Improving Sales Metrics: Need Help to Optimize Dial Results
Cold Call Sales Process 1000 dials - ~270 pickups - 40 appointments booked - 1 closed. If you help me fix this I will pay you
Cold Call Sales Process 1000 dials - ~270 pickups - 40 appointments booked - 1 closed. If you help me fix this I will pay you
The challenge is the 270-> 1 not the data quality it seems unless your icp is off
+1 to ICP refinement. Think about layers…Characteristics (industry, size, etc.) behaviors, and operations. Then, I would be really curious what is happening from 40>1. That seems to be a conversion problem. Is the team doing harm and actually disqualifying good opps? Are they leading too much with product and leaving the “dot connecting” on whether to buy too much on the prospect? Lots to unpack there to determine the true root cause issues but at 1/40 that put the win rate at 2.5%. For a refine ICP, agreeing to a meeting, win rate should be higher than 33%. How are you tackling the conversion side of things? Have you listened to the calls? Any major themes?
What industry are you targeting? What’s your competitive market look like? I’m assuming this is based on NewBiz? Renewal, upsells, buyouts - what strategies are you using to close? What tools do reps have to entice customers to sign? Trial converting to paid? Free months? Are you looking to secure a 12, 24, or 36 month contract? Multi year deals you can offer ramped pricing with a negotiable auto-renew clause after a year to give the customer flexibility = more trust to sign. What’s the reps discount floor? Are they bringing in an internal champion to assist with closing? An opt out clause also gives customers more incentive to sign.
Very precise problem statement Justin C.. 1000 dials to 1 closed is not bad. However, what is concerning me is 40 appointments to 1 closed. I'd start looking there. Of course, have no idea of the product, demo, the sales team setup, buyer, industry etc. But, would def start looking into what happened in those 40 appointments - how many were no-shows. Of the ones that showed up, can u review the calls and make changes? Only after that step, would I say you look deeper into 270 pickups to 40 appointments booked
I am thinking there is not only an ICP issue, but a value proposition issue as well. We’re not articulating the value proposition very well
a few thoughts and questions to help diagnose what's happening: Out of the 39 meetings that didn’t convert, are those deals currently marked as closed-lost, ghosted, or still in progress? Understanding where they sit in the pipeline helps clarify whether the issue is qualification, follow-up, or just timing. Also, of the 40 meetings booked, were they all self-sourced, or were some accepted opportunities from other teams (such as inbound, SDR, or partnerships)? If there's a handoff involved, what's the criteria for something to be considered a valid opportunity? If the bar is too low, that can seriously impact close rates downstream. Lastly, what's typically happening in those 39 meetings? Are sellers primarily qualifying, running full demos, or doing a mix of both? If reps are jumping into demos too early without solid discovery, that can lead to poor conversion. On the flip side, if the entire meeting is just qualifying with no value shown, prospects may lose interest. Ideally, there should be a balance,some light value shown during discovery, then a tailored demo once true interest and fit are confirmed. Let me know if you want to dig deeper or build out a checklist to help standardize qualification and opportunity criteria
To articulate the value proposition effectively, sellers first need to ask the right questions. Without a strong discovery, it's impossible to tailor the value in a way that resonates. The quality of the value pitch is directly tied to how well the rep understands the prospect's specific pain points, goals, and priorities
Out of the 40 appointments booked, how many appointments actually took place? Average cold call to meeting booked is 2%, so your 4% is above average, but if meetings aren't being held, the first place to look would be targeting + messaging. If all 40 booked meetings took place and your close rate is 2.5% then the first place to start would be qualifying and discovery on that first call, because as Tony said, you should be closer to 13 closed with 40 meetings.
I am curious of the product shown during the appointment? What is the length of the sales cycle? For inbound, what is the win-rate? At my org, we have completely automated this whole process... We have built massive Clay tables that complete email outreach, get the lead to opt in, simultaneously robo-dial leads with an AI SDR... and book demos with AEs and we maintain a 50% close rate from booked demos, but we have very limited ICP that is well defined
27% pickup rate is unheard of right now, but a 15% conversion to meeting is where I see the bottleneck. Is it an ICP problem, product problem, or process problem that is preventing you from converting more of the pickups into meetings. That's where I'd focus. Then you tackle the CW conversion rate issue once you have more of an 'n' to work with.
I appreciate all of the help! Apologies for lack of context I hope this answers your questions: We are a Airbnb Co-hosting company. Full service property management for vacation rentals. (we handle guest turnovers, cleaners, etc.) The people we are calling are verified Airbnb owners currently under management from Partial service M companies (they just list it on Airbnb and vrbo). They charge 10% Right now we are charging 12% and we literally do everything to make the Airbnb owner completely hands off our competitors just list their property on different platforms. Because of the difference in service our clients typically see 25% - 40% increase in revenue. When we cold call them. We frame it as such: SETTER: “We’re a white glove co-host company that manages a curated portfolio of high-performing Airbnbs — We basically specialize in taking properties to the top of their market and yours on [Street] immediately caught our eye. It looks like a strong fit for our collection.” “If that sounds interesting, I’d love to ask a couple quick questions to see if we’re a match?” The CTA of that call is: SETTER: “So just to be clear—this call was an interview. And after everything we’ve talked about, I’m confident we’re a strong fit. The numbers are there, the setup makes sense, and I’d be excited to bring your property into our portfolio.” SETTER: “So here’s next step: I’m sending your details to underwriting right now. They’ll run a deeper analysis and quote the precise lift—might be 12 %, might be 40 %. If your place qualifies, you’ll have their custom offer in about a day or 2. Lets book a time (2-3 days) to review it with our CEO.” underwriting email (sent 1 day after cold call): Then the underwriter emails them touching on their pain points and binding them to our solutions and saying the % increase we are confident we can get them. THEN - We say we are so confident that we will guarantee we get you a 20% increase in the next 12 months or we will refund the $500/per prop onboarding fee. We attach the agreements for their review then say "Jon will walk you through the contracts tomorrow (Booked time). Follow up call with the CEO (Second phone conversation) Close. 1000 dials - ~270 pickups - 40 appointments booked - ~30 showed - 1 closed. We do 12 month contracts. 98% retention rate. Currently have 55 properties under management.
