Sales managers under pressure look for easy fixes, which is no surprise
However, easy rarely works and usually backfires. Call Blitz is one of those desperate gimmicks
If you have been in sales for some amount of time, you have either decided to host or had to participate in a “call blitz”. You may have enjoyed it; you may have had a horrible experience. In either case, the need for a blitz signifies a symptom of a larger problem altogether. Let us start with the definition:
A sales call blitz is a highly focused period of call activity (typically anywhere from an hour to a full day) in which the whole team participates.
Sounds exhilarating right? Truthfully, many sales managers do try to make them fun with awards and party gifts, but the reality is they are far from productive in the short term or long term.
3 key negative outcomes of a call blitz
Let us examine the first negative element of demoralizing your team. First, the reason the team is forced into a blitz is due to lagging sales. Most professional salespeople are already driven to succeed, and they know where they sit relative to their goals. If they are a quality rep, they know what they need to do to get things back on track.
Additionally, in any given sales team there are always A-B-C players. Punishing the A players with a blitz is not only insulting, but it also creates resentment for the C players that are not pulling their numbers. So now you have a team that knows the “target” is in trouble and the beatings will begin until morale improves.
Carrying forward the concept of A-B-C players into our second negative of a blitz.
Professional salespeople practice good habits on a daily, weekly, and quarterly basis. They know what it takes to network, build pipelines, and close deals. Forcing them into the office for a “fun” blitz day does nothing but interrupt your top producer's rhythm. Oh, I am sure you can chalk it up to an opportunity to teach the young ones, but the A’s know management is doing a poor job and are now asking them to do it for them.
Finally, do they work? Sure, on that day, people will scream they made a contact or booked a meeting. Yippee. But isn’t that what they should be doing every day? If your firm is selling anything other than a commodity or a scam, a one-day blip of getting a few more meetings or demos does not ride through the pipeline to conversion at a significant level. It is solely an act of desperation.
Before you feed the team cake while they begin looking at LinkedIn for their next role, think about building the right habits in all your team members to truly be successful?
If you know your conversion rates well, then you can break down the sales process into stages, stages into tasks and tasks into units. Helping your sales team identify and understand that atomic unit is how you begin to build a sustainable model. James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits makes one easy statement that can change the way you think about sales management. “Tiny changes remarkable results”
As a sales leader focused on making sales a profession not a gimmick, manage and measure the habits that make your “A” players what they are, athletes that know how to train. They do not do all the cardio training in one day and expect to see improved results. Therefore, do not ask your sales team to expect a turnaround in revenue for a blitz. Teach the habits of ensuring those atomic units happen consistently, then the tasks will develop into stages that complete your sales process. There really is not any other way to build a healthy enterprise revenue engine.
If you feel the need to bring your troops in for a rally, use the time to teach new skills and habits. Perhaps using new channels like social for prospecting, which is proven to be more successful in today’s climate than cold calling.
Coterie offers revenue boosters in small units that can help you identify and improve your team performance. Contact us Here. Additionally, if you are looking for new digital selling methods, check out our friends at Funnel Amplified.
