I worked for XANT for over two years. It was one of the best learning experiences of my career. What drew me to the company was the data and research they had on sales and lead response management. Who knew that leads are more likely to answer their phones on certain days of the week…

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  In one of the darkest torture scenes of the classic western, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Angel Eyes (The Bad) turns to Blondy (The Good) and drawls, “You’re smart enough to know that talking won’t save you.” It seems too many sales reps today fall on the side of Angel Eyes, and don’t…

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A new solution can change a business or a consumer’s life in the same way paint can change a room. However, selling a product to someone who isn’t ready is like trying to paint over the holes. Sooner or later, you’ll notice them. Preparation is as important to the sales process as it is to painting.…

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Call evaluation may seem like a mundane process, listening to call after call, but it’s worth every minute. It allows you to collect an insane amount of data you can use to improve your sales calls. At XANT, we’ve gathered valuable information about top-performing sales reps, which has helped us to train lower-performing reps more…

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tv-old20th century Canadian scholar and media theorist Marshall McLuhan once stated that when it comes to communication, “The medium is the message.”

In his mind, it was not always the content of the message that mattered, as much as the the method in which it was delivered.

For example, a television set can deliver a broad variety of messages through the media of video and sound—sitcoms, “reality” shows, newscasts, the NFL, talk shows, cartoons, full-length feature movies, and Shark Week. However, we often forget what TV can’t control—the fact that the recipient has to receive those messages under a very specific set of conditions.

The viewer has to be in front of a television screen, tuned to the right channel, able to hear the audio portion of the broadcast, and have a minimum level of outside distractions.

Have you ever considered just how much time, money and energy we dedicate to having a “maximized TV watching experience”? If the “medium is the message,” based on its use conditions, the message of the TV medium is that it’s a big deal. An investment. An experience compelling enough for us to plan our living arrangements around its very existence.

And here’s the kicker:

A sales phone call is no different. . . . .

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One of sales reps’ most common questions is, “How many dials does it really take to make contact with a decision-maker, and how do I know when I’ve reached my limit of “pleasant persistence” and am now merely angering the prospect?”

By the numbers, every piece of sales research we’ve ever done indicates that it takes between 6 and 8 call attempts to reach a decision-maker (though this number generally goes down if you’re mixing in other media like email and voice messaging at the same time).

However, our research also shows that most sales reps only make 1.7 call attempts to reach a new prospect (far below the statistical mean to actually make contact), that they overestimate the total number of calls they’ve made (most reps think they’ve made far more call attempts than they really have), and that they rarely combine all three of the major “contactable” media—phone, voice message, and email—to produce the best results . . . .

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I learned an awesome phone skill from one of our lead gen reps at the office this morning. Travis Turner is a lead generation superstar, and I mean that in every sense. He’s been with our company close to three years, solely in a lead generation calling capacity. On average, Travis makes between 200 and…

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