How to generate 47% more appointments

Sales rep Ann and sales rep Betty are identical twins. They both sell the same product. They work from the same bucket of leads. They put in the same number of hours prospecting. They’re both good salespeople. Yet Betty gets 47% more appointments than Ann.

So what does Betty do differently than her sister? Only one thing.

She calls prospects on Thursdays. Ann calls her prospects on Tuesdays.

Every salesperson knows that you have good days and bad days when you’re prospecting. But researchers have found that these differences are not random. When they looked at thousands and thousands of sales calls, across all kinds of industries, some dramatic differences emerged.

For example, salespeople are 47% more likely to reach a prospect on a Thursday than on a Tuesday.

What’s so special about Thursday? We could speculate, but the researchers don’t. They just let the stats speak for themselves.

There’s no telling whether that particular pattern holds up in your industry. The point is that these differences are huge, and if you know the patterns, it could make a profound difference in your sales results. You can start by tracking your own prospecting calls. The critical metric is what percentage of dials actually result in your talking to a living, breathing prospect.

Do it over weeks and months and see if a pattern emerges. Once you have a good ideas of when to call — and when NOT to call — you can reach more prospects with the same effort.