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I'm in your market Name - it's ok. But most of my calls are "warm calls"--following up on inbound. This product appears to solve my problems, which is intere

I'm in your market Name - it's ok. But most of my calls are "warm calls"--following up on inbound. This product appears to solve my problems, which is interesting, given that is named for something different. Run, don't walk, and implement email import. All my lead generation systems speak email, and if I could pipe them to you I would become a customer in about 10 seconds. Plus you have a strong lock-in effect with that, who is going to mess with 5 lead systems' configuration to move away from you? Your marketing targets people who procrastinate at sales calls, but just making the calls easier fundamentally misunderstands why that procrastination occurs. You need options to nag me to make calls via email, timed to when people get back from lunch in their timezone. Probably integrate with heavier-duty procrastination services like Beeminder or Rescuetime, which may end up being a reliable sales channel for you.

soneca 12y ago
Thank you for every insight. About the last one, actually I was thinking about people who do not have the discipline to properly register all the relevant info after every single call they made. But your view is pertinent. I could help both types, the lazy and the procrastinator. I will give some thoughts to your features suggestions.
- drewcrawford 12y ago
  > actually I was thinking about people who do not have the discipline to properly register all the relevant info after every single call For me at least, I take notes during calls in a notebook. So recording the info isn't hard. It's actually an important part of my procrastination workflow, because if I don't have my notebook handy I "can't" make calls, ha ha. The hard part is more about planning followup calls and actually making them. I've tried using issue tracking systems with due dates for this, but those are both at once overkill and underkill. Overkill because they have way too many features and inevitably get infected with things that issue tracking systems are actually built to track. And underkill because they don't have things that sales calls need like "snooze this alert until the next overlap of my office hours and the contact's business hours".
- billmalarky 12y ago
  With cold calls, especially for non professional salesmen (one man startups etc) procrastination can be anxiety related. I wonder if there is anyway software can help with that.
  - fecak 12y ago
    I've not heard of any software that solves the problem of anxiety in cold calls, but I can tell you that experience erased anxiety entirely for me. For the first month or two I was quite afraid of saying the wrong things or screwing up, but within a few months it became second nature. Some scripts may help with anxiety for newbies.
  - hluska 12y ago
    I hate cold calling with a passion, but when I've had to do it, I have prepared myself by making fake cold calls to my friends, practicing my approach, and getting their feedback. For me, practicing eliminates my fear of reaching someone, totally blanking, and stammering my way through a call. And, getting feedback eliminates my fear of wasting peoples' time with the worst cold calls in the history of telephony. Toastmasters also helped quite a bit, but it was hard (for me) to transfer some of the lessons I learned in Toastmasters to cold calls. Your mileage will hopefully vary, but for me, talking in such a friendly, warm environment made disturbing people with cold calls even more intimidating. I wonder if something like a social network for non professional salespeople would help? If you and I both suffer from cold call anxiety, maybe practicing together would help us both??

soneca 12y ago

Thank you for every insight. About the last one, actually I was thinking about people who do not have the discipline to properly register all the relevant info after every single call they made. But your view is pertinent. I could help both types, the lazy and the procrastinator. I will give some thoughts to your features suggestions.

drewcrawford 12y ago
> actually I was thinking about people who do not have the discipline to properly register all the relevant info after every single call For me at least, I take notes during calls in a notebook. So recording the info isn't hard. It's actually an important part of my procrastination workflow, because if I don't have my notebook handy I "can't" make calls, ha ha. The hard part is more about planning followup calls and actually making them. I've tried using issue tracking systems with due dates for this, but those are both at once overkill and underkill. Overkill because they have way too many features and inevitably get infected with things that issue tracking systems are actually built to track. And underkill because they don't have things that sales calls need like "snooze this alert until the next overlap of my office hours and the contact's business hours".
billmalarky 12y ago
With cold calls, especially for non professional salesmen (one man startups etc) procrastination can be anxiety related. I wonder if there is anyway software can help with that.
- fecak 12y ago
  I've not heard of any software that solves the problem of anxiety in cold calls, but I can tell you that experience erased anxiety entirely for me. For the first month or two I was quite afraid of saying the wrong things or screwing up, but within a few months it became second nature. Some scripts may help with anxiety for newbies.
- hluska 12y ago
  I hate cold calling with a passion, but when I've had to do it, I have prepared myself by making fake cold calls to my friends, practicing my approach, and getting their feedback. For me, practicing eliminates my fear of reaching someone, totally blanking, and stammering my way through a call. And, getting feedback eliminates my fear of wasting peoples' time with the worst cold calls in the history of telephony. Toastmasters also helped quite a bit, but it was hard (for me) to transfer some of the lessons I learned in Toastmasters to cold calls. Your mileage will hopefully vary, but for me, talking in such a friendly, warm environment made disturbing people with cold calls even more intimidating. I wonder if something like a social network for non professional salespeople would help? If you and I both suffer from cold call anxiety, maybe practicing together would help us both??