Handling long stretches of rejection when cold-callling.

There was a comment on a recent blog I had done on how do you handle long stretches of continuous rejection.  Is it time to change strategy or is it a numbers game?  It came in from an 'Anonymous', so I want to thank the person as I think it creates better conversations and at the end I hope we can all help each other out and improve our conversion ratios.  If you haven't had the chance please read it first here.


First off, I am going to start to answer the question - the answer is...it can be both or even something else!  Sorry, I know you wanted something straight forward, but it depends on your unique situation / scenario.  I will try to present what I mean by each of the possible scenarios I have experienced and you are welcome to add to these.


Numbers and strategy game - yes both are true; however, before you start pounding the phone even more aggressively to generate the calls/meetings when experiencing a dry patch, examine the downward trend and what led to it.  For example, if it took you 'X' calls to get 'Y' number of appointments and you're now at '4X' calls and 0 appointments, then perhaps one or some of the following might be preventing you from going further:

• Target list - many a times, you've gone through the target list and you go through it again and again, if you keep up doing that your conversion ratios are going to weaken.  If you are at that point, I would advise you to try and develop a new target list, perhaps changing the industry, geography, size of companies (move to larger or smaller ones) as by now you've had quite a bit of experience in knowing the full value of the product/service you are pitching. 

• Competition - may have changed and a competitor may have introduced a product that better fits the market.  In the age of cloud computing, it's becoming easier for companies to sign shorter term contracts, provide a free promotional period, offer more versions of the product to offer flexible payment options.  You want to find out these and communicate it to the marketing and management teams to see where it would be most wisest to spend marketing dollars towards. 

• Market forces - is there really a demand for your product/service?  Many a times sales people get hired and the quota they are assigned is not based on demand by the market, but growth required to satisfy investors.  Remember in order to justify your quota - there HAS to be sufficient demand of your product.  For example, years ago I had a brief stint in selling accounting software specific to the construction industry.  Now the software was based out of Oregon, but my territory was the Greater Toronto Area.  It didn't sell nowhere close to target - why?  Well, no construction company in the East coast was savy enough to buy such an expensive tool as it was too advanced for them, while companies on the West coast were comfortable using it.  You might be in an industry that is too early on, either weigh it out or take the difficult step of moving out of selling this to somewhere else. 

Sometimes, sales don't go in the direction we'd like them to go, I would say give it one more shot, then go with your gut rather than exerting more pressure on yourself to work harder.  Take a step back and soul-search how you can better sell it OR it might be time to move on.  Comments...