But you can’t lump all the call reluctance into the same boat. Here are five of the most common personalities that fall to call reluctance, the symptoms, and the potential fix.

1. Polite Polly: Doesn’t want to intrude on others. Feels like their role is invasive in another professional’s space.

The debate about whether to leave a voicemail message on a cold call is as old as voicemail itself. You all know that leaving a voicemail rarely results in a callback, no matter how great your technique. Statistics found on various sales web sites show a range of five- to ten-percent of voicemails are returned. So even if you are spectacular at your VMs, you might top out at 25-percent call backs. So is it really worth it?

I say yes. Definitely. You just need to change your reason and expectations for leaving that message. Instead of expecting a callback, use the voicemail as a friendly, personal, targeted billboard. If you do it right, the next time the person sees or hears your name, they'll have some kind of positive brand recognition.

The next target name and title for your new B-team salesperson pops up on his screen. He takes a quick look at the company web site and then punches “dial”. His conversation starts the exact same way his last conversation did. He doesn’t have any context for how your company can help his target, instead using a “One Conversation Fits Most” approach.

How much better would his sales numbers be if he could cater each conversation to the person on the other end of the phone?

1. Research the company as it relates to what you’re selling: It’s not enough to get an overview of the target, for example, understanding that they manufacture and sell lenses. Your team needs to get a quick overview that is relevant to the product that they want to sell. Using recent articles about the company might have tremendous hints for their needs (for example, if they have new management or if they recently opened a new location). In addition, current articles about their industry might point to pain that they’re having that your company can address (for example, if there is a huge market for a new size of lenses and they are going to need to ramp up production). If you can start your conversation with a relevant bridge between what you’re selling and what they need, you are much more likely to engage a sale… than with a generic conversation.

Salespeople today face a frustrating dilemma: There are too many balls to keep in the air and only so many hours a day to be making calls. A single meeting might cut into the time needed for 10 outbound calls. The prep time before a call to a C-level exec might eat up an hour or more. Fumbling through Salesforce to find the best target to call next can waste precious minutes.
Incite2 is a tool that enables sales professionals to truly have all the information they need at their fingertips in order to deliver information to a more qualified, targeted audience at up to 40% faster speeds. So while it can't create more time in a day, it can make your time more productive and profitable.

When your sales team can discuss tailored benefits of their product or service, the prospect will be able to grasp the concept more quickly. At a more tactical level, Incite2 also saves time in Salesforce. It allows your sales team to work from a single screen to make and record a call without all the mouse clicks needed when using Salesforce alone. Prepare, engage and record all from one screen. Incite2 also helps save time by automating repetitive tasks like scripts and follow-up emails.

No, Incite2 can’t actually create more time in a day. But it really can make the time that your team does spend more productive and profitable.

By Jim Domanski

Are you getting a decent response when you leave a voice mail with a prospect or are you like the vast majority of tele-prospectors whose messages go unanswered?

Well over 70% of B-to-B calls encounter voice mail so it is imperative that you have a voice mail message that works for you and increases your odds of getting a call back.

Have you broken any of your resolutions yet? Get back on track with a proven way to do your job better. (That was one of your resolutions, right?) Incite2 from ShadeTree Technology is a tool that’s changing the way your sales force will use salesforce.com.

Resolve to take charge:  You’ve heard complaints from your team for years about salesforce.com’s complexity. You’ve experienced the cumbersome clicks firsthand. You’ve seen numbers that are not confidence-building. You’ve had trouble getting an enterprise view of your department’s productivity. There is a way to take charge and do something about all these issues. Something straightforward. This isn’t a resolution to add one-hundred new products, open seventeen worldwide branches and surpass Apple in volume. This is a simple plug-in that will change the way your team sells, for the better.

Resolve to increase sales: Now where did you finish your fiscal year?  CSO Insights stated that less than 50-percent of sales teams met their quota last year. If you want to build on last year's success or gain success this year, take a closer look at Incite2. This tool consolidates the screens your salespeople use from salesforce.com so everything they need is right in front of them. More calls (20-50% on average!). More details about each call. This automatically leads to better conversations. Which translates to what? More sales. With the changing landscape of sales, your people need to do more research than ever to make their conversations more targeted, meaningful and relevant. The way you keep track of all this information leads directly to how successful they’ll be when they do get a prospect on the line… or even when they leave a voicemail. Sure, technology can help them dial more numbers… but Incite2 ALSO makes each dial more relevant, meaningful and productive.

Lay the foundation for better sales performance in 2011 by taking the Incite2 Challenge.

The Basics - Incite2 90-Minute Challenge Details

Incite 2 is a plug-in for salesforce.com that helps your sales professionals: 

• Make More Calls
• Have Better Conversations
• Know Who To Call

More calls equals more qualified leads, equaling more revenues. 

The trouble with a classic elevator speech is that in tele-sales no one has the time or the inclination to hear what you have to say.

Communicating by phone is different than face to face where a suspect or a prospect will grant you a few more moments if only to be courteous. On the phone it is simple and easy for a prospect to terminate the call and that's one of the main reasons why you need an escalator speech.

An escalator speech is an abbreviated version of an elevator speech and it is absolutely vital in the world of B to B tele-sales. Whereas an elevator speech is based on the premise that you present what you do over the time it takes to travel a few floors up an elevator, the escalator speech is based on the premise that you present what you do in the time it takes to travel only one floor.

• Number of qualified leads
• Number of opportunities in the pipeline
• Number of closed deals

All of these goals have one thing in common - increasing current output levels.  There are many ways to arrive at making the gains in output - add more people, work longer, etc.

With many organizations using the telephone more and reducing travel, one place to look at in more detail is productivity on the phone.

More Calls = More Results

The wonderful thing about increasing call volumes is that the results of those call tend to track consistently across all of the milestones in your sales cycle.  All things equal, a 20% increase in call volume will equate to a 20% increase in:

Change.  Inevitable,  Constant.  Everyone's talking about it.  Social media, the new (2.0) customer, the downsized organization - and how selling strategies need to change to adapt to today's customer.

As sellers, I think we can all agree on a few things, today's customers: 

• Are harder to get on the phone
• Are less likely to respond to email
• Can discover a lot more about us and our solutions than they used to be able to (because we help them)

Oh yeah... one other thing: 

• Our solutions and services are still relevant... helping improve and optimize our prospect's businesses.