Internal hand off is horrendous. Dropping the ball on leads because lack of organization. We are building this from scratch so early days are a mess and its definitely reflecting in our close rates. However, thats not the main reason we are at 1 closed.
Unsure what the reason is.
Our ICP is people who own 2+ airbnbs and treat them like businesses. Usually each property makes $50k+ However, we have been getting more interest from the $30k crowd. ($30k is our minimum).. They treat the houses like personal vacation homes and rent it out for extra cash.... We increase revenue by 25% - 40% on average because we treat it like a business and thats actually one of the qualifying questions we ask in the cold call. Is do you treat like a business or not...
Curious on the outcome of this? 40 appointments is a killer number, either ICP has been identified incorrectly or pricing model has gaps. Thoughts 🙂
Justin C. ahh I see, thank you for the context! Given the two different rev routes under the same "umbrella" (if you will) I would refine my positioning framework(s) per buyer community. This can help with segmentation/ICP clarity. If that is not the case I would look at my messaging between the two segments to make sure they sound different from each other. For example, I can't message North Dakota the same way I speak with South Dakota regardless of them both being Dakota's (in my experience). Hope this is helpful!
Hey just wanted to drop some appreciation for everyone's input. Yall got busy days and your taking time to help me out, thank you. I've taken the consensus and relayed it to my operations and saw the gap. We are working on filling that gap now. I will update everyone here with the exact changes I made with the results in the future.
Hey Justin C. If you give me access to your existing sales process and recordings, I will audit for free. As Jared mentioned, the close rate is low. Usually it's around 30% for SMB. I also wonder if the 12 month commitment is holding people back. Are you capturing closed-lost reasons in your CRM?
I want to ensure the thread is also calibrating for the fact that this is not software.
Regardless, that close rate is bad
Paris P. That offer too gracious to refuse! 12 month contract - But they can give us a written 30 day notice at anytime to cancel, no fees. We lack social proof. We deliver 25% - 40% rev increase on average for our 55 properties. Thoughout the funnel we sprinkle in education to tell them how we do that. At the end of the day nobody believes it... Trying to add social proof (before vs after) to the funnel now. We are not currently systematically capturing those closed-lost reasons in our CRM. That and internal lead handoff is a bit of a mess and we are dropping the ball on some leads because of it. Trying to figure out the best way to set it all up. We use GoHighLevel and Slack. The close rate is atrocious 😅. I've got some calls from today and last week I'd love to plug you in on! I'll dm you!
So my partner who has the brand and existing business mainly gets referrals. I am in charge of building the outbound channel. We have 20k+ Solid leads so we will perfect our cold calls before transitioning into a new funnel. They are mainly meeting with us because we tell them we can increase their rev by 25% - 40%. We had a call this morning and another one last week and they said. "why would I give you $500 and 12% of my STR's revenue when Im already with [current manager] and they take 10%." There is an overwhelming amount of ways we increase their revenue. Giving them the Airbnb SuperHost badge alone - according to Airbnb increases revenue by 22% - 29%. We sprinkle in this information throughout the funnel so its not info overload during one of these calls. But I dont think our education is the problem. I think its lack of proof. We dont have any testimonials in the funnel we only really have a website + email content. So when we contact them its via a cold call then an email then another phone call and we are asking them to let us completely manage their home. We tried doing google meets on the second call but most dont show up and we call them on the phone and they pickup. That happens most the time. A lot of them are already happy with their current manager. Its like wifi you shop for it once and forget it. So the main interest is from rev increase. We also take cleaning off their plate, guest communication, etc. but most people are interested in rev so we lean into that the most. If they truly believed they could get that rev increase then I dont understand how they could say no... Alot of them try negotiating the $500 per property onboarding fee. However, 95% of that goes to the reps so we are considering getting financing and removing our onboarding fees....
Brief update: We had a ICP call today.. The guy had 62 properties and just signed up with a competitor. He LOVED everything we said. Problem is he has to pay $500 per property if he leaves his current manager in the next 3 months. We would wave his onboarding fee but he would still pay $31k.....
No close. set to follow up 🥲
Makes sense that timing is a huge factor here. Hopefully your team is asking about contract end dates through this process and can at least plan to come back to them.
Fortunately, we do. Usually its a simple 30 day notice they give to current manager but if its their first 3 months with them and they leave. Then they must pay them $500 per property. So we have a bunch of people who are interested but need to wait for that first 3 months to be over
Got them set up for follow ups
Hi Justin C. - happy to have a chat and see if I can help: https://calendly.com/thesellingcollective/virtual-coffee