Cold Call Science: Metrics and Trends to Book More Meetings with Colin Specter

Every company has breakdowns in their revenue process. Sure thing. Deals slip into next quarter, competitors creep in and swipe deals away at the last minute, and deals getting single threaded that don't get to power. These are just a few examples of revenue leak, but there are a ton more and they're preventing your team from reaching their sales targets. That's why I'm such a big fan of Clary's Revenue platform is the only tool that actually helps leaders take control of their revenue and thrive through any market conditions, especially when things get tough. You can't afford to miss a single detail, but you also can't be leading by gut. Clary combines the science and the art of sales and sales leadership. So go to clary.com if you want to answer the most important question in your business. Are you going to meet, beat or miss on revenue? Welcome to the live Better Sell Better podcast with your host Kevin Dorsey of Inside Sales Excellence, the number one Patreon group and YouTube channel for tech sellers and tech sales leaders where we dive in deep for tactical advice on how to book more meetings, close more deals faster and lead sales teams to success. But we don't stop there. We also focus on the person in salesperson. We talk about mindset goals, time management and so much more. So thank you for listening and if you're interested, head on over to patreon.com InsideSalesExcellence now with that, grab a notepad, get ready and let's dive into the good stuff. What up everybody? Welcome to another episode of the live Better Sell Better podcast. This is your your host Kevin Dorsey, AKA akd and we are going to be diving into the science of cold calling today. The science of prospecting. Really going into the underlying data and insights that you can learn from every single call that is being made. Because with a lot of the companies I looked at and I talked to and I consult, the number of dials to be made is just made up. 50, 70, 40. There's no rhyme or reason to it. And then those 70 calls that are being made, people don't know what's actually happening on them. Are they talking to people? Are they not talking to people? Where the conversations going? And by not tracking these things, you are completely missing out on your ability to optimize and scale out your prospecting process. And that is why I'm so, so pumped to have a good friend of mine. We go back a little bit here now, right? Colin Spector on this show met at Surf and Sales a while back. He's the VP of Sales at Aurum, who I also have close ties to back in the day. And we're gonna be diving into the science, the data of cold calling so that you can learn how to optimize your process the right way. Colin, my man, welcome to the show.

Kd, thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure to reconnect with you and to be here on the show and share any bit of insight that I can contribute to the selling community. This is awesome. Thank you.

Nah, this is, I love this stuff because when it comes to scaling, when it comes to prospecting, there's the art, right? The messaging, the delivery, the tonality, the scripting. But then there's also the science, like the data, the connects, the conversions, the objections, what's happening there. So I'm pumped to dive into this here. So let's start with like truthfully, what should a world class prospecting team be tracking when it comes to their calls? Let's just start right there. Like, what should I be tracking? If I got people making calls, what should I be tracking?

Yeah, no, Kevin. Kd, it's a, it's a great, great question. So there are some key metrics and some key conversion metrics that are key to successful math of sales as it relates to making calls and cold calls, warm calls, inbound calls, just activity. And as folks are converting those calls with, with positive action and outcomes. So the key metrics that we track over here at Aurum are dials. So actual calls that are, that are being completed. Connects. Connects are actual connections with the intended prospective customer. So not a connect with a voicemail, not a connect with a gatekeeper, a true connect with the intended person. And then when you divide your connects by the number of dials, you get what we call your connect rate. And so that's a very popular term in the world of inside sales and sales development and prospecting. So it's a key metric that we focus on. Further down on that path. We track connect to conversations, the number of conversations that you have. Now, what are conversations? We define conversations as a minute or longer with that intended prospect on the phone that target prospect, not with a gatekeeper, not a minute leaving a voicemail, an actual true conversation. And then from there the coveted metric that sales development organizations all strive for. And inside sales organizations, meetings, booked meetings. So out of all the conversations, how many meetings you get? So you want to look at your dial to connect ratio, you want to look at your connect to conversation ratio, how many conversations are you getting out of. Out of each at bat and then how many of those conversations are leading to a meeting? A meeting where you've qualified and you've got it booked on the calendar.

So now let's work backwards. Why are those numbers important? How do I use those numbers in a way to help guide my team? So I have a few things I wanna unpack there now we listed them, now let's work back again and say, okay, if I know I need 10 meetings, how do I use the info you just gave me to figure out my dial number?

