Our sales people frequently give up prematurely when trying to reach a
sales prospect who doesn't return a call. I'm trying to determine if
there are any "rules of thumb" to follow on how many contact attempts
to make when trying to reach a sales prospect. Specific URLs, white
papers or statistics that I could use to help convince them to
continue their pursuit would be great!

Greetings Findaccountingsw:

I found a few good resources for you. To begin, in the article
"FARMING FOR CLIENTS-3 LAWS OF THE HARVEST - In this business, there
rarely is any 'low hanging fruit.  You have to compete for every
gain.'" by Jim Cecil at
http://www.roughnotes.com/rnmag/july01/07p52.htm he speaks extensively
about considering the law of averages with sales leads.

************

Plan for Tommorow's Sales Today
"People take time to buy, so establishing an aggressive follow-up
contact program keeping your name and product out front is imperative
to a successful marketing campaign. Ten percent of leads close within
3 months, another 16% within six months. Nineteen percent close within
12 months from the date of inquiry. That means 45% of leads buy from
you or a competitor within one year. Strong, ongoing contact programs
include a combination of phone, e-mail, fax and direct mail. Include a
reason to respond in each contact."
From http://www.directmag.com/ar/marketing_plan_tomorrows_sales/

***************

Chapter 7: Habits - The Sales Process
"The law of averages is infallible. Keep on talking to enough people,
and you are bound to find some who actually want to buy."
[See "Planned Activity" about midway down the page]
http://www.arundel.co.uk/SYWTS/sschap7.htm
The other chapters (very informative forto me) are from the e-book "An
Electronic Sales Tutor For an Electronic Era":

A Welcome Change - Introduction
http://www.arundel.co.uk/SYWTS/ss-intro.htm

The Challenge of Information Overload - Chapter 1
http://www.arundel.co.uk/SYWTS/sschap1.htm

The Importance of Selling - Chapter 2
http://www.arundel.co.uk/SYWTS/sschap2.htm

The KASH [Knowledge/Attitude/Skills/Habits] Approach in Selling -
Chapter 3
http://www.arundel.co.uk/SYWTS/sschap3.htm

Knowledge - Chapter 4
http://www.arundel.co.uk/SYWTS/sschap4.htm

Attitude - Chapter 5
http://www.arundel.co.uk/SYWTS/sschap5.htm

Skills - Chapter 6
http://www.arundel.co.uk/SYWTS/sschap6.htm

Understanding Buyer Behavior - Chapter 8
http://www.arundel.co.uk/SYWTS/sschap8.htm
[To save space, I'll cease listing the chapters.  Just hit the large
blue arrow at the top of this last page and it will take you to the
next chapter.  I found some excellent sales and sales motivation
advice among the many pages.]

*************

Pinpoint New Customers and Hit Sales Targets [scroll to page 4]
http://www.popmag.com/pointofpurchase/images/pdf/Merchandising_Opportunities.pdf

*************

Do You Give Up or Clean Up on Follow Up? 10 Proven Strategies by Myers
Barnes
http://www.housingzone.com/topics/hz/sales/hz02fa600.asp
[Thism is regarding home sales but there may be information for you in
the article to adapt for your purposes.]

************

Success in Weak Economy Requires Strong Sales Leads by Kelly Gay
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2002/06/24/focus10.html

*************

How to Turn Sales Leads into Increased Channel Sales
"According to Blue Roads Corp, a leading supplier of stand-alone lead
management systems for high-tech vendors, 50-70% of all leads
generated by vendors get lost in this "push" process, meaning
prospects are never contacted by a salesperson. (Significantly, many
leads generated by web site visits and inbound phone calls to
reception never make it into the lead distribution process at all.)
The remaining leads are often contacted two or more weeks after the
contact was made. By then the prospect doesn't even remember what
their interest was or why they visited the web site, trade show booth,
or phoned in the first place. Only 5% to 10% of leads actually get
contacted fast enough to end up in presales activity."
http://www.channelenablers.com/masterframe.htm?http://www.channelenablers.com/newsletter37.htm

************

"ENGAGING EMPLOYEES - A CRITICAL ELEMENT OF HIGH PRODUCTIVITY" by
David J. Bowman (reviewing the Birkman Method regarding employee
motivation)
http://www.ttgconsultants.com/articles/EngagingEmployees.html

