This is an excerpt from an interview with Mike Damphouse the CEO of Greenleads that I found on Chad Levitt’s Sales 2.0 Blog…
Chad: At Green Leads, you track many data points with your surveys on B2B lead generation – can you share some of the most interesting trends you are seeing?
Mike: I think the most active discussion we’ve had is regarding initial sales appointments – should they be by phone or face to face? We’ve surveyed C/VP level decision makers and the trend is that they are more receptive to taking that first appointment by phone. On the other hand, tracking some actual pipeline data, the second meeting (which should be the only goal of a first meeting) done face to face as opposed to by phone, doubled the conversion to pipeline. So think first meeting – phone. Second meeting – face to face.
I only recently came across Chad’s blog and would recommend that you check it out regularly there’s a lot of good stuff.
Here is the link to the entire interview:
http://newsaleseconomy.com/should-leads-be-inbound-outbound-or-both
In any case, the point is made here, again with the results from the Greenleads survey. The first meeting you want to achieve is a phone appointment. It is easier to get a phone appointment and it is a critical segue to your real sales event which is the in person appointment.
We also find that we have to coach our clients in the pursuit of their scheduled phone appointment:
- Decision Makers are not waiting by the phone for your call, if they don’t answer on the first try, you need to try back multiple times to get your conversation.
- Follow sales 101 stuff like researching your prospect and their organization, having a call plan, etc.
- Work on your phone skills and develop a good phone presence.
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