Yeah, it's a great question, right? If you know you need 10 meetings, then you do some back of the napkin ma.

Right?

Look historically at first of all, the company that you work for, or if you've been calling historically at your company, look at how many calls it takes you to actually get to that person, how many people you have to speak with to get to a conversation, how many conversations lead to a meeting? Right, so the, the industry benchmarks for 10 for 10. First of all, it takes typically 10 conversations, what we see across customers, 10 conversations to lead to a meeting. Okay, so if I need 10 meetings, 10 times 10 is 100. So I likely need 100 conversations to get to get those, those 10 meetings as kind of an industry benchmark in B2B sales, where we focus our data. So if I know I need 100 conversations, then I need to think about how, what my connect rate looks like to get me into those conversations. And so looking at that is going to depend on your data. It's going to be going to depend on how efficient you are at placing those calls and getting those people on the phone. And then once you get people on the phone, it's understanding your pitch in your talk tracks to keep them on the phone and making sure you're asking the right questions, adding the right value to then lead to an interested meeting. So let me pause there. Any follow up to impact there for sure.

It's just continuing this path, y'.

All.

Right, so he started to break down the numbers, right? 10 meetings, all right, if my conversion rate is 10%, I need 100 conversations. Well then we get to look at, okay, what's my conversation rate? Well, if my conversation rate is, call it 50%, that means I need 200 total, like connects. Well, if I need 200 total connects and my connect rate is 5%, we can run that math. And it basically says, all right, you need to make 4,000 dials. Exactly, that's the math of it. Right? There's no emotion to that. This is not you discounting that's 4,000 dials. And let's break that down across 21 working days. That's 190 calls a day. Day. Now, there are some ways you can make 190 calls a day. There are some ways you can also change the metrics to improve. Right? Because what this also allows you to do as a leader, this is where it goes next is, okay, you spot a metric, let's say conversion rate's only 10%. What are things I can do to improve my conversion rate? So I'll start this talk about conversion rate first. What are things that you're seeing across the industry and your own team, because you all get to make a ton of dials, so you get to have more conversations. What are some of the things you've seen lead to a higher conversion rate to someone saying yes to a meeting? So I get those 10 people on. How do I get three instead of one to say yes?

Absolutely. So it's a matter of a relevant message, right? So your tonality getting through that introduction. So we break apart the cold call. First of all, you get that connect, you say, hello, you've got them on the phone, you've confirmed it is the right intended person that you're reaching to. Not their spouse, not a gatekeeper or an executive assistant. It's that intended person. Now you have precious time to convert that connect into that conversation.

Right?

And so we train folks on different pattern interrupts here at Orem to buy them those precious seconds of interest. It really comes down to, in my opinion, there's different openers, there's different ways people love to approach the cold call. It really comes down to tonality and enthusiasm in many cases. But there's all kinds of openers. You could try what works for you. The one that we use here at Aurum most commonly is, hey, KD calling with Aurum here. Are they keeping you busy today? And everybody responds to that question. They'll respond in a different way. Depending on their emotion, they'll say, ah, I'm busy. Yeah. Oh, I've been back to back. Oh, I just got out of a board meeting. Yeah, I'm busy. I'm on a zoom or oh, I was about to go into another meeting. Oh, I thought you were my doctor. And however they respond to that question, you get an idea of their current state, their current emotional state, and from there you move into some sort of hook. Right. And we train on doing a lot of pre call research, learning about the account, learning about the specific pains and value drivers that we can Focus our message around. And so however they respond to that question, we'll go into that hook from there. And so from then, so that's focusing on connected conversation, right? You got them on the phone, you want to gain their interest, you want to humanize yourself as quickly as possible. People these days are so used to robocalls and these automated machines and car warranty and basically non humans calling that the sooner you get some on the phone and you can humanize yourself and reduce people's uncertainty, the better. Right. And that's going to help your connect to conversation. Now how do we go from conversation to meetings? So understanding first of all, what is your goal in making the cold call? If we're just focusing on cold calls for a moment, is the goal to qualify the account? Is the goal to educate the buyer? Is the goal to actually sell the meeting? Well, in the specific sales motion that we focus on here at Aurum and what majority of our customers focus on at Aurum, it's to sell the meeting. And so your purpose is to hook their interest and offer value in that, convert in that limited conversation in, in, in a short amount of time to where they are interested enough to want to take a next step, to want to take a meeting with you. And so getting them excited about the potential of, of what's to come next is, is a big part of, of the way we, we focus on that. But, but yeah, let me pause there and happy to unpack anything, any one of those metrics further with you, Caitlin.