*************

I located a model for generating sales leads at
http://www.consultancymarketing.co.uk/sales-lead.htm and, on the flip
side of your question, I found some statistics quoted by Richard W.
Ersch in an article at
http://www.imakenews.com/rainmakers/e_article000067770.cfm that state
"To briefly address the sales force’s problem in following up sales
leads, the fact that they aren’t doing it is not their fault.  In
fact, it is impossible.  Why?  Because in today’s world, considering
the proliferation of voice mail systems in companies, it requires 3.4
telephone-dialing attempts to reach anyone for anything.  Further, it
requires 7.6 telephone-dialing attempts to identify a sales prospect
with an immediate or near future purchase potential.  That being the
case, 100 sales leads require 340 telephone calls just to make contact
and find that 89% are of non-prospective sales value.  Worse, it would
take 760 telephone calls to find the Ready Buyers.  Would you spend
this non-productive time if you were in sales?  Not hardly."


Should you require clarification of any of the links or information I
have provided, please request it and I will be happy to respond.

Best regards,
journalist-ga


SEARCH STRATEGY:

"sales leads" contact attempts
"sales leads" research
follow up "sales leads" research

---

Clarification of Answer by journalist-ga on 30 Jul 2003 16:01 PDT

ADDENDUM: I had this in another browser window and failed to list it
in my answer:

Connecting by Phone
"First, understand the nature of the beast. For example, over the
telephone, you lose your most valuable tools — your winning smile,
body language, visual aids, glossy literature. All you have is your
voice and your message. So, use them wisely.  Secondly, understand
that telesales is a numbers game. Babe Ruth was a home run king, but
he struck out a lot too. O.J. Simpson was a great running back, but he
also carried the ball more than anyone else."
http://www.medicaldistribution.com/rep/Rep_2000_November/Rep_10260012202151.htm

Also, I've shown you exerpts in many of the links I provided in my
answer.  I hope you'll review the entire pages of the links as there
is much information in each one.

---

Clarification of Answer by journalist-ga on 30 Jul 2003 16:08 PDT

I was just thinking...You might also compose little anecdotes/riddles
about famous people and their "failures" - much like a Paul Harvey
spot.  For instance, take the Babe Ruth story and percentage out how
many home runs he hit versus how many times at bat.  Ask then the
question "This ball hit one home run for every XX times at bat...who
was he?" Short pep talks like those might serve to show your sales
force that perseverance is paramount to success.


NOTE: ADDENDUM TO SEARCH STRATEGY IN ORIGINAL ANSWER:
telesales "law of averages"

---

Request for Answer Clarification by findaccountingsw-ga on 31 Jul 2003 07:37 PDT

Hi journalist-ga:

Thanks for the information. Although the references provide useful
information  most don't answer the question as to how many attempts to
make before giving up trying.

The leads we work with come in from the web and are initially
qualified via an initial phone call of approximately 30 minutes. After
the initial phone call the qualified leads are offered to sales staff.
The sales staff review the lead detail and "claim" leads that fit
their special interest and capability. The sales person then attempts
to contact the lead to further review their needs and discuss the
appropriate software solution with the lead.

My problem lies in I believe that the sales people are giving up too
early on these pre-qualified leads. Earlier this week we surveyed the
sales people and it turns out that nearly two thirds of the sales
people make only 3, 4 or 5 contact attempts. Only one third make more
than 5 contact attempts to reach the lead. The attempts made are a
mixture of phone calls (75% of the time) and emails (25% of the time).

Given the pre-qualified nature of these leads, I would think that more
contact attempts would result in more sales. The article you
referenced - http://www.imakenews.com/rainmakers/e_article000067770.cfm
provides some amunition. This type of reference information is what
I'm looking to find.

---

Clarification of Answer by journalist-ga on 01 Aug 2003 08:31 PDT

Greetings again, Findaccountingsw:

I just saw on my member page that you had posted a clarification
request - I returned here to discover you had also chosen to close the
question with a rating.  I like my customers to be pleased with my
work and I wanted you to know that I have not abandoned your research,
and I will be executing further searches based on your clarification
of what I have discovered so far.  If I locate more material like the
example you provided in your clarification, I will post it here for
your consideration.

