In a modern world of e-mail, texting, instant messaging, and an abundance of advertising opportunities available on the internet, TV, and radio - displayed prominently at just about every public place you can imagine - it can be easy to overlook the value of outbound telemarketing services.

But developing new, qualified leads has never been so difficult to manage completely in-house. And this is causing a domino effect that's impacting the rest of your sales process.

For example, your closers may be getting stronger at what they do by the day, but because they're being tasked (too often) to open the doors in addition to closing them, they're skills are not being utilized to their fullest potential. They're being pushed to engage in frustrating activities that don't necessarily speak to their core strengths, and it's making everybody a little frazzled.

But with a little help from an outbound telemarketing service versed in B2B, you'll be able to solve this puzzle and many more.

Is the fact that your reps are cold-calling and setting appointments causing a leaky sales pipeline?

If you’re a sales leader who’s been faced with a team full of empty pipelines, then chances are you’ve spent quite a bit of energy cajoling sales reps to pick up the phone and make cold calls to fill their funnels. It seems like a solution. After all, more calls, more leads, more opportunities, more sales, right?

What if I were to tell you that this is actually wasted effort?... that the empty pipeline isn't actual problem, but a symptom of something much bigger?... something that will continue to haunt you, as it has for the many years you've been in the business.

Here are five reasons why sales reps shouldn’t waste their time making cold calls and setting appointments.

  1. Close on the Appointment, Not the Sale

If you’re on a sales prospecting call and things are going well, often times the temptation is to try for the sale right then and there.  Let’s face it; getting the sale on the first call isn’t very likely. It’s pure magic when it happens, but it doesn’t happen all that often. Instead, set an internal goal of appointment setting, not closing. It’s a much more attainable goal, and getting your prospects to sign on the line which is dotted has a higher likelihood of success in person.

WANT MORE LEADS? MORE APPOINTMENTS? MORE SALES?

Then you need to know about features vs. benefits. 

"Why?" you ask.

“Huh?” you say.

Think of it this way. You might refer to a feature when describing why you made a purchase, but the feature isn’t the reason why you bought it, the benefit is. And the reason why is benefits are what's in it for you. Features are usually the clever invention that provides the benefit.