We're about to man, we're going to keep going deeper on this, right? Because I think it's important that people understand that conversion to meeting. You have to earn that conversation first. And being human, it's so important. It's so important. And that's where conceptually a lot of the pattern breaks that get taught out there are hard for people because they don't sound human, they don't sound normal. Never in your life anywhere else have you ever said you got 27 seconds. You don't talk that way, by the way. This is not hating on that pattern interrupt. It's just the concept behind what people actually can say versus are they keeping you busy. That's something you would say to your friend. That's something you would say, right? Like how are they treating you over there? Right? Like that's something you would say to someone as a pattern interrupt. And so I think I love that angle of this is like what are pattern interrupts you use with your feature friends? What are pattern interrupts? You use with your significant other, your kids. That's an easier way to get into the conversation. So I love that. Now let's talk about the call it the dark side of this data. Okay. We're talking about like how to book more meetings. We're still talking about 80% are saying no. And that is just a goldmine of information if you're doing it the right way. So you said something right before we jumped on that of course, gets me excited. But I'm a nerd about this stuff, which is dispositions, because it's still shocking to me how few people have the right dispositions to know what's happening on the calls. So let's talk about the 80% that don't convert. How would you set up the dispositions so you can actually learn what's happening there so you can make improvements?

Absolutely, kd and I'm super happy you asked this question. The truth is most organizations have a pretty poor disposition tracking strategy or tracking playbook. And the reason for that is most organizations have an atrocious what we call connect rate. And they just don't get enough at bats to where they have found it worth the time to dig deep into expanding this strategy. But as you start to find ways to increase the number of conversations that your reps are getting into, it's, it's truly critical to success to, to measuring what's happening on those conversations. And so call dispositions a disposition strategy. It's essentially the, the call outcome of what happened on, on that conversation. Like every time a sales rep actually speaks with the intended prospect, what happened there. And so when, when we get to most organizations, usually they have a few, they have answered objection, not interested, booked a meeting. I mean, that's still pretty good. That's, that's in some cases better than most do.

Most, most of the companies you talk to have objection in there?

Well, yeah. All right, so like when you purchase an outreach or a sales off, they come with two. It was answered. Yeah, right. And in many cases people stick with those. Okay, so what at Aurum and Aurum for everyone, we're a live conversation platform. Our whole, our whole playbook and process is about getting your team into more instant live conversations. Right. And now we're talking about measuring those conversations. So we get very granular with, with the type of conversation. So for objection, we have four or five different types of objections already have a solution, ask for info, not a priority other, not a decision maker. And so you want to figure out what are some of the common objections that Your team is running into. We have ones for when they just say busy call later. Which, which keeps them in sequence. It keeps them in the sales campaign. So it's not quite a rejection. They were just truly busy at that time and you want a chance to call them later. So we've got, I mean, over a dozen different types of dispositions. And then the goal becomes to your earlier question, kdp. It allows you as a, specifically you as a rep. Or if there are sales managers listening to this call, it allows you to start to see trends, either trends on your team or trends amongst the individual. What are folks running into on the phone? Are they caving on certain types of objections? And then your coaching gets to be very specific. You could add objections for certain competitors and then you need to know which competitor you need to work with. So let me pause there. As I know we're, we're covering a lot here.

Oh, no, keep, keep going. You're on it right now. Because this, this is where I think people miss so much. Right. Is like, I think I had like 18 or 19 call dispositions, right. And combining what you've mentioned before, but then also by who they spoke to, right? We had DM connect, not interested, non DM connect, not interested. DM connect, callback later, non DM call back later. Right. So we could also track what's happening with the gatekeepers, what's happening with the people that we're talking to. But then even lower than that, right? DM connect objection too expensive. DM connect, objection, already have DM connect. It just gives you so much more insight in what's happening across the team. To go, wow, we're getting a lot of call me laters. Are we ever actually calling them later? I don't know.