Best regards,
journalist-ga

---

Clarification of Answer by journalist-ga on 01 Aug 2003 11:23 PDT

I have located 5 more informative sources for your consideration and
my colleague, KnowledgeSeeker-ga, provided me with the first 2 of the
links below:

"Dell's rule of thumb before Web use took off was that it took an
average of three phone calls to close the sale of a PC - one where the
customer got a first quote, a second to get more information or to
change the PC configuration, and a third to place the order. But most
customers now access the company's Web site first...Dell calculate
that for Internet sales, it takes an average of half a phone call to
close a sale."
From: http://www.governmentontheweb.co.uk/downloads/report_1999/990087compa.pdf
[scroll to page 4)


"The Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR), a Chicago-based
trade show industry group, claims that it takes an average of 3.7
phone calls to close a sale in the field without a lead, vs. 1.3 calls
to convert a show lead into an order."
From http://catalogagemag.com/ar/marketing_eye_btob_trading/


How Many Phone Calls Does It Take to Close a Sale?
[there is a chart by industry on the page]
http://www.cahnerscarr.com/5425d.htm


Going … Going … Gone:  Concepts on Closing a Sale by Kenneth G. Diehl
Jr., P.E.
"43 percent of salespeople make one call and quit
25 percent of salespeople make two calls and quit
12 percent quit after three calls
80 percent of all sales are made after the fifth call"
From http://www.smps.org/mrc/articles-html/goinggoing.htm

 
sales call statistics
http://www.cahnerscarr.com/PDFS/evaluating_cost_sales.pdf


Best regards,
journalist-ga


SEARCH STRATEGY:

call to close a sale
call to close a sale statistics
call to close a sale percent
call to close a sale percentage

Information provided was indeed interesting but most of the answers
provided didn't address the question. I had tried researching this
topic on my own prior to using Google Answer but I couldn't find much
information either. As was uncovered by the GoogleGuy there is lots of
information on encouraging sales people to continue their sales
pursuit seems little on how many contact attempts to make

Hello  findaccountingsw-ga,

In my opinion, I feel this would vary depending on the type of
product/service that is being offered. The manner in which leads are
pre-qualified is also a consideration that should be taken into
account. For example, are potential leads being 'lured' with some sort
of incentive up front?

answerguru-ga
Google Answers Researcher

Hi answerguru-ga,

I agree a "reward incentive" would diminish the response and the sales
conversion rate.

In our case, the only incentives we offer is to help save the software
searcher time in their search, improve their ultimate purchase
decision and most likely save money by having made a better purchase
decision.

The initial qualification is done via a web form that asks a bunch of
detailed questions about the lead and their needs. That's followed up
by a 20-30 minute phone interview to further qualify their needs. The
phone call provides good background and helps to clarify confusing
answers that were initially provided on the web form.

The product/service is business management software applications in
the financial area such as Payroll software, inventory control
software, invoicing software, etc.

Typically people do not complete the form AND sit thru the 20-30
minute conversation without a true need. The problems we run into is
that the sales people give up on contacting these leads AFTER the
20-30 minute interview process is completed AND they've picked thru
the available leads choosing only a lead that they feel is right for
them.

3, 4 or 5 contact attempts is the maximum that they typically do when
attempting to reach the lead. The attempts generally include 1-2
emails and 3-4 phone calls.

Just seems not enough effort to move the lead forward.

Hi.

7 is the number you're searching for. I read that number so many times
that it remained in my memory. Almost every "internet marketing guru"
will tell you that 7 is the answer. Also, some companies offering
email autoresponders recommend this number.

I'll post here two examples:

DevWebPro.com-How to Use an Automatic Responder for Effective Prospect
Follow-up
http://www.devwebpro.com/2003/0311.html

"These are just a few examples of what can happen to cause your 
prospect to forget about your offer. That's why it is so important to
get  your offer in front of a prospect more than once. The ideal
number is 5-7  times."

AWeber autoresponder
http://www.aweber.com/

"Experts have shown that it often takes 7 or more ad exposures before
prospective customers actually make a purchase."

Regards,

ldcdc-ga

One of the first steps to meeting new clients is at a trade show.
Having a quality trade show dispaly booth can make all the differnce.
Showstopper Exhibits offers the highest quality and best customer
service. I work with them all the time. Take a look:
http://www.showstopperexhibits.com/

In this new internet marketing era the number has changed, depending
upon the amount of info available from a web site. Highly technical
prospects, engineers and programmers, tend to also be very non-people
oriented and shy. If they can get all the info they need from on-line
data sheets, you may never reach them. Web sites need to have just
enough information to be enticing and have an easy way to obtain the
next level but at the price of identifying the prospect.
some ofthese issues are covered by the consuling firm at www.pro-repsales.com .