Experienced Cold Callers

[abcsales]

On average, what would you say is the average----
calls to make a sale

voice mails left which return the call (no, I don't have high hopes)

number of times you call through your list

how big of a list do you start with??

not a number, but do you find better success with t65 or older?

I'm fascinated with statistics. Starting out with a t65 list for med supps which has approx 1400 names. Hoping to call entire list once per week for 10 weeks. Just curious what sort of returns I can expect?? I'm a broker and contracted with many carriers, so price not a factor.

Will provide my stats as they become available

 

[Josh]

On average, what would you say is the average----
calls to make a sale

Depends on the product, but your response rate should be about the same as it would be with direct mail in respect to the number of leads you generate, figure 0.5%-3%.

voice mails left which return the call (no, I don't have high hopes)

Almost none.

number of times you call through your list

3-4

how big of a list do you start with??

1k-2k

not a number, but do you find better success with t65 or older?

Most folks do better with the 67+ crowd, but some do quite well with the T65s too. Probably 80/20 I would presume.

 

[Rearden]

Don't obsess over that stuff.

Just make the phone calls.

It's a lot easier than everyone makes it out to be.

 

[funeraldirector]

On average, what would you say is the average----
calls to make a sale

voice mails left which return the call (no, I don't have high hopes)

number of times you call through your list

how big of a list do you start with??

not a number, but do you find better success with t65 or older?

I'm fascinated with statistics. Starting out with a t65 list for med supps which has approx 1400 names. Hoping to call entire list once per week for 10 weeks. Just curious what sort of returns I can expect?? I'm a broker and contracted with many carriers, so price not a factor.

Will provide my stats as they become available

FWIW, some statistics. It takes me 25 contacts at the door to write an app. That figure's been the same as long as I've tracked it. 22 years. Average write up age: 68. Commission per contact: 15 bucks. If a kid comes to the door and says, "My mom and dad are taking a nap.", that's a contact. 15 bucks...Why can't I take a nap?

 

[abcsales]

Not obsessing, just curious. I know some days will be all calling and no sales, but if I can press forward it helps to know to not give up till I've hit say 200 calls/day

 

[VolAgent]

Not obsessing, just curious. I know some days will be all calling and no sales, but if I can press forward it helps to know to not give up till I've hit say 200 calls/day

Then don't give up until you hit 200 calls in a day. Or you get a sale in the last hour of calling of your scheduled calling block.

Right now, all numbers are arbitrary for you, so pick something and run with it. Track your results, but don't look at the numbers for a while. Give them time to sort themselves out, then review things.

 

[pbbaseball]

if you look at a snapshot over any given time period, my girls average a lead every 40 contacts, 50 when times are slow. (all med supp calls, 65 and up to 80), they use a power dialer, which speeds up the process, but it's rare that they call for an hour in a day and don't get at least 1 appointment.

many days in their 60-90mins of calling, they'll get 3 or 4 in a day. it's a numbers game!

I think Josh hit the nail on the head in his assessment above

 

[DecisionMan]

The goals you have set are admirable, and your desire to track numbers as well. As its been said, 'you only get what you track.'

Only a few comments:
1. A dialer will make it a lot easier to work the lists and provide your call accounting statistics.

2. List size isn't the important thing, its continuing to work the list up to 5 times. Beware the T-65s since you need to call with at least a 3 month lead time.

3. At this point I'm still leaving VMs after all these years since the autodialer makes it so easy, otherwise I wouldn't because the % return calls is so low with consumer calls. Calling businesses is different.

4. I also love statistics, but what happens if you truly keep dialing is that you'll start to get some meaningful conversations, then some appointments, and then enough appointments to load up your week and you'll stop calling. Eventually you get to the point where you know you just need a good morning or two of dialing to book your week and you don't really care about the individual numbers.

I find I care more about the numbers when I have one of those days of poor results, which just seems to happen regardless of the number of calls or quality of list or what one says on the phone.

The key is to keep prospecting relentlessly.

 

[DHK]

There's no such thing as "average".

Every list is different.

Every agent is different.

Every script is different.

Every product is different.

Way too many factors to determine "average".

 

[Josh]

There's no such thing as "average".

Every list is different.

Every agent is different.

Every script is different.

Every product is different.

Way too many factors to determine "average".

I don't disagree with your sentiment, but I do disagree with what you're saying.

On any campaign that's working the average is actually a .5%-3% response rate. Some campaigns do better or worse than that, but that is an average across the board. Sometimes folks will roll a donut and sometimes I've seen campaigns pull 5% or better, but the average is .5%-3% (probably closer to 1%-2%). If you're doing less than 1% you need to make some changes if you're doing more than 2% you're probably doing well.

This is my experience with many insurance campaigns and some non-insurance campaigns.