How many Cold calls to make one appointment?

Past research from US universities concluded several years ago that calling potential clients directly from the phone is un-effective. The conclusion of such research was that 4 out of 5 decision makers will definitely not buy directly from a cold call.

Now business people from the direct marketing arena will tell you: “Ahhh, it’s all in the word cold calling, we gather as much information as we can first”
Yet it’s still speaking with someone for the first time and the rapport you can establish in a few minutes is very limited.

More recent however; The Keller research center at Baylor University Texas research has painted an even more damning picture of the telemarketing business arena:

Over 6,000 calls were made by experienced and seasoned sales-telemarketers and monitored closely over a fortnight period. The results may shock you!
72% off all calls were abrupt and quite rude, and ended swiftly, with no further contact!

28% Were labeled as Useful, as they did not hang up immediately, managed some small talk a while, and developed a modicum of rapport, and asked to be called back or gave a referral, seems some of us just can’t hang up or be rude, even though we want to!

The follows ups were made on this 28% who were useful and 19 appointments were made.

So that’s 19 appointments from 6264 calls which then became 4 sales or if you like your math, that’s around 0.6%

The time spent and the costs accounted for it equated to a full working day to get one appointment and a targeted Sales Lead

The statistics come from a leading authority on business and the point is that it is getting harder and harder to make sales by starting from the phone.

Back in the 1990’s when I was banging the phone on an office day from Salford Quays Manchester we would spend the whole day making 50 calls, getting 16 appointments, 4 per day over the next week from our existing clients and a few new ones. This resulted in around 2 sales a week of office automation. So that’s 2 sales from 50 calls now it seems you have to make around 3,000 calls to get 2 sales.

That’s 1,500 calls to get a sale , that’s like a month of calls for a sale! you would have to make sure you have a massive order value to make this worth while, like houses and Bentley cars!

We as a society are so much more guarded and educated in sales techniques; we just don’t get taken in as much as we did!

No wonder Physical network and social media have found new heights of success, spending two hours on social media branding your business or establishing a new relationship at a networking event will be much more comfortable and a much better use of your time.

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