Originally posted on December 30, 2015 as Start The New Year Smart – Sell More Business.
How do you eat an elephant? What a silly question! Adult elephants range from 6,000 – 12,000 pounds – eating all of that would be a very large (no pun intended) and daunting task. But, hypothetically speaking, if you were to eat an elephant, how would you accomplish that?
One bite at a time, of course.
By the way, how does eating an elephant have anything to do with creating a plan to sell more business?
How To Implement A Simple Plan To Sell More Business In The New Year
Generating 70+ new leads in a year might seem like an unrealistic goal, similar to eating an elephant. However, if you break it down into “one bite” increments, you will see how generating 70+ new leads is, in fact, a very obtainable goal.
To start, keep in mind the mentality behind “one bite at a time” is to keep the task at hand, in this case, generating 70+ qualified leads in 12 months, simple and manageable. With this mind set, you will be able to see the impact this method can have on your lead generation, appointment setting efforts, and ultimately, the ability to sell more business.
Here is how you do it:
| January: | |
| 200 | Start with 200 target prospect records (Don’t know how to build a prospect database? We can help with that – “Identifying Your Database for a Telemarketing Campaign”) |
| 3 | Make 3 call attempts into each record on average |
| 8 | Calling hours required each week to make 3 calls into 200 records (32 hours per month) – this is equivalent to 1.6 calling hours each business day, or 20% of your day |
| 6 | Lead opportunities identified in January (generally speaking) |
| February: | |
| 100 | Add 100 fresh, new prospect records (300 cumulative prospect records for the year) |
| + 100 | Existing/prioritized prospect records that justify continued calling (assuming that 50% of January’s 200 do not warrant additional calls this month) |
| = 200 | Total February prospect records |
| 3 | Call attempts into each record on average |
| 8 | Calling hours required each week (1.6 hours per day) |
| 6 | Lead opportunities identified in February |
| 12 | Cumulative lead opportunities identified YTD |
| March: | |
| 100 | Add 100 fresh, new prospect records (400 cumulative prospect records) |
| + 100 | Existing/prioritized prospect records that justify continued calling (assuming that 50% of February’s 200 do not warrant additional calls this month) |
| = 200 | Total March prospect records |
| 3 | Call attempts into each record on average |
| 8 | Calling hours required each week (1.6 hours per day) |
| 6 | Lead opportunities identified in March |
| 18 | Cumulative lead opportunities identified YTD |
Do you get the gist? …We thought so. If you continue this discipline for April, May, June, July, August, September, October, and November, your December will look like this:
| December: | |
| 100 | Add 100 fresh, new prospect records added (1,300 cumulative prospect records) |
| + 100 | Existing/prioritized prospect records that justify continued calling (assuming that 50% of November’s 200 do not warrant additional calls this month) |
| = 200 | Total December prospect records |
| 3 | Call attempts into each record on average |
| 8 | Calling hours required each week (1.6 hours per day) |
| 6 | Lead opportunities identified in December |
| 72 | Cumulative lead opportunities identified YTD |
In conclulsion
There you have it, the results of a disciplined approach to the new year– 72 leads in 12 months and now you are a sales pro! As with any lead generation project, some of these will not work out, but the game of numbers tells us a good amount will convert into proposals, then become new customers for you. Additionally, you will have developed a great database (pipeline) of future opportunities.
Lead generation and appointment setting isn’t as bad as you might have thought. By the way, how did that elephant taste?
Kaitlin Dunlap Cuevas – kaitlind@dunlapmarketing.com – 281.496.9870 x180