Cold Calling Tips to Boost Sales and Set More Appointments with Nancy Calabrese – ep 127

Mostafa Hosseini  00:04

Hello, and welcome to the simple Marketing Show. In this episode, you will discover why cold calling is not dead? Why you’re in what if you’re not calling you’re leaving money on the table and the most critical channel of your marketing efforts for your business. That’s what we’re going through today. My guest is, and Nancy Calabrese.

Did I say your name? Right, Nancy? Yep, yep. Fantastic. Nancy is a good friend. She knows her craft when it comes to sales and calling and the rest of it. And today we’re talking about the fact that you should pick up that phone, the phone is picked up, it is not going to pick itself up, you need to pick up the phone. And this is going to be an interesting conversation because I am passionate about picking up the phone.

And so just tune in and share the link with your friends and people that can benefit from picking up the phone and learning more about picking up the phone. And we’ll go from there. Let me do the proper introduction for Nancy, and we’re going to dive into a very interesting conversation. Nancy is passionate about a properly executed pre sales process, engaging with prospects uncovering their needs and turning them into qualified leads. Her unique approach, positive attitude and relentless attention to detail are derived from her recruiting experience.

In 1991She found it professionals Unlimited Inc, specializing in insurance industry recruiting, she saw the need for better quality, highly specialized, qualified lead generation and in 2011, created one of the current solutions, which was rebranded, which was rebranded one of the kind sales in 2018. Nancy employs a unique approach to solving problems using consultative selling. Welcome, Nancy.

Nancy Calabrese  02:24

Wow, what an intro. I’m really excited to be here. I mean, obviously, it’s a topic I love to talk about.

Mostafa Hosseini  02:31

Absolutely. I love this topic, too. I’m a huge fan of picking up the phone. As you know, we both run call centers. And so we’re both passionate about this. So let’s dive into this. Before we get started, gang, if you’re watching or listening, make sure you subscribe to the channel, you like the channel and make sure that you tag a friend who could benefit from the conversation of picking up the phone. This is extremely important for your business. If you’re a business owner, you got to know this stuff. So share the love with some friends. And let’s dive into it. Nancy, what is your story?

Nancy Calabrese  03:12

My story. I got into sales in my early 30s. I had always been told I should go into selling but I was not confident. My first guest experience in sales, I became a headhunter and then ultimately launched my own company recruiting company. What I thought was going to be a horrible experience was not getting any job orders I had called develop relationships.

And it turned out I had, I was very good at asking questions and listening to what I was being told. The challenge was always define the good candidate to match. So fast forward started my own company, hyper recession, by the way, and I had a non compete. So for all of you out there that think things can’t be done during tough times.

They can you just have to work harder. In the early 2000s. I want to say around 2008. One of the clients I did a lot of business with had nine producers I had placed several of them, and they never picked up the phone. So my client asked me to take on a project and to get some of my people to schedule appointments for their producers. We did it in one year and I had two and a half people working at we set over 300 appointments for the team.

And I realized when the project was over, this is not only needed in the industry, we’re good at it and we have fun So that’s why I launched one of a kind sales. Our tagline is, we love cold calling. So our clients don’t have to do it. And I’m very proud of the people that and I’m sure you feel the same way with staff and the people in your call center. They work really hard, and, you know, shining the craft, and they’re very interested in improving each and every week. So that’s kind of my story.

Mostafa Hosseini  05:28

Love it. Love your story, and how you evolved to do and what you’re doing now. So what are your what do you do these days? And who do you help?

Nancy Calabrese  05:38

Well, we are pretty much industry agnostic. We work primarily in the b2b space. And actually, I like different industries, because it’s interesting, you learn a lot about businesses. And when companies come to us, you know, they’re, they’re frustrated, they don’t have enough qualified leads in your pipeline, because they don’t like having to pick up the phone.

And for you and me, that’s totally foreign. Right? We don’t get it. It costs nothing to have a conversation with a stranger, that’s all. And so it gets a bad rap. I’m sure you’ve heard this who doesn’t work, it doesn’t work? Well, it doesn’t work, because you haven’t done it consistently. So we help our clients get in front of the right prospects, and hopefully take it to close. And we’d like to try to help them close as well. Because if they don’t close, they’re not going to want to renew come, you know, the end of the term.

Mostafa Hosseini  06:40

Absolutely. So and then. So what do you do for these guys? So you work with different industries? What is it? What is what is the extent and the details of the services that you guys provide?

Nancy Calabrese  06:50

Yeah, well, they get qualified appointments. So they get call recordings. If the state permits it, they get reports each week, a dashboard of key performance indicators. But I think most important, they really get exposed to selling skills. You know, we are trained in Sandler sales methodology, each and every week, even people on my admin team. And for those of you that may not be familiar with Sandler, they’re the number one global sales training organization, and they just teach you how to have a conversation that sounds different, and very non salesy.

