Despite the growing disdain for walk-in-the-door cold calling, there are plenty of high activity sales companies (even industries) that conduct sales blitzes to generate a wave of fresh leads for their new business developers.
When my expectations are reasonable, I’ve had excellent results with sales blitzes when working in the first aid and safety service business and in the uniform industry. These are both high-activity industries.
Now, you can fast forward to our free registration to get access to a great form you can use to collect leads, or you can read on for some great best practices to make them successful.
Teams. I’ve brought as many as 8-10 people in for a sales blitz focused on one individual’s sales territory. The 8-10 are paired up into teams (usually a senior sales professional with a newer one), and at the kick-off meeting early in the morning we announce the teams and they give themselves a fun name. Each team gets a binder with the next two helpful aids.
Maps & Lists. Each team receives a map of their sales blitz area. Sure, they may know the area, but you want to avoid overlap as much as possible. The teams also receive hard copy lists of existing customers, so no calls are made on them. And each of the other teams’ pairing and cell phone numbers are included.
Goals & Tracking. Each team also commits to a minimum number of total calls, good leads, and hot leads. Since the meeting ends at 7:45 am and the recap meeting is held at 4:30 pm, a good number of calls for my industries has always been around 50. Some kill that number, some miss it by a bit. As for tracking, each team fills out a lead sheet for every company they call on, even the poor leads, so a history can be generated in the host rep’s database.
Check-in Phone Calls. The fun comes when teams check in to find out how the other teams are doing in terms of number of calls and, most importantly, one-call closes. As the day progresses, they start calling each other directly. This is where the competitive side of your salespeople starts making things interesting.
Recap Meeting. You’ve got to have a recap meeting. Each time has to be held accountable for their efforts for the day. They should report their number of total calls, hot leads, good leads, and a couple highlights of the day. We have also given each participant a token of our appreciation for participating, and the winning team (most calls or most sales generated from one-call closes) wins a prize.
Good luck with yours.
Now, we’ve created two new forms that will help you track the leads pulled from these types of sales blitzes. Simply complete our free registration and you gain immediate access!
Complete the Fields Below Or Sign In Using Your Facebook Account!
Your own mugshot next to your comments? Get a free Gravatar now.
You can subscribe to this post (via RSS) and be notified of new comments!
Additional comments powered by BackType
Can't find it yet? Enter your search and hit enter.
You can also check our sales tips archives
Thank you for the information. I am starting a wave of Blitzes in different geographies, so your info. is helpful.
PJ,
Glad we could be of assistance. Good luck with those sales blitzes.
How much material do you leave on a sales blitz? I have a manager wanting to leave several pieces and I think it is just too much for a “blitz”?
Hi Ginny,
I believe in one simple message per “blitzed” prospect. I don’t believe in four-page, multicolor, text-ridden brochures, portfolios, or anything like that. Give your one main message and get on to the next possibility when pushing through your sales blitz.
What would you rather do? I’m interested in hearing your thoughts.
And thanks for stopping by!
Sounds like a blast! When’s the next one?
Really a comprehensive “how to list”. Nice job Brandon!
I’ve been conducting sales blitzes much like this for years – but my BIG question is….Is there a more efficient way to track leads other than a piece of paper? It would seem in this day and age – there has GOT to be a better way. Comments please…
Karen, great question. The form can be cumbersome, especially if you don’t need all that info. Why not have a central person collecting basic info on every call made, as they’re being made? This could be a fun way to add instantaneous feedback.
Let’s say every person makes calls at least has a cell phone. What if each participant sent a text message in with brief details about each call? Something like the company name, the lead quality (hot, good, fair), and the contact name to begin with. Then that person brings in whatever backup info they have, along with the business card.
The text message could state: “abc corporation, hot lead, met with judy jones re: full service, contract ends next month!”
Well, I think you have a valid point that applies for more than just the sales blitz. But here’s the thing. If you feel your reps are overburdened, you should look at their current tasks and re-prioritize them. As far as I am concerned, the task of generating new business (and a sales blitz is just one of the ways to do that) is only surpassed in importance by the responsibility of bringing in revenue.
So, while I feel your pain – the thing to do is to limit their responsibility for and involvement in “non-business generating” work. If you cut lead generation activities to save time, you’ll shoot yourself in the foot.
What do you do about busy schedules and the griping that results from one more management directive? In our office, the reps are responsible for making contact, giving proposals, follow up, selling the job, making sure the job goes in, issue follow up, issue resolution, and eventually trying to upsell them again. We also make sure the reps are giving reports to management on all of these activities, and a once a week sales meeting, a once a week individual meeting with direct manager, a once a week group meeting with district manager, and now the sales blitz. We expect a minimum of 11 sales per month so it seems like a lot for the rep to handle since we expect them to generate their “own business” and we give reps about 2.5 leads per month.
Here Here Jan!
Figure out where non sales related tasks can be reassigned or minimized and keep the team focused on generating leads and closing business.
Measuring their performance of these tasks in the most efficient and automated way should always be a priority.
Due to the fact of the growing distain for cold calls, many customers,
especially corporate accounts, are more likely to turn sales people down
even in a very rude way. In this case, therefore, sales team must be
well-prepared psychologically.
I’m a DOS of a 5-start pre-opening hotel in Beijing, China. And I’m running a sales team conprised of many green sales staff. From your experience,
what suggestions would you like to offer me to help those young guys
successfully overcome their psychological obstacles, fear, and shyness.
And what should I do ,in a more effective way, to spur up their courage to
push open a door and face strangers.
Thank you
The answer to your questions would be far beyond what I can fit in a comment – but I think one of the main problems with “cold calling” is that salespeople have completely unrealistic expectations about the outcome.
I think it starts with what’s in their heads. People often expect to get from “complete stranger” to “most valued vendor” in one call. And when that doesn’t happen, they get all flustered, lose motivation and suffer from call reluctance. I think it’s a bit of a self inflicted wound.
Look at it this way. You have 40 hours a week to achieve your income goals. The last thing you need is appointments with people that don’t have a business fit with the product you sell, are not in the market, don’t have any money, don’t have a problem you can solve or simply don’t want to talk to you – yes, there are people like that as well.
So why should the outcome of a cold call always be an appointment and why would that even be desirable? Finding out that the prospect doesn’t have a significant problem is just as good as far as I am concerned. Wouldn’t it make more sense to look at cold calling as a way to investigate if a prospect is even remotely worth pursuing?
That’s how I would approach the cold call as well. You’re not looking for an appointment. You’re not looking to sell. You’re looking for a brief conversation during which you can get to know them, they get to know you – and if that leads to an appointment, great. If not, that’s more than OK as well.
“I am X with company XYZ – I am not calling you for an appointment but we have done some business in your industry in the past. I am calling you to see if you’re interested in a very brief phone conversation between you and I – during which you can get to know me and perhaps some new developments in the industry and I have a chance to learn about you and your business. If we both decide at the end that this should lead to an appointment, great – if not, that’s perfectly fine with me”.
See where that takes you.
This is all valuable infomation, but my question goes beyond the actual blitz.
I have been gathering a group of 16 sales professionals together to do a blitz twice a month for the last 8 months (Quick math says that’s 256 employee days). What I’m looking for is some sort of system or tool that will allow me to measure and track the effectiveness of these blitzes.
I want to ensure a couple of things:
1. When my Sales team arrives for the blitz they are maximizing their use of time in prospecting.
2. After they have gathered the blitz information there is a good, diligent follow-up.
3. We are able to measure how successful each blitz has been in the short and long term in order to continuously improve our methods.
Any ideas for the last part?