In my other life, I'm a runner. I've run competitively and I've run for fun.  I've run on a national team.  I've even managed a national team. 

There are a lot of running metaphors that apply to my call center experiences:  Putting your money where your mouth is. Toeing the line.  Putting one foot in front of the next.  Keeping the pace.  Blowing up.  Hitting the wall.

Randy, my most recent call center agent told me he'd been making outbound calls for the better part of 5 years, he routinely made 500-600 calls a day and reached decision-makers 70% of the time.  Hummm... he talks a good story, I thought.  A "rock star" agent!  An Olympian.

My recommendation was that we take a few days for training then Randy pace himself by going out of the gate slowly with a small number of "perfect" calls.  He set his own goal at 40.

As part of a general orientation with Randy, my new call center agent, I clarified what I believe a "perfect" call to be.  Of course, what's perfect to one person might not be perfect to another, but if you want someone to make calls for you, I believe it is only fair that you make your expectations very clear.

Here are the elements of a "perfect" call from my perspective:

• the person who can make the decision is reached
• the decision maker is educated about your product/service and how it will help them
• the opportunity is qualified (Are you speaking to the decision maker?  Is more than one decision maker?  Does the prospect have a need for what you offer?  Do they have the money to buy what you are selling?)
• the status of the opportunity and all relevant contact information is updated in your CRM system

What's a perfect call to you?

I've worked with call centers in Canada, India and the Philippines.  I've only once met face to face with the management of the call center I worked with.  The other night, a friend asked me how I selected the places I work with.  In the end, it all comes down to a bit of due diligence and a lot of trust.  This is a topic that will likey take up a chapter in the book.

Environment

Overlook this at your own peril!  The physical environment has to be conducive to doing business.  Does the place provide an environment that is safe, clean and comfortable for your agent?

Most modern call centers provide soundproof cubicles, but not all.   I've listened to  call recordings of my agents where it sounds like a party is going on in the background.  I've heard stories of huge open rooms where 2 people share a desk and  theft is rampant.  Would you be productive in an environment like that? 

Seeing as how most of this week was spent getting Randy, my new "rock star" call center agent, ready for battle, I thought it would be informative to share with you the tools he uses to do what he does. I've tried to break this out between hard things, soft things that have to be installed and soft things that are accessed through a browser. My personal bias and preference, and one I hope to develop in the book, is to do all soft things through a browser.

Over the years, I have hired call center agents in Canada, India and the Philippines.  Some of them have worked out really well, others less well.  As a relatively small business, I cant afford to screw up often...and I did recently.

Yesterday I interviewed 5 people in the Philippines.  The person I hired was not the person who fit the profile of the person I thought I would hire, yet I feel good about the decision.

The Challenge

Without the benefit of being able to look a candidate in the eye or read their body language, how do you know who to trust with the role? 

I have several really nice dictionaries in my bookshelf.  'Must have paid a small fortune for them.  However, they collect dust because I now go to to the web for most of my research these days.

It's good for people like you who read this online book-in-the-making because I can hyperlink right to the definition or to various definitions.  The other good thing is that the definition can be refined or otherwise updated and you get the latest information.

Not so with my Oxford dictionary.  Things like wikis and blogs didn't exist when I bought the reference books and goodness knows what new sales tools will be invented this year or next.

What will I do when it comes time to take this book to print?

I met with an acquaintance from the real estate industry yesterday. We'd not seen each other for over a year, so I was curious about what he'd been up to.

Background

This person is just over 40 years old. He has an MBA. He has bounced around from one career to another, but always had a passion for real estate that he had developed outside of his career. Since we'd last spoken, he decided to become a real estate professional and had only recently taken a full-time job selling lots in new residential developments at 100% commission. I was naturally curious about the challenge of making a decent living with this opportunity. (No, I was not trying to sell him a Sales Jumpstart, but I should have! Read on...)

The most important lesson I learned about sales methodologies, I learned baking a cake.

How to bake a great cake

1. Buy a good cake mix
2. Assemble all of the ingredients listed on the box
3. Mix according to the recipe
4. Bake at the temperature and for the time indicated on the box

If you do what you are supposed to, it is almost impossible to bake a bad cake!

How to make sales

1. Start with a decent product or service and a good list of prospects
2. Apply a procedure for changing prospects to customers
3. Work hard and with enthusiasm

If you do what you are supposed to, it is almost impossible to not make sales!

I went to a seminar on Lean manufacturing this morning. I learned that in all manufacturing businesses there is a value chain and that 95% of the steps in a typical value chain don't deliver any value at all. 95%... that's a staggering number!

This made me think about how the sales process is a lot like the manufacturing process and about how inefficient it generally is. Looking at ways to make the sales process more simple, more "lean" is certainly something to investigate in the book.

AWOL.  Absent Without Official Leave. 

Last Thursday, my call center agent in the Philippines, didn't show up for work.  She didn't call, email or otherwise inform me, her supervisor or anyone else in her place of work where she was or what was the matter.  Did she get into an accident?  Was she mugged?  Did she get sick and end up in the hospital? 

Friday came and went.  No news.  We tried calling her home and cell phone.  No answer.  We tried tracking her down through friends in the office.  Tasha was fairly new, so not that many people knew her.  No luck finding out more.

Manila has its violent side.   If something terrible happened to her, surely we'd hear over the weekend?  Nada.

Monday was another cliffhanger.  Someone apparently saw her crying on Wednesday afternoon.  Was it a family crisis?  A guy problem?  Still no word from Tasha.