And so that’s an added value to my clients. Because I have found and I don’t know about you, Mustapha, that people aren’t as good at selling as you would assume, in some companies, right? Even though they have a sales role. They don’t take it to close quickly enough, they don’t ask for the next step, which is a sales tip I just shared with the prospects, you always ask for a next step, and so on. So we work closely. We have fun with our clients. You know, I don’t know did I answer your question?

Mostafa Hosseini  08:12

Yes, you did. Thank you. So people don’t Don’t, don’t ask for the sale or don’t move to the next step. fast enough for what I remember. He said. Can you share some examples on what that would look like? Yeah,

Nancy Calabrese  08:26

so too many salespeople will say, I’ll send you this information, okay. Or they’re requesting information from them. And they say, okay, and that’s it. And I am always very keen on G. I’m happy to send you some information. But let’s schedule a time that we can revisit what we just discussed. And it’s always like, hey, if it’s a go or no, go, that’s okay.

But let’s keep the conversation going. And this way, as a salesperson, I’m never left on the hook. Now, everyone slips on a banana peel, believe me, I still do it after all these years. But I really make a point of sticking to that. Because if they are not receptive to scheduling a next step, it’s not going to be a deal that you’re going to close, at least not right away.

Mostafa Hosseini  09:26

For sure. So what’s the proper way to handle that? Somebody says, send me information or send me. I don’t know, can you send me tons of testimonials? Right. So what’s the best way to respond to that to move it to the next next step? And without wasting time? Yeah.

Nancy Calabrese  09:45

When they asked me to send them some information, I said, Well, what in particular, would you like to have a plan to put it back on them and try to get them to talk about their issues again, and again, I will Only send information out if I have a committed next step. You know, because send information that’s that could be a blow off.

And we’re trained to gently acknowledge that. If they don’t want to speak, then they don’t want to take it to a next step. That’s okay. Our goal is just to get to the truth, right? And even if they’re blowing us off, you end every conversation with Jay. You know, Mustafa, obviously, I can’t be of service to you right now. But I wonder, is there anyone in your center of influence that may have an interest in learning about our services? referral?

Mostafa Hosseini  10:42

I am a huge fan of that. Yeah. Huge fan, we always ask, we always ask that question. And I will say, Look, if you asked that question with 100 people, you could get between one to five referrals,

Nancy Calabrese  10:55

guaranteed, costs, nothing, class, nothing.

Mostafa Hosseini  10:59

It doesn’t cost you anything. And it’s just 10 seconds, right? Yeah. Who do you know, that might need our service? Well, you know, I’m not a good, good fit. But I know, Joe, maybe running a business could all make an introduction, and unless you ask, you wouldn’t know.

Nancy Calabrese  11:16

Well, here’s the other thing about asking the person on the other end wishes his salesperson was as good as you were as you. Right?

Mostafa Hosseini  11:27

Absolutely. So we talked about the fact that the cold calling is not dead? What do you mean by that? And how does that work?

Nancy Calabrese  11:38

Well, look, for years, people have poopoo, the idea of picking up the phone and talking to a stranger. And yet there are studies that I wish I had the numbers in front of me, I think 69% of C suite that became a client took the appointment because of a cold call. So why do you think it’s dead? It’s not dead? It’s human conversation.

You know, they hide a lot of people hide behind social media, because it’s easier, or they feel like they’re interrupting. And yeah, we are interrupting. But that doesn’t mean it can’t go towards a positive conversation. So for those that really believe the cold calling doesn’t work, I’m telling you, you said this earlier, you’re leaving money on the table?

 Because if you’re not calling them somebody else is calling them. And you always want to do what people aren’t doing. Right to stand out. I don’t know, do you know Sherry Levitan? I’m a Sales Consultant. I’m a group with her. And we at Sandler, and she used this today, she had a video on LinkedIn pattern interrupt, you want to say things in a way that the prospect doesn’t expect it?

Because you’ll catch their attention? And a pattern interrupt is picking up the phone? Love it? Yep. Love

Mostafa Hosseini  13:18

it, a pattern interrupt. So, you know, I’m a huge fan of calling. And people are saying like, we don’t want to interrupt them. And one of one of my ideas is that while they’re getting interrupted by social media all day long, why not by an actual human being who is whose intention is to help and provide value? There is a lot of useless stuff on social media, people have spent hours upon hours scrolling through nonsense, right? Why not talk business and get serious about life and business?

Nancy Calabrese  13:51

Yeah, well, you look at I don’t poopoo those channels, either. You want to have a mix, but you want to do it. All right. I had an appointment today with this company. And I said, Well, how did you find me and I, it’s through email communication that I have working on the back end, and I’m thinking, Yay, it’s working. Appointments are being set. Yay. They’re going on my calendar. I’m getting leads through LinkedIn. And then they’re being scheduled for my calendar. So you want to use all resources available? Yeah.

