We all make cold calls but let’s be honest, most of our cold calls are garbage. Culprits of our calling failures include lack of personalization, little research and, poor timing.
Now I’m not telling you to stop making calls, after all, conversations are the key to how a TON of business get’s started. But at Salesloft we’re trying to create a better way of doing things.
Let’s start talking about you can improve your cold call timing: using time zones.
In today’s marketplace, many of our sales and marketing techniques are built around time zones. It is impossible to influence without timely communication. Utilizing this information to dictate the strategic time of outreach can be hugely influential.
Think like your prospects.
Before you start blindly calling your leads for the day, you want to create a strategic plan of outreach based on the likelihood they will be available to answer the phone. Start by asking yourself these questions:
- What is my prospect doing on an average day at that time of day?
- Are they working in their office, from the road, working from home? Are they mobile or stationary at their work station?
- Through which channels is my prospect connected at that particular time of day? Email? Phone? Social Media?
Say for example you are dialing from Atlanta and want to reach a prospect in San Francisco on the phone. Calling at 8am ET isn’t desirable since the birds are barely chirping at 5am PT. You might have to wait until 11:30am or 12pm ET as gatekeepers typically arrive into the office around 8:30am or 9am (pro tip: send an email first and follow up with a call later). Taking these factors into consideration will greatly increase your conversation rates and overall efficiency.
Set yourself up for success.
First things first. Determine the area code where your prospects live. This can be an incredibly manual process and will drive most SDR’s crazy! That is why we developed a new feature in Salesloft Cadence: Time Zone Auto-detection.
Time zones will now be automatically populated on import and creation of a prospect as long as they contain either City & State or Phone Number. Time zones will auto-update upon change of pertinent fields (City & State or Phone Number) if one does not already exist. Users will also have the ability to redetect the time zone from the person detail page if you change location information.
Users can now sort calls based on similar local time, allowing you to strategically organize your call steps throughout the day by local time.
Think of yourself as a locked and loaded calling sniper who knows exactly when to place that call.
Sales is less of a numbers game these days but it is all about playing the numbers. Make the most of every activity in your day by making data driven decisions. Play the odds in your favor to increase your conversions and chances of success.
It is simple, easy, and automatic.
The best way to tackle your goals is to tackle them one step at a time. Breaking up your daily tasks into bite size pieces, starting earlier in your day, and crushing them one step at a time is a proven framework for success.
Auto-detection of time zones in Salesloft Cadence allows you to strategically and efficiently break up your daily calls so you can focus on what you do best — having more conversations.
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