Right. Are we calling them later? And is there a potential talk track that we can work on to overcome that exact scenario? So let's take that one just as an example. The most common brush off is, oh, I'm walking into a meeting. Oh, I thought you're my doctor. Oh, the reality is they picked up the phone if they were truly busy. Like I just had three actually have three or four missed calls on this meeting. I'm not going to pick it up in the middle of a podcast. Right. If they're truly busy, they're not. They wouldn't answer the phone. That's just the reality. They picked up the phone. You have them now, they've just given you a brush off. Because people go into fight or flight mode when it's a cold call. They don't know who it is. Right. And that's why you have to identify yourself as human. Once they realize they're a human, they're like, oh, it's a salesperson. Okay, I'm sorry, I thought. You're my doctor. I got. Or. I thought you. I have a zoom call coming up. I gotta go. So how do you. How do you overcome that? And so we train on another pattern interrupt here. First of all, the rule with any. Any complaint or objection is agree, right? Hey. Hey. I know I caught you cold here. Hey, hey, kd. KD says to me, yeah. Oh, I'm about to start a meeting. I thought you were someone else. Yeah, Katie, I know I caught you cold. You mind if I level with you real quick and tell you why I called? To see if it's worth me calling again later? It's not going to work every time, but it buys you another chance. And the reality is they start to think, do I want this person calling me again later? Let me. Let me. And there's your. Your upfront contract is another. It's basically the bridge into an upfront contract. Hey, hey, kd. I recognize I caught you cold. You might. You mind if I level with you real quick, see if it's worth a longer conversation?

So it's funny, I get even more specific with that pattern break, which is literally, I have one question to ask to see if it's even worth a further conversation. Would that be okay? Right? Because I do. I have literally one question that, depending on their answer to that question, dictates whether or not. And so I'm getting permission for that one question. Right? Same idea of like, oh, I'm stepping into a meeting. Hey, I get it. I literally had one question to ask to see if it's in. Worth following up. Do you have, like, 10 more seconds? And we can go from there. But getting that permission for the one question hooks people. Like, all right, okay. You got one?

I got one. Yeah. Look, I love it. It's. To them, right? It's like. And that's why some people like to put even a time balance, a time bound on it. They'll say, God, you mentioned 27 seconds. Hey, can I level with you for 27 seconds? You telling me if it's worth. And people want that uncertainty reduced. Right. You're in fight or flight in these calls. So I love that. Katie, that's. That's good. One question. You might have asked one question. See if it's worth a longer conversation.

It's a combination, right? Because what happens sometimes of like, you know. Can I tell you the reason why I called also tends to turn us into a pitch a little bit, right? I gotta give you the reason I called versus I wanted to ask you a question. And that asking of the question also piques a little bit more curiosity, I feel, than telling you why I called. Whereas, hey, I had one question, I have one question to ask that would determine whether or not I ever reach out to you again.

I love it.

Could I ask it? So there. You. Got a little something for you here. Got a little something for you.

Let's. Let's improve that connected conversation, right? That's. That's it. That's what we're doing right there. And then, boom, you're going into a conversation, right? Maybe that question you're asking is figuring out they're qualified, right? Maybe there's a certain qualification question. Maybe it's something that. That paints a picture of relevance, some sort of big business problem that they might be facing that, you know, from your research is top of mind for them. You're like, oh, you want to talk about that? Actually, I do have some time for you, kd. I'm looking for a personal win to solve this initiative, so. I love it. That's a good one. Well. Cause what's fun?

Well, we'll keep riffing on this because what's really fun, like, the question that we asked and we won't go into this today, is like, it's a bucket question, right? It's a problem agreement question. Either you're dealing with these problems right now or you're not. And if you're not, there is no reason for us talk, right? So I have a good bucket question, but the moment they answer it, I pull back. It's like, hey, so based on that, we should definitely keep talking. But you said you got a meeting. When can we get another time? And you pull back, right? You.

You.

Hey, I said one. That was my one. You are dealing with something we solve. When can we get another time? And you'll be shocked how many people go, oh, all right.

Yeah, sure.