Mostafa Hosseini  14:29

Now I’m not against social media. I’m on social media all day long myself. I’m just saying, I have no problem. interrupting people if my intention is to help them provide value, and what’s your approach? How do you Would you be open to share a little bit of how you guys open a call when you’re cold calling?

Nancy Calabrese  14:48

Yeah.

Mostafa Hosseini  14:49

What is that?

Nancy Calabrese  14:49

So Mustapha? This is Nancy Calabrese little pause. I’m guessing my name doesn’t ring a bell. And then you’re gonna say No, that’s okay. I didn’t think it would. Another opener is Mustafa. This is Nancy Calabrese. And then I pause and then say we don’t know each other. That’s a pattern interrupt, right? I’m not sure you’re the person I need to speak to. But if you give me 30 seconds, I’ll let you know why I’m calling you tell me if it makes sense to continue.

Does that sound okay? We’re asking permission, right? 99.9% of the time we get Yeah, sure. And then I go into my 32nd commercial. My company, one of a kind sales provides lead generation and appointment setting services for companies like you. And you know, typically, when I speak with key executives, I often hear boom, boom, and boom, usually about three pain points.

And then I pause, and then I say, Look, I don’t want to pretend to know your business, but is any of this relevant and worth the conversation? And then zip. You got to hear what they say. And then a cold call. And yes, I do believe in scripts, you own a script, you internalize it. But then the next part in this cold call is you become an actor. You have to empathize with them.

You have to get them to want to talk about their pains and their struggles. because sales is emotional, right? People buy based on emotion. So by getting that emotional element out, you then segue into you know what? I hear you sounds like miserable. How long has this been going on? You know, what is it done to you personally? Why don’t we do this? Why don’t we get our calendars out and schedule a time for you to meet with so and so and then we booked the appointment?

Mostafa Hosseini  16:54

Fantastic. Love it. That was a really good opener. Well, thank you, you. See, Mostafa Hosseini here, you don’t know me. But if you could give me 30 seconds, I’ll tell you why I’m calling and then you can decide if it’s relevant to talk further or not. Yep. And then yeah, I like that.

Nancy Calabrese  17:17

It’s very non salesy. Absolutely. Many salespeople are trained. Hi, my name is Nancy Calabrese. And we’ve got a solution that you need to have. This is why it’s so great. And I’m going to be available Tuesday or Thursday. Features and Benefits.

Mostafa Hosseini  17:35

apps. There’s this one other opener I saw from this guy, he calls himself you get UK his most hated sales trainer. So okay, that’s his name. I forgot his name. But he calls himself UK most hated sales guy. Yeah. And then the way he opens he goes, Nancy, I’m going to be honest with you. This is a sales call. Would you be open to give me 30 seconds?

Yep. Let me to let you know why I’m calling. Yeah. If it’s relevant, or would you like to hang up right now? Yeah, most of most people are like, ah, yeah, I’ll give you 30 seconds.

Nancy Calabrese  18:10

Do you know a couple of my callers use that? Hi, Mustafa. This is so and so. And this is a cold call. Can I get the 30 seconds? Did you want to hang up on me right away? And they think it through? And they laugh?

Mostafa Hosseini  18:25

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. When you’re honest and upfront, and you’re not, you know, because some people they tried to like have like a verbal diarrhea. Like, like, Dude, that’s not going to help you push push through and they get hung up on and it’s just not a good experience.

Yeah. So, Nancy, why do people have this massive fear of calling to begin with? Cold calling is on a whole new level, when they have fears? Why do you think that is?

Nancy Calabrese  19:03

Because they’ve been taught, it’s a bad thing to do. It doesn’t work. They haven’t been trained properly. You know, cold calling is just phone networking. People are into face to face network and you walk in a room and then what do you do you stand there and you don’t introduce yourself to a stranger, same thing, only it’s over the phone.

And it’s more efficient. It’s more targeted, because when you go to a networking group, it’s likely to be a hit or risk. You don’t know who’s going to be in these meetings. And like for instance, I want to deal with business owners and at networking events. There could be a mix of sales reps, their marketing reps, it’s not those are the decision makers. So I don’t know I don’t get it move stuff. I just don’t.

Mostafa Hosseini  19:57

Why do I have fears But

Nancy Calabrese  20:00

yeah, what are you afraid of? Nobody’s gonna bite you. Right? The worst thing that can happen is the hang up. Okay, you move on. Second worst thing? It’s no, but no, it’s not now that’s part of the sales game. Yeah. And then you’re gonna get a yes.

Mostafa Hosseini  20:19

Eventually. Yeah. Yeah. Could be your first call or the 50th. Call or, or later, but eventually you you will get a yes. Honestly, cold calling is in business is probably the best muscle building business practice, period.

