Advice on hiring cold callers?

[luminis_]

Hey All!

I've been running my agency for a few months now and all of my lead-flow and clientele have come from cold calling. My meeting booking rates are about 1.5% and I average about 5 meetings per week.

It's been great to develop my sales skills over the phone but I'm looking to scale this further and hire a cold caller to make at least 100 dials per day.

I'm curious if anyone on the forum has had any experience with hiring cold callers and how you compensated them - I was thinking commission-based for every appointment booked but I'm not sure if that's fair in today's market.

Thanks!

 

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[Black_Dragon43]

Hey All!

I've been running my agency for a few months now and all of my lead-flow and clientele have come from cold calling. My meeting booking rates are about 1.5% and I average about 5 meetings per week.

It's been great to develop my sales skills over the phone but I'm looking to scale this further and hire a cold caller to make at least 100 dials per day.

I'm curious if anyone on the forum has had any experience with hiring cold callers and how you compensated them - I was thinking commission-based for every appointment booked but I'm not sure if that's fair in today's market.

Thanks!

In my experience it’s very hard to find good cold callers. You can find people reading a script, for a small hourly wage, but their success rates will be many orders of magnitude lower than yours.

The good ones want BIG MONEY — $6K+/mo. And they’re in high demand already. To scale most likely you need a different marketing channel.

 

[Devilery]

I haven't personally hired any, but the agency I worked for did. Commission-only positions will get you one of the 2:

- An inexperienced hustler (low performance due to lack of skills).

- A pro but only if the product is proven to sell, and the commission is high (the agency had a client selling packages from $50K to $500K, even then, it was a struggle to get someone experienced on board for a commission-only). Another client in that agency paid both a base salary + commissions.

At this point, you need to provide more information, what's the potential - what's the commission range and how many calls do you need to make to get there?

 

[ChrisGav]

Funny I'm seeing this tonight. Just had a meeting 2 hours ago with a partner and we are starting a cold-calling agency. My background is in Real Estate. Found all of my deals, for the most part, cold calling direct to seller. I cold called personally for 2 years, roughly 3 hours a day and really got good at it. Not sure what your business is, but we may could help. We want high quality callers, very very minimal accent if any, at a competitive rate.

As far as compensating them, again depends on your business. But most of them are better hourly. They need consistent income. In my business, Real Estate, if it was commission based it could take months before they ever see a commission check due to how long the sales cycle can be. If yours can close deals same day and get paid that may be a different story.

 

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[luminis_]

their success rates will be many orders of magnitude lower than yours

So the best route here is get really good (5%+ booking rates) and train to expect a 1% booking rate?

At this point, you need to provide more information, what's the potential - what's the commission range and how many calls do you need to make to get there?

The company is still new but client LTV is around ~$20K. I was thinking to structure it commission based on immediate bookings ($100-$200 per booking) and a % commission from sales.

In terms of potential, on one meeting booked every weekday, that's around $2,000 - $4,000 per month (+ % commission of sales). I am honestly not sure if this is a fair compensation structure, but based off of what you and @Black_Dragon43 said, it's probably too low for an experienced cold caller.

Funny I'm seeing this tonight. Just had a meeting 2 hours ago with a partner and we are starting a cold-calling agency. My background is in Real Estate. Found all of my deals, for the most part, cold calling direct to seller. I cold called personally for 2 years, roughly 3 hours a day and really got good at it. Not sure what your business is, but we may could help. We want high quality callers, very very minimal accent if any, at a competitive rate.

Interesting! I'll shoot you a DM

 

[Black_Dragon43]

So the best route here is get really good (5%+ booking rates) and train to expect a 1% booking rate?

It’s hard to quantify this way — when I hired cold callers, the issue wasn’t just the booking rate, it was also the show-up rate (much worse), and the frame of mind people were in when showing up (also worse).

If the cold-caller doesn’t leave a good impression on them, even if the meeting is booked, there will be consequences further down the line.

As you probably know, your tonality and your mastery of what you do is important to convey that authority on a cold call. These “script readers” struggle to do that.

In the end, I just dropped cold calling. It works, but not really scaleable.

 

[luminis_]

It’s hard to quantify this way — when I hired cold callers, the issue wasn’t just the booking rate, it was also the show-up rate (much worse), and the frame of mind people were in when showing up (also worse).

If the cold-caller doesn’t leave a good impression on them, even if the meeting is booked, there will be consequences further down the line.

As you probably know, your tonality and your mastery of what you do is important to convey that authority on a cold call. These “script readers” struggle to do that.

In the end, I just dropped cold calling. It works, but not really scaleable.

Appreciate the insights! Never really thought about the impact of after-call impressions and show up rates.

 

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