Are You Making Enough Teleprospecting Mistakes To Succeed?
This post is a follow-up to a spinoff of my recent blog “Are you Calling a List or Finding Opportunities?” In the world of teleprospecting, the way an inside sales rep works a list is very important. It is what separates the minors from the majors in cold calling. You know your inside rep belongs in the majors when you know that you don’t have to put that perfect list in front of them. You can rely on this rep to do some detective work and find that huge opportunity for you.
As you are trying to find the right contact, it’s very important to keep something in mind – you need to make mistakes to find an opportunity. While cold calling, it is inevitable that you will call those businesses that aren’t a fit, have no need, and speak to that person who isn’t the right person before you find a good opportunity.
I was recently calling into fortune 500 company. You can only imagine the difficulty and road blocks the most resourceful BDR runs into without a contact name at a company of that size with a strict no name, no transfer policy. With some difficulty, I came across a contact’s name on an external resource that seemed pertinent to my call that day. After leaving a couple messages, this contact finally picks up the phone and says they are not the right person, but actually teaches in their “sales school” at that company. Fair enough. When I proceeded to be pointed to the right person, this contact then told me I don’t know how to prospect and I should never call someone unless I know for fact they are the right person to speak to. They then reluctantly gave me the name of someone else to call. I quickly tracked down this referral’s contact information and got them on the phone on the first call. I won’t get into all the details, but that person was thrilled to receive a call as they need some help on their team. What an amazing opportunity!
The point of this story is you have to make mistakes when you are prospecting. Without getting a referral, I may have never found this prospect in charge of that specific team at an organization of that size. The best BDRs are the ones that are not afraid to pick up the phone and fall on their face a couple times. Hiding behind lists, linkedin, and other resources will not make the best use of your time. Pick up the phone and talk to some people. The worst they can say is no. This is a small price to pay for the possibility of uncovering a huge opportunity you would not want to miss out on!