How to be a Professional Salesperson.©
Free Sales Training Video Series – How many times to call a sales prospect.
How many times to call a prospect.
Sometimes I’ll look at a sales rep’s activity history and see call after call, showing voicemail after voicemail; sometimes every two or three days. This type of calling activity really generates a lot of discussion and debate. I once had a business owner tell me, “We just keep calling every day, sometimes twice a day, until they can’t take it anymore and call us back.”
While I don’t think the above example is a good way to talk to your prospects, I also don’t think there should be any hard and fast rules applied to this process. The first question to ask yourself is, “How many times would I need to be called?” By answering this honestly it helps give you the same perspective as your client.
A couple of other items that should weigh in on your decision:
- Is it a cold call?
- How far along are you in the customer buying process?
- Did they ask you to call them back in X number of days?
- Do you have new (valuable to them) information to speak with them about?
After the initial cold call I use this sequence for making additional attempts:
- 2nd call – after one week.
- 3rd call – eight business days after that.
- 4th call – 10 business days after that.
- 5th call – 20 business days after that.
- 6th call – 30 business days after that.
- Final call – 60 business days after that.
Note: An email should be sent after every call that builds on the previous email and voice mail.
Follow up calls, when no timeframe has been given, have a lot of different variables. Too many for one sales training lesson. A couple things to remember, however:
- Don’t be a pest.
- If you call too much you look desperate.
A final tip – A study done by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) revealed the following: The most successful time to reach an initial prospect is between 8:00am and 9:00am and 4:00pm and 5:00pm their time.
