Telemarketing for Sales Success

We are often asked how many telemarketing calls our call centre agents make in a day / week / month. It’s an interesting question, and one we often ask back to those enquiring about our services.

How many telemarketing calls does your sales team make?

We are of the strong belief that sales is a numbers game. Telemarketing is tough, and most people will do anything to get out of it – always prioritising other tasks over cold calling. However, telemarketing calls are a critical part of the sales process and will ensure your sales pipeline continues to build.

The short answer is that sales people should be making as many telemarketing calls as possible

However, it is also important to note that there is a big difference between sales prospecting and wasting time talking to people who are not the decision maker; or were never in the market for your product or service in the first place.

So the real question is not how many telemarketing calls does your sales team make, rather, how many ’real’ business prospects do they need to speak to?

The answer is “it depends”.

As usual with us here at FMG it comes down to numbers – and requires constant measuring and monitoring. This measurement helps figure out how many telemarketing calls ‘need’ to be made, and also tracks the ongoing performance of telemarketing activity.

For us at FMG we track the following for every single appointment setting or lead generation campaign that we work on

• Number of ‘calls’ per hour
• Number of ‘conversations’ per hour
• Number of appointments booked. We call this the conversion rate and can break this down to figure out how many hours we need to be calling to book an appointment
• Number of people happy for us to “Stay In Touch” – they don’t have an immediate need but are a good candidate for future lead nurturing activity

Is there a magic formula to make telemarketing a success?

Not really.

Although we do find that taking a scientific or analytical approach to working out how many telemarketing calls you need to make to generate a sales lead helps. And we are not the only ones who think this way.

Below is a formula we have come across when trying to figure out how many telemarketing calls you need to make

V = Desired sales volume (revenue figure) per sales rep per year

CR% = % Close rate of appointments (what percentage of your appointments result in a sale)

R = Average revenue per sale

CC = Number of telemarketing calls per day

AR% = % of cold calls that result in appointments

D = Number of days to cold call per year

V = CC x D x AR% x CR% x R

or

CC = V / (D x AR% x CR% x R)

Following this example if you have…

• A sales volume target of $1M/year per sales rep
• An average sale value of $10k
• An average appointment close rate of 25% (so a quarter the appointments attended result in a sale)
• An average appointment rate of 5% (so 5% of calls placed or 1 in every 20 calls made results in an appointment)
• 200 sales day per year;

Then your sales rep will need to make

CC = $1M / (200 x 5% x 25% x $10,000) = 40 calls per day

We have used nice round numbers – but following this formula with your own numbers should give you an idea of the volume of telemarketing calls (to the right people) that your sales reps should be making.

You can read more about this formula here

So that brings us back to “How many telemarketing calls does your sales team make?”

If the numbers for the telemarketing activities of your sales team are not close to what the formula above tells you they should be making, then maybe you should consider outsourcing your telemarketing to help support your sales team. Partnering with an Australian Contact Centre like FMG means you will have experts managing the telemarketing for you. Outsourcing your telemarketing or appointment setting to an expert team

• Ensures the volume of calls will happen
• The number of conversations required will be reached
• Ensures we (you) are calling the right people and not wasting time
• Means you have an experienced telemarketer making the calls.
• Gives you the best chance to get the most out of your telemarketing and reach your sales target

Looking to find out more about outsourcing your telemarketing to a leading Australian Contact Centre

Find out more about outsourcing your telemarketing or running it in-house – the real costs of hiring your own telemarketer. Read our Blog on the topic.

What would 10,000 new sales prospects do for your business this year? Read more

Contact us today to learn how we can do the same for you.