How to get your sales team making MORE calls

Look we get it, making calls is scary and if you’re new to sales, it might be something you are dreading or trying hard to avoid.

You might be a sales leader who is fighting the battle to try and get your sales team to make more calls, because you know that more calls is likely to lead to more pipeline and more sales. But it is NOT that simple…

Let’s address a few myths and confusions first:

Cold calling is NOT dead. You will have prospects out there that aren’t on social media, that don’t really reply to emails, and the ONLY way you’ll ever have a chance of getting their business is to pick up the phone and call them.
You may only get a 1-5% conversion, but it does convert.
Yes LinkedIn, social selling, email, video, they all work really well, but they work well ALONGSIDE cold calling.

So, let’s assume that you, or your sales team, maybe aren’t making as many calls as they could…

Here are 5 ways you can get your team (or maybe yourself) making MORE cold calls and generating more business in 2022:

1) Make calls WITH your sales team

If you want to get your team making more calls there will be few better ways that picking up the phone with them. Whether you’re able to do this in the office, or maybe create a virtual call session where the team all logs on through Zoom, if they see you making calls they will be motivated and inspired to make more calls as well.

This isn’t something you have to do every single day, but even once per week or once per month will have a big impact.

Let the team see you lead from the front line and lead by example and you’ll lead them to make more calls.

2) Set the RIGHT KPI’s and expectations for cold calling

One of the biggest, and most common, mistakes that sales leaders make is they focus their KPI’s and expectations on the NUMBER of calls a sales rep should make. Firstly these numbers can often be quite high (eg 100 calls per day) and so can be quite intimidating to salespeople, but they also encourage salespeople to make calls just to hit that number, so they don’t care if it doesn’t connect or just goes to voicemail.

You need to put your focus not just on the amount of calls they make, but on the CONVERSATIONS that they have.

100 calls might create 10-20 conversations, so why not set that as the KPI? Let your team know that you’re looking for real conversations, not just calls.

3) Provide training AND coaching for cold calling

It’s important to provide regular training on cold calling but even more important to provide COACHING. You should be listening to some of their calls on a weekly basis providing constructive feedback and coaching on what they might be able to do differently or better to increase their results.

Show them that you’re their to not just support them but to help them get the best results that they can possibly get.

All successful athletes have coaches and the same applies to sales.

4) Give them tools to HELP making cold calling easier

Technology can help make cold calling a lot easier and more effective if used properly, and it’s your role as a leader to provide this. Maybe you’re a salesperson and your company doesn’t provide it, so why not source it yourself? Show them that it works.

We personally recommend Pipedrive CRM to salespeople and sales teams and they have an amazing cold calling integration called Toky.

Pipedrive’s Toky integration allows you to automatically log inbound and outbound calls, record them and click to call inside of your CRM. You can call leads and contacts with a single click without leaving Pipedrive CRM. You can try Pipedrive completely free for 30-days here and start using their Toky integration (alongside their many other amazing integrations to sales tools)

5) Create ENGAGING competitions and leaderboards

A lot of salespeople are competitive, it’s a good quality for them to have, so create friendly but motivational competition. Have unique monthly competitions and rewards and create a leaderboard that allows them to see how they’re doing against their peers.

Perhaps one month the top prize is cash, the next it’s a special pair of trainers/sneakers, maybe it’s a fast food voucher, get creative and keep it fresh so the team are motivated each month.

Make sure it’s fun and engaging and support anyone who struggles or who slips to the bottom. Maybe make calls with those struggling to help them do better and show them that you’ve got their back.

Now we want to know YOUR biggest tip to help sales teams make more calls…

Add it into the comments and let us know what you do to motivate yourself or your team to make more cold calls.

To make successful cold calls you’ll need a good CRM to ensure those cold calls progress into pipeline and sales..

This article is supported by Pipedrive, one of the world’s best CRM’s used by over 100,000+ companies in 179 countries. You can try it for free right here. The best sales managers choose Pipedrive because it is DESIGNED for sales teams and has been voted the easiest to use CRM.

They normally offer 14-day free trial but if you follow one of our links in this newsletter you’ll be able to get an extended 30-day free trial and as a bonus, if you choose to use Pipedrive after your trial, you’ll get 20% discount on your first year (that’s a pretty amazing offer if we’re honest!).