Today I am addressing an excellent concerned raised by an experienced sales pro and member of our Lead-up coaching program. (www.lead-up.com)

David writes: "Your cold calling metric supposes that the best way to find new business is to make huge numbers of cold calls (I call this the "throw enough mud against a wall and some will stick" theory). Like most sales people I have an aversion to cold calling. You present some very good solutions to improving the chances of success - eventually - but that requires a high level of discipline and diligence.

(Colleen NOTE: You are right David, sales success is all about mastering the art of focused discipline!)

"My concern is that in order to maintain a success ratio, the number of calls per day will increase exponentially as the follow-up calls and the follow-up to the follow-ups pile up. There are only so many hours in the day and most of my day is taken up servicing my current accounts to make sure that they are happy and feel loved."

Thanks for your comment David. This is a valid concern and I want to emphasis a couple things this week as a reminder to everyone.

The cold calling ratios we discuss in earlier lessons (3 qualified leads to 1 sale and 25 attempts to find 1 qualified lead) are valid only for brand new business development. They do not take into consideration calls-ins as a result of marketing programs, referrals or repeat business. To learn more about these metrics please visit 1 of articlescles I have written on goal setting at Engage Selling

You must understand these ratios and use them only to the extent that you need to drive new business when you do not have the luxury of a current customer base, marketing programs, and repeat orders.

The ultimate goal for sales professionals should be no more cold calls, and 100% of revenue coming from existing customers, referrals and leads from your networking and marketing programs.

We have discussed some ideas on how to do this in previous lessons. If you need to, go back now a review all the lessons on prospecting and networking. Roughly courses 12-20.

I also understand that not all sales people are quite at this goal yet. So, most of us are still building at least part of our business from proactive outbound calling. With that in mind the 1:3:25 ratios are valid for that new business development.

To help you reduce the cold calling you must do in your business here is a quick review of some key concepts. There are 3 things that combine to help you sell more in less time:

1) Every year secure more and more repeat business. I urge you to set a goal for yourself at the start of each year. How much repeat business are you going to bring in this year?

HINT: it should be at least 10% more than you received last year. More repeat business means less "cold business" you have to find.

2) Every year secure more referrals. This means leads are warmer and easier to convert to customers. Leads are more trusting and open to buying your solutions. Referrals decrease the number of outbound calls you must make. Again, set a target for yourself every year. Ask yourself:

How much business will I receive as the result of referrals?

Who are my best referral sources and what can I do to reward them for thinking of me?

3) With experience you will be able to combine excellent cold call techniques with a great market reputation and excellent client testimonials. This will dramatically decrease the calling ratios to as low as 2 qualified leads to make 1 sale and 5 calls to get one appointment! Sorry, nobody gets the ratios down to 1:1:1.

If you are still making cold calls, (as many sales reps continue to do) you can see that you will have to make far fewer for a better result.

My strategy at Engage is to help clients increase their referral based and repeat customer base so proactive outreach is reduced. Most sales people hate making cold call. Although actually like it! So, the more often the phone is ringing, the happier everyone is!

This week review your referral programs and repeat business and make sure that you have an active approach to asking for referrals and more business. In the long term this will help you to sell more in less time!