Hired a 23 year old to do sales, she refused to cold call anyone
I run a small workplace management software tool. Year I hired my first sales person. She's 23 years old.
Within two weeks she changed how I thought sales worked.
I trained her like I was trained. She had to make 50 calls a day. She had to track her calls her connects and her demos booked. This is stuff for anyone in software sales.
Two weeks in she told me she wasn't going to do it. She flat out said cold calling was a waste of her time and mine.
I got defensive. I built some of my customer base on the phone. I told her this is how sales works. This is how I got our 40 customers.
She asked me how many of those 40 customers actually came from calls. I didn't know the number. I had to check. I found out six came from calls. Out of 40.
So I let her try it her way for a quarter. She made videos about workplace problems. She answered questions, on some subreddits and Facebook groups. She messaged people who engaged of calling strangers.
In the quarter she booked 14 demos. My best quarter of calling got me 9 demos.
Cold calling still works sometimes. Some of my clients came from a phone call.. I spent three years thinking there was one right way to sell. I never checked my results until she made me.
The hard part was realizing I'd been training hires to do it my way. Not because I'd tested it. Because it felt like "real sales work".
Now we do both. She does her thing I make some calls. We compare numbers every month.
Has anyone else had a younger hire change a process you thought was how business works?
* I learned that there are ways to sell.
* Sometimes you have to try things.
* You have to check your results.