Nancy Calabrese  20:44

So we have big muscles. Yeah, you

Mostafa Hosseini  20:47

1. You do. I think the only thing that I haven’t done that I’m really keen to do in practice. For muscle building. It is a door knocking. I haven’t done that.

Nancy Calabrese  21:00

I would hate that. See, I want to

Mostafa Hosseini  21:04

you would hate it. I would hate

Nancy Calabrese  21:05

1. And I don’t want to walk into a store or wherever to get blown away. Never. I love I always love the convenience of being in my office and not having to move. Oh.

Mostafa Hosseini  21:19

I just want some muscle building with door knocking. I think it would it will build them mental toughness, like nothing else.

Nancy Calabrese  21:27

Yeah, but you waste so much time traveling to and from?

Mostafa Hosseini  21:31

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Nancy Calabrese  21:33

Absolutely. How do you do that? And I’ll stick with one.

Mostafa Hosseini  21:36

I’ll let you know how it goes. When I try. So, Nancy, what are some of the mistakes that people make when it comes to cold calling?

Nancy Calabrese  21:49

Um, they leave too much candy in the lobby. What does that mean? They tell them 100% Why they’re calling the reasons I love when I get voice messages like that. They give me their whole blur. There’s no curiosity that makes me want to call them back. So I delete them. A mistake people make is not having a script.

You have to have a script to sound consistent. You don’t have to think through what you’re going to say you don’t want to sound like you’re winging it. Because the real work starts when you get the objections, right. So if you have a core script that you know, and you internalize, you’re in a better place to feel the objections. That’s a mistake.

Also, cold call should average anywhere between four to nine minutes. Anything beyond that is a sales call, and you never go into sales mode. During a cold call, your goal is just to schedule the appointment. Once it’s scheduled, then you can do your research and prep for that first time appointment. What am I missing?

I don’t know, mistaken, you’re doing pretty good tonality matching and mirroring the speed in which the other person is speaking. If they have a lower voice, I’m going to speak lower right. If they speak really quickly, I’m going to speak really quickly. It you know, again, it’s fascinating. There’s so many components that go into having an effective conversation, that it never gets boring. One call is never the same as the next call. Hmm.

Mostafa Hosseini  23:48

So yeah, it doesn’t get boring. I mean, it’s it’s always, always changing and evolving. I mean, we don’t do cold calls. We only do follow ups. As you know. It’s always an interesting conversation because every every person is different, different personality, different products, different business different, everything’s different. And

Nancy Calabrese  24:13

I’m going to challenge you follow up calls are called to the person making the call.

Mostafa Hosseini  24:20

Call the person making the call. Yeah. First time, yes. Unless there is a relationship. Like we usually call the entire list every three or four months. And after a while, our agents start developing some sort of relationship there. And if it goes on for a long time, then does it relationships start getting deeper and more meaningful, but the very first one that they’re calling is definitely a cold call. Yeah, yeah. But it’s a little warmer than just the cold calls that you guys do because with what we do they have opted in to receive information existing customers pass Customers and all that. So you kind of have a an idea. Some people don’t. They’re like, I have no clue who you are. And I don’t remember signing up for your book or whatever. But you’re right. Sometimes it is definitely a cold call. And we get hung up on it when they say, don’t call me anymore and they get mad and some some creative characteristics.

Nancy Calabrese  25:24

I’m sure you’ve heard it all.

Mostafa Hosseini  25:32

Let’s talk about Oh, before I move on, Have you have you read Chris Voss has never split the difference?

Nancy Calabrese  25:42

No, but I’ve heard about it. So

Mostafa Hosseini  25:44

I’m a huge fan, and we use it on our scripts. Okay, every single day. And going back to the tonality that you mentioned, I think it would then the mirroring and matching, he’s got this thing called mirroring and labeling, which I think he’s got his own definition. I’m a huge fan. He, I think you might want to check that out. Yeah. Let’s talk about compliance.

I know that there are a lot of rules and regulations around calling. There’s the Do Not Call list. There is FTC chasing people. There are people that are litigators and go back and, and sue people into court and whatnot. Yeah. And your, what’s your take on that? And how do we go about this whole thing and stay compliant without getting?

Nancy Calabrese  26:35

Yeah, well, that’s why we play in the b2b space. If we do B to C, the client has to give us the leads, they have to be scrubbed on their end. Okay. Each state has their one party Call Recording states and two party Call Recording states.

So we have to be very aware, where we’re calling to make sure the conversation can be recorded, or it can’t be recorded. Outside of that, you know, every now and then some guy says, Well, I’m gonna, I’m gonna call the cops because you’re cold calling me you know, or I’m gonna, that’s ridiculous, which is doing the job, you know, when you just have to let it fly over you. But I think grow up one party to party Call Recording states, that could be challenging.

Mostafa Hosseini  27:34

God, do you remember top states that are challenging?

