Outbound Prospecting Calls, First Impressions, and Your Call/Conversation Ratio

In a recent Hubspot blog post, staff writer Meg Prater shared some interesting insight in an article entitled, “The 8 Worst Ways to Introduce Yourself Over Email.”

The top 5 of her “How to Make a Bad Impression Over Email” list are:

  1. Use a boring or misleading subject line
  2. Tell them how lucky they are to speak to you
  3. Remind them you’re a stranger
  4. Refer to vague connections
  5. Take your time getting to the point

Prater’s perspectives are good, and they also apply to outbound prospecting or business development telephone calls.

Countless SDR and BDR professionals have agreed, the hardest part of these calls is the first ten to twenty seconds… the introduction.

The best of these people have crafted a standard introduction that is easily tailored to the organization or vertical market into which they are calling. The best of these introductions share a “simple-but-not-easy” element, which is that they are NOT about the calling organization, but rather they are about the prospect organization.

In other words, the introduction is not about what “we” do or what “we” offer, but rather about what the prospect organization could “get” or how “they” might benefit based on whatever it is we know about them.

If you haven’t done so, try making this change in your outbound call introductions. Those that have successfully done so report a sizable increase in call/conversation ratio.