In the dynamic landscape of sales, businesses are constantly seeking effective strategies to boost lead generation and drive remarkable business growth. While outbound sales remains a powerful approach, it requires finesse to successfully engage with prospects and convert them into loyal customers.
The key lies in establishing live connections that foster meaningful conversations and build lasting relationships.
In this article, we will explore proven ways to increase live phone connections in sales, enabling your sales team to make targeted, impactful outreach that yields impressive results.
By implementing these B2C and B2B outbound sales strategies, you can enhance your lead generation efforts, surpass the competition, and pave the way for substantial business growth.
What is Outbound Sales?
Outbound sales refers to the proactive approach of reaching out to potential customers or leads to initiate sales conversations and generate business opportunities. It involves the outbound sales team actively contacting prospects through various channels such as cold calling, email outreach, social media engagement, and direct mail.
These efforts also provide valuable insights into customer preferences, pain points, and market trends. Through conversations with prospects, sales teams can gather feedback, understand customer needs, and adapt their strategies accordingly, which can lead to product improvements and business growth.
The best outbound sales strategies use an omnichannel approach to lead nurturing, which includes outbound calling. Let’s take a look at how you can improve your chances of getting a real, live person on the other end of your phone call – and not a voicemail inbox or an IVR system.
Outbound Strategy #1: Dial Locally
Cold calling is an effective component of an outbound sales plan, and paired with local presence dialing – it’s even more powerful. Think of the last time you answered the phone for an unknown out-of-state or toll-free number…
I bet it’s been a while. That’s because people are less likely to answer the phone for a number that’s calling from an unfamiliar area code. With local presence dialing, you can call your prospects with a real, local phone number every time. Because the call recipient sees a local area code, your chances of getting a live connection is much higher.
With your foot in the door, a skilled Business Development Representative will be able to further qualify the lead and generate more conversions for your outbound sales funnel.
Outbound Strategy #2: Use a Power Dialer
A power dialer is a software tool used in sales that automates the process of making outbound calls. It dials a list of phone numbers automatically and connects the sales professional to a live call as soon as a connection is established. This means there’s not lag or “dead air” when a prospect answers the phone.
This eliminates the need for manual dialing and reduces the time between calls, enabling sales teams to make more calls in a shorter amount of time.
Power dialers also often include features like call logging, call recording, and integration with customer relationship management (CRM) systems to further enhance productivity and efficiency in outbound calling operations.
Outbound Strategy #3: Improve Your Caller ID
The only thing worse than dialing with an out-of-state number is dialing with a number that shows up on caller ID as “Scam Likely.” Due to the nature of outbound sales development, it’s likely that your team is making more outbound than inbound phone calls.
The ratio of outbound to inbound phone calls is just one metric cell carriers use to determine if a number is “spammy” or likely to be used to place an unwanted phone call. Improving your caller ID reputation is critical to the success of your outbound sales campaign.
Learn how to avoid showing up as “Scam Likely” on Caller ID
Tools like Kixie’s ConnectionBoost can automatically check the health of your caller ID and swap out numbers that are likely to be flagged as spam. Plus, you can take other steps to whitelist your business’ caller ID.
Outbound Strategy #4: Stay Compliant
The quickest way to completely de-rail your outbound business development strategy is to go against federal and state privacy regulations.
Organizations like the FTC (which monitors the Do Not Call List) and the FCC have strict rules in place to protect consumers from unwanted solicitors, and safeguard their privacy. Staying up-to-date with calling, texting, and emailing regulations is important to ensure a successful outbound sales process flow.
Watch our free webinar on cold outreach compliance
Make sure you are following all applicable cold calling laws, including the TCPA, the TSR, and the ECPA (which regulates call recordings).
Get Started With Outbound Sales Best Practices
In today’s competitive sales landscape, the ability to establish live connections with prospects is paramount for success.
This article explored four proven strategies to increase live connections in outbound sales: leveraging local presence dialing to build trust and familiarity, harnessing the efficiency of power dialing to maximize call volume, ensuring compliance with regulations to maintain a positive reputation, and improving caller ID to increase answer rates.
By implementing these techniques, sales teams can enhance their outreach efforts, forge meaningful connections, and drive impressive results. If you’d like to start implementing each of these outbound sales tactics today, start a free, 7-day trial of Kixie to get immediate access to all of the tools mentioned above.
Remember, the key lies in adapting and evolving with the ever-changing sales landscape to stay one step ahead of the competition. Good luck!
