What are the statistics for cold calling B2B? How many calls does it take to get an appointment?

I'm writing a book and would like information from telemarketers (B2B), salespeople, marketers or consultants who use cold calling as their primary method of obtaining new high value clients. More specifically, what are the common ratios of calls made per appointment set? What are the best methods for setting appointments through cold calling and are there any websites that would be helpful in obtaining statistical information on this subject?

What are the statistics for cold calling B2B? How many calls does it take to get an appointment?
average ratio is 60 to 1 / calls to sales


1 of 10 cold calls leads to prospect appointment


1 of 6 appointments leads to sale
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Reply:First, differentiate the types of sale for your models eg:





Capital Sales (goes through the Capital Budgeting process)


Expense/Production Sales (Departmental or Purchasing agent)


New Account


Existing Accounts


Physical or Intellectual Products


whatever is of interest to you or your book..don't generalize.





For years, sales managers and call center managers kept statistics often with salesman turning in weekly sheets then daily, and then automated, then CRM systems and collaboration, etc. when cold calling was key. I quit doing it because the half life of the models kept decreasing especially with the advent of the Internet and multi-channel marketing. So, we might spot check every now and then. But now a cold call might generate action in another channel. So, heavy cold calling may show up on the website, and in Google Analytics. The big retail guys have figure out multi-channel. I have not in the capital B2B marketplace. I can casually observe that any marketing activity begets activity (good prospects). I can not prove the relationships or cost them. But, I do give credit to whomever starts the action.





But, every time, we rechecked our statistics, we could generalized them around a couple distributions whose yields changed over time but the model remained reasonably viable over time for capital sales to new accounts. We use entirely different models for sales to existing customers.





Our direct New Account sales the model is built around:





Segmented Data Base and access technique


Prospect yield from access technique


Prospect to working (appoint, proposal, demo, etc.)


Working to Close


Close to Installation and payment





So,





1 installation = closes/.9 = working/.3 = prospects/.3 = Segmented DB/.01 to .05 (the yields are distributions and some understanding of the standard deviations and error rates are useful. They normally vary by product, campaign/value proposition, skill level, territory, industry, size, etc.)





or





1 installation = 1.11 closes = 3.7 working = 12.3 prospects = 1234 DB records





Sales funnel management has been around for years so describe the funnel for your market then look for statistics, they will vary widely by industry, etc. Surprisingly, I rarely found experience did that much to the yields. A conscientious rookie following a script badly is often still on the same distribution as a pro. This is because in B2B selling, it is the prospect who decides to waste their time in pursuit of solving a problem. The offering takes precedent over the the pitch.





It should be an interesting book as I suspect the complete saturation of the market with multi-media marketing is just cluttering the the airwaves and making cold calling very viable again. I suspect the yields and curves will be quit different than the convention wisdom of the last few years. I would not trust data more than a year or two old. Good luck.