Nancy Calabrese  27:37

Well, California, you cannot record? I know California off the top of my head. Many states allow you to do that. Yeah, for

Mostafa Hosseini  27:52

sure. Anything else we need to be aware of in terms of compliance and make sure that we’re not getting ourselves in trouble?

Nancy Calabrese  28:03

Well, not from a legal point of view for you. First of all, you can’t lie. All right. Yep. Lie. If you don’t have the answer for a question as to say, I don’t know, I’ll get back to you. You never want to, you always want to take the high road. All right.

I had a situation actually recently, where one of my people that were braided on the phone, okay, listen to the conversation. But his mistake was that he went right after him. You cannot do that. Can’t do that. He’s no longer with my company. I mean, you can’t you know, yeah. But

Mostafa Hosseini  28:49

somebody was mean to your agent and your agent went after them. Yeah,

Nancy Calabrese  28:52

you know, like, yelled, and here’s the, here’s the big mistake he made. He didn’t bring it to my attention. Brought it to some of the people internally Had he come to me, immediately. It might have been a different story. But when things like that happen in my company, I always have a company meeting and we go around the horn.

And I want to make sure people understand why it happened. And it’s always worked, you know, to keep them in the loop. Knowing that, you know, I’m a demanding boss, but I’m very fair. I’m very fair and they know that Yeah.

Mostafa Hosseini  29:37

I love this, like, the part of training to the team members should be how to handle mean people. And rude people. Yeah. And you cannot Yeah, you’re right. You cannot just go after them no, and respond back with the same level of stupidity. And just

Nancy Calabrese  29:55

because I’m doing this, I call this gentleman back here. And I took the high road with him. He really appreciated that I called him back.

Mostafa Hosseini  30:05

What did you say on that call?

Nancy Calabrese  30:07

I just said, Listen, I’m aware of a conversation you had with an employee of mine, who is no longer with us, by the way, and I want to take responsibility for that and just apologized to him. He liked it. He liked it. He was I think he was the one that said I might take it to the cops, or I don’t know.

But I took the high road. He did want to be removed from the lead lists, which was fine. And we made peace.

Mostafa Hosseini  30:37

Interesting. Very interesting. I love that call back. Apologize. I’m sorry. Yeah, I’d handle it nicely.

Nancy Calabrese  30:45

Yep, good. Things go without addressing them? For sure, that’s what I’ve learned.

Mostafa Hosseini  30:53

Yeah, I think it always works better. Or it has worked better for me. When when when I try when I kind of act like the the more mature person or Yeah, I would call it the Big Brother or, or the parent parenting type of approach. Because Because you sometimes if you say nothing, it’s okay. You can always go back and say all sorts of dumb stuff and get yourself in trouble.

But if you say nothing, or say sorry, I’m just gonna go out, think about it and come back. It always worked better. And every time I acted stupid, and I responded in in an unprofessional way. Almost always heard me. Yeah,

Nancy Calabrese  31:35

and you want to take responsibility. That’s all everybody’s human. You know, my father used to say Pencils have erasers for a reason.

Mostafa Hosseini  31:46

Absolutely. Sometimes when you say something stupid, you cannot erase it easily. No.

Nancy Calabrese  31:54

You’re right, and earn their trust again.

Mostafa Hosseini  31:57

Absolutely. So we talked about the fact that if you’re not calling, you’re leaving money on the table, what do you mean by that?

Nancy Calabrese  32:06

Somebody else is calling and getting their business. Somebody’s catching their attention. As you said earlier, I mean, we’re bombarded in our emails, and LinkedIn invites, is a lot of noise going on out there. And yet, the human voice can be very reassuring.

And it’s just human to human AI isn’t going to take over the world. Social media is not going to take over the world. It’s human interaction. We all go back to that, you know? Yeah.

Mostafa Hosseini  32:47

100%. And you know, what’s missing a lot these days is the actual human interaction. Like, there’s a lot of people spend a lot of time on social media and digital stuff and their phone and apps and the rest of it. But you’d be I don’t know if you guys get this when we call our people when we follow up. A lot of times they thank us for thinking of them.

Nancy Calabrese  33:13

Absolutely. Absolutely. The follow up Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Mostafa Hosseini  33:17

They’re like you’re just buried in their, in their digital world inside their house, living their lonely lives. Human picks up and says, Hi, that’s a human. You gotta go out there. Yes, I have a minute. Out there. Oh, wow. Can you tell us so I absolutely agree with you with the fact that you’d be leaving money on the table. If you’re not making calls?

Are there any myth myths around? Cold calling? That is your or anyway, people that think about it in the wrong way. And they just

Nancy Calabrese  34:01

you said methods? Myth. Oh, Miss out, that doesn’t work. That it’s dead. It’s dead. You’re never gonna make a sale off of cold calling? Yeah. What are

Mostafa Hosseini  34:19

what are some stats around cold calling? Like how many calls do you need to make typically, to book one appointment?

