential sales opportunity, you’re also trying to process what questions they’re posing and what objection they’re throwing at you, and how you’re going to answer them both.  Shadowing in on calls with your sales team affords your BDR’s the chance to just listen.  That’s all they’ve got to do.  It can be a nice break for your teleprospectors while at the same time gives them the chance to learn a lot about the sales process.

Lastly, the very BEST way to get your sales team to make your BDR’s better is to have sales give them feedback on all leads.  This is the closed loop strategy; you’re closing the loop on the opportunities that sales receives.  There is no single better way to shape your BDR’s qualification skills then by having your sales team go over each lead that gets passed to them and detail what the end result was for each.  Was the information that they received initially validated?  What worked well?  What information wasn’t accurate and what information wasn’t provided that really should?  What is the next step in the life cycle of this lead?  All of this feedback only stands to make your BDR’s better.  I know that my BDR’s look forward to each interaction they have with the sales reps that they’re passing leads to because they want to know if what they’re doing is effective.  They want to be better at qualifying leads and when they hear the feedback from the folks who actually follow up on their leads, it spurs them on to achieve success.  My colleague, Lindsay Roberts, talked about having a closed loop strategy earlier this week in a webcast entitled Perspectives in Teleprospecting – A Closed Loop Strategy, and you should check that out here.

There are other ways, I’m sure, that your sales team can make your teleprospecting team better, so tell me what you think we should add to this list?

We’ve all got friends in our lives that say that they’re going to do something and then they don’t do it, right?  It’s not just me, is it?  Hell, I know I’ve BEEN that person before.  I’m not proud of that, but it’s the truth.  For the most part though, hopefully we can forgive our friends if the gaffe wasn’t too great, and hopefully they’re able to do the same thing for us.  But when it comes to work, it’s a little different, isn’t it?  If you’re counting on someone to do something for you and they just never get it done, that isn’t as easily forgivable, especially if you’ve got deadlines to keep.  How do you keep people accountable to doing what they’re supposed to be doing?  And speaking about teleprospecting in particular, how do you keep BDR’s accountable?

Typically everyone has someone to keep them accountable to doing what they’re supposed to be doing at work – that person is called your boss.  If you’ve outsourced your teleprospecting efforts, or even if you have your own team generating sales qualified leads for you in-house, keeping those folks accountable to your marketing and sales teams is of the utmost important.  Its more than just being accountable to a boss, they also have a customer that they have to answer to, be it external or internal.  I’ve blogged before about key performance indicators such as conversation numbers, lead rates, and closed loop percentages, and those are great ways to keep your teleprospecting teams responsible for producing the number of sales qualified leads that you need them to generate.  Additionally, though, I think there are three other ways we can keep BDR’s accountable: 

1. Make them give presentations before a project kicks off.
2. Have them participate in weekly client meetings.
3. Make sure your clients listen in on their calls.

One way that we can make sure that teleprospectors are really doing what they’re supposed to be doing in terms of learning about the solution or services that they’re calling on is to make them give presentations before a project kicks off.  Its really important that our BDR’s know what they’re talking about to our prospects, so make them present it back to you.  If you can, make it a full blown presentation with PowerPoint slides and invite others to sit in on it with you.  If you’re a vendor, make the BDR do it for your client.  If you’ve got an in-house team of lead generators, make them do it for your sales and/or marketing team.  Jerry Seinfeld does a bit about people being more afraid of public speaking than of death, and I know I’ve read that elsewhere, but here’s an opportunity to light a fire under someone’s ass to make sure they’re as prepared as they can be.  If the majority of folks are afraid of public speaking, they’re more than likely going to over-prepare (I know, I’m hopeful) for a presentation in front of their boss and clients.  As a side note, this is also a great way to weed out really bad hires, too.  I’ve had BDR’s come to my team without me having interviewed them, and I can tell as soon as they do their presentation whether or not I’m going to keep them or help them find a job that they’re going to succeed at.

