As an inside sales team manager, there may be times when it is necessary to step in and encourage those members of your team whose numbers are waning.

In my experience, when you have a sales rep who has normally been consistently good, a few words of advice and direction can go a long way to improving their numbers.

Over the years I have found that when performance is down, invariably one or two of the following require course correction:

1)  Message

Problems with messaging occur when the Inside Sales Rep (ISR) has wandered away from the original solid message and has most likely lengthened it. For B2B cold calling and lead generation, the message must be simple, easy to understand, and compelling. This is necessary to gain, and hold, the attention of a prospect right away. If the message is too long, you risk losing attention and interest.

Complicated and rambling is too often where the message ends up, so revisit it and tighten it up.  Reps shouldn’t try to fit an entire “features and benefits” presentation into the introduction of a call.

The same holds true for voicemails. Leaving voicemails can be a good practice, but the message needs to be on point and short – one shouldn’t try to tell the whole story here in one or two breaths.  

It’s common that even when a rep started out with a brief and concise voicemail, over time it has somehow grown to a lengthy tale that no one cares to listen to.

A good range for a voicemail is no more than 20 seconds. A revealing exercise to keep on track is to have a rep leave a voicemail for him or herself and listen to see if the message is concise and within the time limit.   

2) Process

It seems that all ISR’s who experience success at some point make a decision to “work smarter” along the way.  

I’m all for smarter and better, but there is a danger for this to evolve in the wrong way; i.e. the rep trends toward making fewer calls to fewer contacts in intervals that are too lengthy, resulting in fewer successes and low performance.

When this happens it’s time to get back to the basics and revisit the process that led to previous success. This means consistency –  multiple attempts to multiple prospects in a set period of time.

According to insidesales.com, “Sales industry research from multiple studies consistently shows that the absolute bare minimum number of attempts to contact at least 50% of your leads is six,” and that the average rep conducts “between 1.7 and 2.1 attempts before they give up.”

While it may seem that making repeat calls is a form of “spinning your wheels”, it is those who make the multiple attempts that are qualifying the leads.

When members of your team are falling short, consider revisiting these basic fundamentals in order to get them back on track.

Outsource Your Inside Sales for Optimal Performance

If your sales reps are struggling with the consistency and persistence needed to hit their numbers, outsourcing your B2B lead generation can offer a solution.

An outsourced inside sales team is fully dedicated to sales, meaning 100% of their time is spent making the calls and multiple touches needed for success.

Additionally, a  professional team of callers with a dedication to best practices will keep your B2B campaign focused and successful.

John