Nancy Calabrese  34:29

Great question. I get asked that all the time. It depends on the vertical. It depends number one on the quality of the lead list. Number two, how large the organization is do we have to go through layers to get to a decision maker, and then it depends on how saturated that industry is, for instance, insurance, property casualty, even employee benefits before they’ve got to challenges you You get a lead list.

And I call and I find out Mustafa, you just renewed last week, well, you’re not going to be interested in having a call, again about insurance. So that’s one factor. The other thing is, it’s just such a highly saturated industry. So for every call that we make, you’re getting like 2040, you know, a day. So that is a factor other other campaigns, we knock it out of the park right away, because there is a great need for what they do.

So it really has to go, it goes back to what you’re offering is and what the demand is for what you’re offering. And then you have to also factor in, okay, when I’m pre qualifying a prospect, how long is your sales cycle? Now, that’s important for me, because if they have long sales cycles, they’re not going to see a return on their investment. Right away. Right. Yeah, long sales cycle. I always want to know what their close ratio is to cutter ratio. Yeah, get a sense.

Mostafa Hosseini  36:25

You want to know, what’s their close ratio? Yeah. Okay, if you’re closing a year, no booking appointments all day long, and they can’t close it then. Right. Right. It’s not your fault that they cannot close. No,

Nancy Calabrese  36:37

it’s not. Yeah. But then our livelihood is dependent on their ability to close.

Mostafa Hosseini  36:43

100% Yep. 100% 100%. How do you fix that problem? How do you? Is that something you that you vet for a friend? Yeah. Or if you run into that issue, you kind of dress it or fix it in a way you have to? Well,

Nancy Calabrese  37:00

I’ve learned because I never used to ask this. But I started really asking about their sales cycle, their close ratio. If there are salespeople Tell me a little bit about their abilities. You know, who’s your superstar, because I want to get the appointments for the superstars.

Right. i I’ll be honest, you know, it, you know, my biggest fear Mustapha is we’re going to set these appointments for you. But if your team doesn’t have the skills, to take it to close, you’re going to be dissatisfied. And sometimes, and I’ve done this, is I’ve recommended that they rather than invest in me right away go. Training.

Mostafa Hosseini  37:50

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You said I apologize. It was an issue on my end, you said rather than investing in you day should go away?

Nancy Calabrese  37:57

Yeah, they should, yeah, invest in Sandler sales training. And I actually want a client that way. He came to me he was about to sign. But he kept saying, you know, my sales, my sales, I need a system. And I turned him on to my sales trainer. And he opted to go with him. And then about four months later, he was a client of ours, a good client love

Mostafa Hosseini  38:26

1. Yep. Love it. You know, I would say 99% of people would not do that. And they would actually hurt themselves in that process. Yeah. Because that that guy is going to come in he will know how to close. Yep. And then he will be a unsatisfied customer who’s going to run around tell the whole world that spend money with me and it didn’t work and right.

Yeah, I’ve made that mistake. Yeah, unfortunately, I have made that mistake. So going back to the original question, are there like averages like out of 100 cold calls? How many appointments can we make? Well, that’s the range.

Nancy Calabrese  39:08

Yeah, well, I can give you ranges on conversion ratio. Ratios are an average called call conversion to appointments is two to 4% to

Mostafa Hosseini  39:26

4%. So out of 100 calls you make two to four appointments.

Nancy Calabrese  39:30

Well, if again, I don’t want to be quoted it depends on it. It depends on so many factors, but my group overall with all of our campaigns, we average anywhere from nine to 11% and I tribute that to the ongoing training um, you know a client’s you have to set realistic expectations.

All right up front, not a silver bullet. It might take years before we get this person to say yes, but you’ve got a repeatable process that gives them like you said, with the follow ups, you develop the relationships, and you nurture them. Love it. Yep.

Mostafa Hosseini  40:18

You’re okay. On a good day, you guys average between nine to 11%. But typically, people should get two to 4%.

Nancy Calabrese  40:30

Yep, that’s what most is. Yeah, that’s do homework. You’ll see it online. Yeah,

Mostafa Hosseini  40:35

yeah. I think I believe nine to 11%. For would be for the pros, people that really know what they’re doing. Well, we do. Yeah, yeah. I don’t think average Joe could average nine to 11%.

Nancy Calabrese  40:50

No. But you know, this is because of our core belief in ongoing training. And also hiring the right people for the role. That’s a real big factor. I mean, think about as their job is a no job. No job. And it’s repetitive, repetitive, repetitive. Yeah. And you want to have you want to develop a culture of fun. I infuse fun each and every day with my team.