Another way to keep BDR’s accountable for their productivity is to have them participate on weekly client meetings.  Regardless of who your client is, be they another company you’re generating leads for or your own sales team, you’re probably meeting with these folks pretty regularly.  I’m advocating that the folks making calls on their behalf be involved in those meetings, as well.  Give your client the opportunity to ask them questions about conversations that they’re having, or check to see if they’ve brushed up on the latest release of whatever.  I’m not saying that you should throw a BDR under the bus – not by any stretch.  What I am saying, though, is to let them be held responsible for what they’re supposed to be doing in front of their client.  One of the newer guys on  a project got grilled one day by the CEO of my client, and my rep could hear the frustration in the CEO’s voice when he didn’t have an answer to his question (about a detail from a conversation a week prior).  You’d better believe that during our next weekly call with that client my BDR was well prepared for any question that could have come up.  He was held accountable for his responsibilities, and it made him an all around better BDR because he knew I wasn’t the only one checking up on him.

Lastly, and I know I beat this drum all the time, but it is no less important, but make sure your clients are listening in on calls with your BDR’s.  Beg them if you have to.  I’m even advocating groveling here because of how important this one is.  There was never a time where I wasn’t as prepared as I could be than when my client was listening in on calls with me.  I even had a client shadow calls while sitting in my cube with me!  You know what, though?  It made me a better rep.  If you ever want to find out whether or not your BDR “gets” what they’re calling on, there is no better way than to listen to them try to qualify a cold call prospect.  If you’ve spent money to outsource lead generation and you haven’t listened in on calls with your vendor’s teleprospectors, shame-shame know your name!  If you can’t do it, get someone in your organization that can.  Make sure that the message that is being delivered is the one you want delivered, especially if you’re not seeing the production that you think you should be.  If you have an in-house team, make sure someone from the sales side (or marketing if lead gen is a sales function in your office) is listening in.  A warning, though – some BDR’s are fantastic but can’t handle the pressure of having someone listen in on calls with them.  If you know they’re good, encourage them that call shadowing is only going to make them better.  If they’re not good, well, use it as a way to weed them out.

There are other ways to keep BDR’s accountable for their output, but beyond the typical metrics, I think these will help you help your client.  What about you?  What are other methods you use to keep a teleprospector accountable?

Oh man – we’ve all made them right?  Mistakes?  I can think of some mistakes I’ve made in my life and am glad I’ve learned from them.  No mistake, though, will be greater than what I call 2002’s Worst Job Move Ever.  I needed a job and took the first one that was offered to me from the- medical-technology-company-that-shall-remain-nameless.  This was a bad move all around for me.  For starters, it was business casual all the time.  Oh, except for Fridays when I could wear black jeans.  Yes, you read that right, black jeans.  Who wore black jeans in 2002?  My ex-boss, that’s who.  He made the determination as to what “casual Fridays” would be like, and black jeans were the only option.  Next, there was the travel.  I’m not a fan of flying – I’m not all John Madden about it, but I don’t like it.  I was told, at most, I’d travel 4 times a year.  Well, after 3 trips in 2 months, I realized I’d been duped.  We all make mistakes, but not all of us learn from them.  I’d like to talk with you about some teleprospecting mistakes and how your BDR’s can learn from them.

If you’re managing a team of in-house BDR’s, or maybe you’ve contracted with an organization to manage your teleprospecting efforts, then you know that, like most of life, lead generation has its ups and downs.  There are moments when you sit in and listen to calls with a green rep and you’re cheering for them because they’re qualifying a prospect with the dexterity of a seasoned vet.  On the other hand though, there are those moments when you sit in and listen to calls with a seasoned vet, and for some reason they’re not “feeling it” and they sound like they’ve never picked up a phone before.  In shadowing in on calls with BDR’s, I often see three common mistakes that they typically make: 