Like tomorrow or, no, I have more time, right? You're like, are you sure? Because I said one, and you get to go. But is that. That if you only get one question, you have to make sure they have the problem you solve, right? Because if you ask a qualification question, right? Like, oh, how big is the team? Deuces, right?

They're gone.

They're not going to do it. So, okay, so let's keep going down this path. Here. So we're talking about dispos, how to better track it. And then what you were saying then too, like as a leader that starts to show you the trends and, and the patterns. Right. Of like, okay, I'm getting a lot of no answers or I'm getting a lot of, you know, objection. This competitor, right. And gives you those insights around it. What are other things that you look for kind of in the calling process that help you optimize the system, optimize the go to market.

Yeah. So looking at follow up required, looking at send me information and then taking that a next step. Did we actually, like you asked the question earlier, like did you actually follow up? Right. So like of those, send me some, some additional information. First of all, is that a true, is it a true ask or was it just a brush off?

Right.

So let's move past the fact it's a brush off for a moment. You know, you spoke with a qualified potential account and they genuinely wanted information. And that's the case sometimes people like to. This is why we're multi channeled by the way. Right. Like you send emails, you do LinkedIn, you do phone. It's not just about the phone.

Right.

In many cases in our page we'll even mention the fact we've sent them an email and you're using the phone to drive your, your open rates on the email. You're cutting through the noise. Everyone's inbox is flooded right now with information. So the more you can cut through the noise, the better. So you look, let's just take answered, follow up required. Okay, what, what were we meant to follow up with here? Was it a time, was it some sort of timing concern? They wanted some time to look at the website and look at the case studies and so making sure that we are truly following up with all of our answered, follow up required dispositions is also potentially where you have some slack in your pipeline. Right. It's not often organizations stay tight with those. So it's also not as common that, that you will book a meeting on the first connect. Most of the connects we find happen after that initial conversation, after that initial connect. So do you have a playbook to get people back into your call list after those dispositions? So there's different technologies out there that can help automate, you know, this task creation. But do you have a playbook in place? So having that kind of playbook in place is going to ensure nothing's slipping through the cracks. So we call that the call between the calls. Right. How are you handling Your call between the calls, you didn't get the meeting on the cold call and you didn't get the discovery call. So there's still this call between the calls that, that needs to occur to convert it to that next step. So how are you taking care of that?

No, I love that because that's, that's again, back to dispositions. If you're not tracking these things, you don't get to take that action. I cannot tell you how many times I would sit down with my managers and go, okay, let's pull up call back laters, right? DM interested. Call back later. Yep, let's pull that up real quick and then see how many of them actually got that call back later. And like a shocking amount never did, right? They never did the same idea. DM Objection. You know, too expensive. Well, now I can put them in a sequence that addresses that objection. Right? Like you can learn so much on that. And so before we start to wrap, I actually want to pivot to a different topic because this might be something where people are thinking, listening. It's like, okay, yeah, this is great. How do I get my people comfortable on the phones, right? There's probably some people listening, going, like, how do I even get them to make the dials, right? Y' all are talking about all these different things, but like my team's making 20 dials a day right now. So what are things that y' all have seen or you do to get your people comfortable picking up the phone to make these calls?

Well, look, look, I, you know, we have, we have the, the gift of Aurum is, is the truth. And, and look, with any skill, right, like if, if you don't get reps into that skill, like, like actual reps, like, you know, you're doing your push ups or, or, or your jump shot, you know, you're not going to be good at shooting, you're not gonna be good at, at, at, you know, pushing up the bench, whatever the skill is that you're practicing. And so it's the same with calls. Yeah, people have call reluctance because they're out of practice. Right? Like, it's one thing to role play with your manager. So first of all, let's say you don't have a conversation technology like Aurum, you know, doing the actual role plays. And kd, I know you're big on this, I know you've always been big on, on getting the batting cages going, right? The, the role plays. And, and I can't emphasize that enough, but you know, actual reps, actual chances to, to be on the, the shooting range, so to speak, at the driving range. And so when you have something like Aurum, what we teach our customers and what we teach internally is when you book a meeting or when you get someone on the phone, the best thing and that you have that conversation, the best, the next best thing you can do is get right back to the next one. Because conversations bring more conversations, meetings bring more meetings. The most common thing we see is a rep gets in a great qualification call or booked meeting or an objection and they're like, oh yeah, I'm good. That was awesome. Like, and they go take a lap, they go get some coffee, they come back and they've already cooled off. By the time they come back. The, the biggest thing you can do, if I can give you one piece of advice, when you book that meeting, get right back into that session and get to that next one, it's. And success brings more success. That's, that's the kind of low hanging fruit I, I think would, would help a lot of folks out there.