So when they set an appointment, you know, we have Microsoft Teams, and we throw crazy Jeff’s up to celebrate. We, my team appreciates one another. I mean, we really have, it’s the best team I’ve ever had. That’s over decades of, you know, like, becoming a better leader, frankly. Yeah.

Mostafa Hosseini  41:51

Love it. Love it. Love it. So what is the most critical channel for your marketing efforts?

Nancy Calabrese  42:01

For me, personally, yeah, so we

Mostafa Hosseini  42:03

promised to go over the most critical channel for marketing efforts.

Nancy Calabrese  42:09

Sales, I still rely on my appointment setting, but I have added other channels, which is driving business, being a part of some membership groups has increased my visibility. So I get referrals that way. I you know, I have some strategic partnerships, as you know, that cultivate relationships. I’m just trying to think the core, the caller’s setting the appointments, I have LinkedIn marketing, I have a service, that I don’t know how he does this.

But he’s running three or four campaigns for me through LinkedIn. That brings me about 30 leads a month. And the different but there’s a difference. You don’t know how qualified they are, and they don’t all convert to appointments. And then email marketing. We are we’re going to be taking it in house. But we have several different campaigns taking place that has brought interest to us. So I don’t know if that answered your question. Absolutely.

Mostafa Hosseini  43:37

Absolutely. So it seems like you’re like you got to multi channel marketing efforts that are bringing leads through partners, strategic partnerships, LinkedIn, and do you guys would do cold calling for yourself?

Nancy Calabrese  43:52

Yeah, that’s what I was talking about. Yeah.

Mostafa Hosseini  43:54

Okay. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Nancy, tell us about your book, please.

Nancy Calabrese  44:02

Ah, here you go. It’s called inside sales solution. So it’s basically for those companies that want to build an inside sales department. It’s a how to do it yourself. It’s written in my voice. It’s a real easy read. And I’m very excited, because I know you’re going to post this that you can get a free download on my website.

And this year, we’re writing we’re making an online course of it. So that’ll be available probably in the q3 or q4. So yeah, please enjoy it and I’d love to get your feedback on it. For sure.

Mostafa Hosseini  44:53

So the gang The book is called the inside sales solution. The link is in the descriptions in the show And or on a comments on social media, click on it download the book. Nancy has been at this for a while. She definitely knows what she’s doing. And yeah, it would be beneficial for you and for your team and read it out and reach out to her.

They, they do great work with the generation. Imagine having somebody that has a calling for you and generating leads for you every day. Mm hmm.

Nancy Calabrese  45:30

Right. And we do it with smiles on our face.

Mostafa Hosseini  45:34

That’s right. Nancy, can you do? Can you have like an agent working for a customer like part time? Only four hours a day? Eight hours a day?

Nancy Calabrese  45:46

Oh, you mean? Would I hire an agent to Whoa,

Mostafa Hosseini  45:50

can I hire your team on a part time basis? So they could do four hours of calling every day instead of eight hours? Or how do you how do you guys go? I

Nancy Calabrese  46:00

used to do that? I used to but I’ve my people have full time.

Mostafa Hosseini  46:07

customers only work with your team full time you would have one? No,

Nancy Calabrese  46:10

no, we have different packages. So our starter package is 10 Our hours of outbound prospecting. So their assigned one caller, our gold package is 40 hours. So let’s say you wanted to engage us for 40 hours, you would get two callers. Who callers? Yeah, at least

Mostafa Hosseini  46:32

one caller able to do 40 hours of calling. I

Nancy Calabrese  46:36

don’t like to keep them on the same campaign.

Mostafa Hosseini  46:38

Okay. I like to. Yeah, but that’s 10 hours a week or a day or how does that work?

Nancy Calabrese  46:46

It’s a week. That’s our starter campaign. And the 40 hours is our Gold program. The starter campaign translates to about 200 dials, and the gold translate into 800. dials.

Mostafa Hosseini  47:10

Fantastic. Fantastic. And then And then what’s the next package after gold? Well,

Nancy Calabrese  47:17

it’s you can build it in increments. The most common package is 20 hours a week. And that would engage us, you know, to team members. And I would probably that translates to 400 dials a week. But you could do 15 hours a week, you could do 25 hours a week. Yeah. Fantastic.

Mostafa Hosseini  47:42

Yep, got it. Yeah, so give us a 32nd Give us one simple marketing strategy, like within 30 seconds, something that people could do and start seeing results pretty much right away.

Nancy Calabrese  48:00

Here’s my recommendation. Start small, make a commitment to yourself, make five dials a day. That’s achievable. Because if you five dials, that means you made 25 dials. And if you calculate it throughout the year, I don’t know what that number turns to. But start small, don’t overwhelm yourself.

And, you know, study, either follow me on LinkedIn, read my blog posts, you know, reach out to me happy to have a consultation with you. It’s getting to know is not a bad thing. Because you’re moving closer to your Yes. So just do it, make that promise to yourself.

