“I didn’t have a power dialing session on Monday, and I missed it,” said a B2B inside sales rep on my team last week. Ah – music to my ears. For the past year, I’ve spent a lot of my time investigating power dialing tools and methodologies. Everyone seems to have an opinion on power dialing versus traditional manual dialing. I understand where the naysayers are coming from – I had those thoughts when I first started, too. However, after I began adopting the technology, I had a change in mindset, and my life is a heck of a whole lot easier. The same goes for my sales reps.
Here are three myths about power dialing that we have squashed over the last several months:
1. Power dialing doesn’t allow me enough time to pre-call plan and complete sales research when calling into an account. This was my biggest concern when it came to these tools. I was nervous that leads would flash up on my sales reps' screen, without giving them enough time to make their sales messaging targeted to that specific organization. Luckily, there are fixes for that in any power dialing system. Because your sales reps are saving time due to their making 150+ dials in one hour, they have more time to research their target accounts when they aren’t in their sessions. If they are target accounts, they should be researched well, correct? The extra time during the day will allow them to do this. Then, during their session, they can have a link link to the appropriate website on the lead record as it pops up, so they can easily click and navigate to the prospect’s website as a refresher.
2. I won’t be able to properly navigate through organizations unless I make the dials myself. Again, there will be plenty of downtime to strategize and research organizations when you aren’t on your sessions. You can make org charts during that time. You can confirm contacts on LinkedIn. Leave the navigating to the power dialing partner you select, and have your team focus on what they are best at – having effective conversations.
3. I don’t have enough B2B data to make power dialing make sense for me. This seems like a ridiculous excuse . First of all, with so many data providers out there today, there is no reason your reps shouldn’t have adequate contacts in front of them to make data-driven sales work. To have 8-12 connects in one session, you need about 150 contacts. This seems more than doable for any sales rep. Think about what that productivity could mean to your sales organization if each rep had one session per day. If there isn’t enough data within their territor,y then expand it – reach out to new organizations. The beauty of this is the potential it has to grow your business. Instead of thinking of excuses, think about power dialining in terms of the opportunity it presents instead.
Don’t get me wrong, there is a still a time and place for manual dialing. For instance, manual follow ups from power dialing sessions are key. “Old-fashioned” dialing is still important when it comes to top-level contacts that are high on the radar. The key is though, with all the time saved by using power dialing for 150+ calls in one hour, your reps can think more strategically as a whole about sales prospecting tips and bring you much better results. These tools have changed the lead gen business. Don’t wait too long to adopt them, because your competition has already done so.
Join the Conversation