1. Expecting no one to pick up the phone.
2. Not being prepared.
3. Letting an opportunity to talk go.

Don’t kid yourself about this first one – we’ve ALL been there.  If you’ve ever made a teleprospecting call, you know that hardly anyone ever picks up the phone.  The mistake, though, is expecting no one to pick up the phone.  What happens when you fall into that rut is that you start to work on auto-pilot.  Last time I checked, but humans aren’t 747’s; we’re not meant to run on auto-pilot.  We get dazed and we become almost zombified (without the horrible disease) and start to just “smile and dial.”  You forget to hit “0-#” when you get the voicemail.  You miss an opportunity to find a new decision maker and instead just focus on hitting an activity goal.  We don’t pay attention to what we’re doing because hey, no one is going to pick up anyways.  It’s almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy, almost like willing the person we’re calling to ignore us.  BDR’s need to shake themselves out of that rut.  They need to get up, stretch, or take a break.  If you work with me, you’re probably talking about movies or something like that.  Regardless, you’ve got to help your reps to not fall into this rut.  This mistake can be costly because there is no time to be mindless while mining for qualified sales opportunities.

Not being prepared is another big mistake BDR’s make.  I’ve blogged at great lengths (here and here) about pre-call planning, and if its done, it will help your BDR’s (and mine) from falling in this trap.  It is not fun to be on the shadowing end of a BDR who is not prepared to speak with a prospect when that prospect has picked up the phone.  The “ums” and “uhs” alone are enough to make you cringe, but how many times can you say to a prospect, “that’s a great question.  I’ll get back to you on that,” before the prospect just disregards you altogether?  Not being prepared has cost you that one potential opportunity.  Help your BDR’s by holding quick project meetings with them, just to make sure they’re up on the product or service that they’re calling on.  Obviously you meet with your employees on a regular basis, but make this meeting more about preparedness.  Task your BDR to create their own “sales card” that has everything they need to know about what they’re calling on and then make one yourself; see who’s is better and make a competition out of it.  The thing here is that our BDR’s can never be too prepared.  Since they’ve never spoken with EVERY one of their prospects, someone always has the potential to bring up a question that they’ve never come across.  Help your BDR’s to be like the Boy Scouts – to be prepared.

Lastly, I’d have to say the MOST cringe-worthy mistake a BDR can make is letting an opportunity to talk go.  Sometimes with more rookie-level BDR’s, they’re too self conscious about what they perceive to be “bothering” someone.  If a prospect picks up the phone and the tone in their voice is one of quickness or they’re short, I’ve been with reps who just ask for a better time to talk.  I want to say, “Yeah, you just HAD it, and you’re not going to get it again!”  Help your BDR’s by role playing difficult situations with them.  Get them used to hearing someone be quick with them on the phone.  Sometimes a prospect is quick because they have to be, because they’re busy.  Sure, there are times when a brisk prospect just doesn’t want to talk, and they never would have been an opportunity there, but work with your BDR’s (or your vendors) to help them understand the difference between the two.  Make reps call those prospects back, too.  If a prospect has blown your rep off the line with something they didn’t know how to respond back with, make them call the prospect back immediately with you there feeding them the answer.  Regardless of what you do, help your BDR’s to make every moment that they have with a prospect on the phone count.

How about you?  What mistakes have you made in your teleprospecting career or have your reps made and how have you corrected them?

Okay, so for the most part, I really can’t stand reality television.  I watched my fair share of MTV’s The Real World (when it really was “real” back in 1992) before it became obvious that the same “type” of character was cast season after season.  I watch stuff like Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares and Hell’s Kitchen shows and who doesn’t watch American Idol, right?  Don’t judge me for my television watching, please!  This past weekend, however, while I was flipping around the channels, I came across A&E’s new reality show called Steven Seagal: Lawman.  How can I pass this up!?  This guy was in the coolest action movies of three word titles the early 1980’s had to offer!  Who can forget Above the Law, Hard to Kill, Marked for Death, and Out for Justice?  Steven Seagal was (and apparently still is) a bad ass, and I think teleprospectors can learn thing or two from him.

