If you’re new to parallel dialing tools or just starting out a trial, you’re probably excited to set your team up for success. You want to see them making 100+ dials an hour and booking 3-5x more meetings.
If that’s the case, we’re excited to share the strategies that some of the best SDR teams use to maximize their call blocks and create an exciting cold calling culture that builds pipeline. With active participation and incentivization, you too can see amazing results like iSolved HCM, Seismic and ModernHealth.
Example: See our LinkedIn Live Cold Calling competition where 12 reps booked 20 meetings in 50 minutes.
Here are five ways to get the most out of your call blitzes:
1. The magic is in the preparation
If your team is new to parallel dialing, they can be surprised that they are suddenly able to cycle through contacts at 3-5x the speed that they were able to before. While parallel dialing drastically increases productivity, users need to be prepared for the volume of calls they can make. They’ll need to build lists of prospects and enrich these records so they have great contacts to call during their call blocks.
Once your team understands the need to be prepared for a high paced cold calling blitz, you can move on to step 2. But make sure they’re given adequate time to properly prepare before the scheduled block.
2. Schedule a dedicated call time
As stated in step 1, you’ll want to make sure you schedule a time that allows reps to prepare to dial 100+ contacts and maximize on each conversation as effectively as possible. Having a dedicated call time gives them a deadline to do so.
On top of that, the scheduled call block ensures that the 1-2 hours of dedicated calling time is focused and productive. To really see impressive results, the following steps will make all the difference.
3. Make it competitive with a grand prize
Adding an incentive to your call blocks will drastically increase your reps ability to focus all of their energy on calling during this 1-2 hour block. Teams that add a spiff of $100 or more to their call block times see reps spending less time on follow ups, LinkedIn messaging and other tasks that could be done at a later time. The goal of this exercise is for the 1-2 hour block to be solely dedicated to having conversations on the phone.
Once you’ve properly set up steps 1-3, step 4 is the most important step that requires the most energy from the sales manager.
4. Stay actively involved and encourage leaving cameras on
Henry Landsberger, a sociology professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, dubbed the Hawthorne Effect as the novelty of increased attention that could lead to temporary increases in workers' productivity.
This is the same reason that “sales pits” and “boiler rooms” have been conducted in high energy, competitive environments for years. Reps simply work harder when they’re motivated to do so.
While we don’t suggest hovering over your sales reps all day long, it is important to encourage that all cameras are on and that SDR leaders are actively listening to calls and delivering feedback to see big results from this scheduled time.
5. Give feedback to help team convert every conversation
As an SDR Manager, your first Nooks Call Blitzes using parallel dialing could be the highest dial volume your team has executed in a 1-2 period. Because of this, you should see a sizable increase in conversations.
This is an opportunity to give your team real-time coaching like they’ve never had before. With so many conversations, it might be hard to focus on every individual. But do the best you can to listen to as many live calls, do recaps after every meeting booked and coach on calls that didn’t go so well.
You won’t only see the Hawthorne Effect of increased productivity from supervising your reps, you’ll also be providing them with an opportunity to get better on each call, increase confidence and convert more.
Happy Calling!