Mostafa Hosseini  48:49

I love it, it would probably count, you know, some up to about 1000 calls throughout the year. And based on like average statistics that will be probably around 20 to 40 appointments throughout the year. And if you have a 30% close rate, that will be about six to 12 customers.

Just five calls a day. And I’m guessing if you’re getting started, it’s the first five or 10 calls that are the scariest and then you’ll get used to and you’ll see that it’s not the end of the world then you’re not gonna die. Or somebody’s not gonna get out of the phone and boy you and yeah,

Nancy Calabrese  49:35

here’s another thing black timeout. And when you ready to move on, then do 10 Before 10 o’clock in the morning.

Mostafa Hosseini  49:46

And by the way before 10 o’clock, why in the morning. It’s

Nancy Calabrese  49:49

just to psych yourself up. You could call any call blocks. Here’s another thing. They have all the data you should call this time that time And you know what, it does depend on the industry. But there’s really no bad time to pick up a phone and Friday afternoons.

We set a lot of appointments, because all other salespeople are jumping ship for the weekend, and people are in a good mood.

Mostafa Hosseini  50:23

Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Let me ask you some personal question. What questions would that be all right? Yeah. What’s a new thing you have tried recently? Big or small? It could be as small as a cup of coffee as big as going to the moon.

Nancy Calabrese  50:49

Ah, well, no, this is business related. I don’t know. Any. You know, I’m pretty consistent. I eat the same foods. I eat the same foods. I’m bored.

Mostafa Hosseini  51:05

You must have tried something new like a book reading something learning something. Food. John jumping off a cliff. How do I know anything? In the past few months.

Nancy Calabrese  51:23

I’m just I don’t know. Come back to me with that question.

Mostafa Hosseini  51:27

Okay. Give me two of your top favorite books.

Nancy Calabrese  51:32

Well, I love actually I’m reading now corporate sponsorship in three easy steps. And also strategy Sprint’s by Simon Severino and then more conjure a mind for sales?

Mostafa Hosseini  51:55

Mind for sales, loving, loving? What’s one advice that made a big impact in life or business?

Nancy Calabrese  52:03

I know that one for sure. So I’m in my 20s started out in corporate America. And my uncle is my mentor. And I remember I was like getting close to 30 ish. And I was in a fortune 50 company. And I just didn’t like the rules. I didn’t like the rules.

I mean, it didn’t make sense to me how to follow all these rules. So I was moaning to my uncle. And he said, you know, Nancy, did you ever think you don’t like to be told what to do? And a light bulb went off. He was right. And that’s why I started my own business. That’s why I went into sales to start my own business. I love

Mostafa Hosseini  52:48

1. Man, I see if you had a Facebook or a Google Ad around the world, that people around the world with access to internet could see this ad and they could see your message. Right? What would your message be for the people of Earth?

Nancy Calabrese  53:03

It’d be a picture of me and Paul McCartney hugging or kissing and letting the world know that he’s leaving Nancy for another Nancy.

Nancy Calabrese  53:24

That’s my goal in life.

Mostafa Hosseini  53:25

I love it. This is the most creative answer. I’ve asked that question. Probably about 130 people now on our show. This was the nicest one like the most creative one.

Nancy Calabrese  53:42

There is. Oh, wow.

Mostafa Hosseini  53:48

Good, good. Yeah. See, this has been absolutely amazing. Thank you for sharing all the knowledge and wisdom and everything else that you shared. Is there anything anything that you want to talk about that we didn’t get a chance to talk about?

Nancy Calabrese  54:07

I think you do a great job interviewing. Yeah, I think you know, your audience should be really pleased with the level of interest that you take and making your guests feel comfortable and the questions that you ask. So bravo to you. That’s what

Mostafa Hosseini  54:30

I appreciate that. Thank you. Gang. If you needed to outsource your sales process, your lead generation and cold calling, because let’s be frank, you might be scared of it. Reach out to Nancy have a conversation.

They will do it for you could sit back and based on what she said, You got to know how to close or you got to have people that know how to close anyway go out there she will put you in the right direction. If your right fit, you guys can work together and you know, get more leads, generate more leads more leads, grow your business grow your profits.

Because I’ve been in the marketing world for the past, God 15 years or so been in business for 20 years. Lead Generation is the number one problem for 99% of businesses out there. Yep. And if that is you, put a comment, wherever you’re watching and say lead gen. And that if that actually is an issue for you, if you have any questions for me or Nancy, put them in, and the comments on social and we’ll get back to you.

And again, if you know a friend, a colleague, a business owner and entrepreneur could benefit from the conversation learning about net, you know, Nancy’s wisdom and the type of work that she does with her team, tag them or send the link of the show to them. Make sure to like and subscribe. And thank you for joining us, and we will see you next week. Thank you, Nancy. See you guys later. Bye bye.