Steven Seagal is a practitioner of the martial art Aikido.  Aikido is when you use an attacker’s motion against them.  They throw a punch at you and you use their motion to direct them away from you or into a hold or flip or something like that.  Seagal brought that martial art into the spotlight in 1987’s Above the Law and that art has helped him spawn a 20+ year career in entertainment.  I think there are three things that teleprospectors can learn from him to be better at their job: 

1. Be unassuming.
2. Be confident.
3. Know your enemy’s next possible move.

Steven Seagal, though he is 6’4” is a very unassuming person.  If you’ve ever seen interviews with him or footage of him off-set, he’s this really mellow guy.  I’m guessing his martial arts training have helped him become more Zen-like.  The correlation here to teleprospecting is that if our BDR’s can have that same sense of calmness on the phones, they’re going to be able to put their prospects at ease, thus making a conversation more likely one that bears fruit.  We’ve all spoken with telemarketers on the phone, who interrupt us while we’re at home eating dinner, or maybe watching a movie, or maybe just not wanting to answer a phone.  Those folks know they’re interrupting and you can hear their discomfort through the phone.  I think BDR’s (and telemarketers, too) can take a lesson from Seagal here and learn to be a little more Zen while prospecting for sales qualified leads.  Think about it for a minute – if your BDR is less nervous about making a cold call, they have a greater likelihood of passing leads because of the coolness they bring to the phone.  Help your BDR’s to be unassuming on the phone by role playing with them the difficult situations that may come up during teleprospecting.

I think another lesson teleprospectors can learn from Seagal is that you’ve got to have confidence.  This guy just exudes confidence!  I know that sounds contradictory a little, right?  Be unassuming and confident.  Confidence doesn’t always mean being brash or boastful.  I’m talking more about a quiet confidence; a confidence that has been built up by training.  If you’ve got a team of teleprospectors in-house developing sales qualified leads for you, or if you’re partnered with a vendor to find them for you, trust me when I tell you that you want those folks confident.  That confidence, however, is only going to come with enough training.  Last week I talked about building confidence in your teleprospecting team, and while I won’t rehash everything that I said there, I can’t say enough about ensuring that your BDR’s know everything they can about the solution or service that they’re calling on.  Remember what it was like in school after you’d just spent nights studying for a big test?  If you’ve put enough time in, there comes a point where you feel within yourself that there is nothing more you need to learn or memorize – you’ve learned it all (at least for this particular test).  The test day comes and you stride into class like you’re Rowdy Roddy Piper from They Live – you’re “ready to chew bubble gum and kick ass, and you’re all out of bubble gum.”  Your studying gave you that level of confidence.  The same can be said for teleprospecting.  The more your BDR’s study up on what they’re calling on, the more confident they will be on the phones.

Lastly, Seagal was talking on his show this weekend about the importance of knowing what a suspect’s next move could be.  Anticipation is the key here, right?  Though I’m not advocating that prospects are the “enemy” of a BDR, the point is no less applicable.  A BDR needs to anticipate what a prospect is going to tell them on the phone.  Some folks find it very valuable to build a flow chart of potential conversations that can be had with prospects.  “If they say this, I’ll say that.  If they say that, I’ll say this.  If they go down this road, I’ll detour them with that;” you get the idea.  We would do well by our BDR’s if we help them understand what a prospect may object to on their calls.  I would suggest taking a look at all of your BDR’s conversations and picking out the common threads.  Spend some time mapping out potential barriers or roadblocks and then create the workarounds that will help your teleprospectors.  The more practice your BDR’s have at anticipating what a prospect will come back at them with, the better they’re going to be.  The better your BDR, the better your qualified leads.  The better your qualified leads, the more pipeline and so on.  The point here is that it’s imperative to help your teleprospectors to anticipate what their prospects are going to say so that they can (forgive me for this lameness) turn a negative into a positive.

There you go – lessons for your BDR’s from Steven Seagal!  Make sure your BDR’s are unassuming and put prospects at ease, that they’ve built confidence that comes from learning their product/service, and that they’re able to anticipate a prospect’s next move so that they can better pass fully qualified sales opportunities.