Yeah, no, I love that. Right? It's like just staying. I was like, put the notes in after, reach out to the AE after you've got. And this is why like a big part of, you know, how we coached our team, which was, you know, working in call bursts, right? Because if you have to work yourself up to make every call, that just drains you versus you work yourself up for that burst of 10, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. You booked a meeting on call number three. Awesome. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Like finish that burst and then go back and update things or then go back and go for that walk, whatever else. Like you want to celebrate it, but you got to stay in it. That's always the hardest is like a rep will make a call and then send a email, right? And then do some research and then try to make up. And it's like, dude, that's what drains you is you have to work yourself up every time to make those 50 calls versus working yourself up for five bursts of 10. Right? Or in your case, you know, you got 100 dials going out in those few hours, but it's in a burst versus trying to spread it out throughout the day.

Yes.

So now this is, this is tough, man. Like these, these are the things where you talk about, you mentioned this earlier, trying to find it like in my notes, you know, like that connect rate. Oh, you said connect rate, you know, is a popular metric. And I don't even know if I can agree with that. Oh yeah, it should, it should be a popular metric. Most people are not even tracking their connect rate, let alone their conversion rate. It might exist in outreach or sales loft, but they're not leveraging it to actually go through things. Because I would talk about this with my team sometimes it's like, look, we're actually getting the exact results we're supposed to right now. Like pipelines down. Yeah. Based off our connect rate, based off our conversion rate and our activity, we're getting exactly what we're supposed to. Right. We need to apply the science to it to get back on track. And so I love this stuff. I get nerd out on this all day, but we gotta wrap it, we gotta wrap it here. Which is, right, like my favorite question in every interview because the name of this podcast is the Live Better Sell Better. Because I also have this weird idea, right, that if we took better care of ourselves, if we had more energy, more fulfillment, more joy, more excitement, more whatever, the sales would also improve. What would your live better advice be for people listening?

No, I, I, I fully agree with that. Kd, you, you, you gotta, you gotta be sold on your, your yourself first. You are the product, right? You have to be. And your product needs to be well maintained and taken care of in order for your product to serve, right? The company you work for is really a vehicle, right? You are the product. You are what is most important. You need to take care of yourself first. And anything you're selling, any company you work for is just a vehicle on the big track to get to your goals. And don't forget to maintain that perspective. I know a lot of folks say, you know, they can lose sight of that in many cases and get so focused on, on others, others missions and dreams. But you need to take care of yourself first and your family and, and those in your inner circle and, and make sure you keep that perspective. So I, I know for sure in, in my life when I, when I have taken that, that time to have inner peace and whether it's meditate or workout or go surfing or whatever serves me, I'm selling and, and representing my best self and, and my sales sore because of that.

So.

Katie, I love that theme and I so much appreciate that question always, man.

Right? Like, the better we are, the better the results are. And I think that's what we tend to forget is the better we are, the better the results get. You don't get the results and then you get to be better.

Right?

It's like taking care of yourself. Having the energy, having the enthusiasm, having the joy. So this was awesome, my man. Like, I could geek out on the data sides. I don't think people talk about this side of it enough. Where can people learn more? Where are you putting out content? Where can they get a little bit more of this insight that you have on this topic?

Topic, yeah, absolutely. So I'm posting on LinkedIn on a. A pretty regular basis. So again, it's Call Inspector. I'm sure Katie will. Will share the link. And then I'm over at Orum, VP of Sales of Orem O R U M as a mother dot com. So check us out. We'd love to help you with your. Your calling playbook. Whether it's inbound, outbound, warm calls, cold calls, you name it, we. We got it. So KD appreciate, uh, I really appreciate having me on here. It was a blast. True pleasure. So thanks so much.

Hell yeah, man. We got to do more of this, right? So I think we're aligned on a lot of these topics and content, so I appreciate you, man. As always, thank you so much for your time today.

Thank you. Take care, Katie.