The CRAP Report

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