It’s pretty common if your calls can’t connect key decision makers of a business. This happens because of their intense job nature. Decision makers like CEO, COO, CFOs are simply too busy to answer you.
This blog dives deep to understand why decision makers avoid answering calls from a professional and psychological perspective. It will also discuss the risk they feel to answer these calls.
After that, it will cover the tactics which will help you to finally connect these decision makers.
Why Do Decision-Makers Avoid Calls of Known and Unknown Contacts?
Decision makers simply don’t have the time and priority to answer everyone’s calls, especially from cold callers. Even when agents and SDRs (sales development representatives) successfully bypass executive assistants, connection rates still remain low. It’s because they simply avoid unknown calls.
Lack of Time and Priority to Simply Answer the Calls
Decision-makers are individuals or groups of people who make major choices of an organization. These choices range from common strategy building to sensitive matters. And to do so, they usually remain occupied with lots of tasks, evaluations, study and meetings. For them answering these calls is just a waste of time and any subordinate is enough to answer the calls.
Besides these, in most cases unknown calls don’t add much value to them. When key decision making figures constantly face low value propositions, it simply makes them irritated. So they kept them away to receive these calls.
Lastly, decision makers have to face a wide range of calls just to run operations everyday. These calls are already stressful to answer, so avoiding less important calls seem a better option for decision making figures.
Security Threat Related to These Calls
Excerpt priority, time limitation and value proposition, security risk is also an issue that demotivates decision-makers from taking any call. Growing fraud and phishing calls are a substantial risk for business. Decision makers hold the most significant information, data, insights and figures of a business.
If these calls able to breach the security and hack into their data system, it could;
- Leak key information to competitors damaging USP
- Make financial losses by transferring or stealing funds
- Leak company secrecy and damage reputation and competitiveness
- Damage company data, history, transaction and different records
- Sabotage operation and production
- Risk of personal damage
- Overall hampering enough to eventually destroying the business
Ignoring Calls as a Strategic Policy
Decision makers often ignore calls as a strategic choice. In any negotiation, whoever makes the first move loses the upperhand. That’s why decision making figures use silences strategically.
In most cases, calls require an immediate response. This reduces control over any argument. Avoiding calls buys time to evaluate and make adequate responses.
Another benefit of a silent mood is that it gives buying committee members an opportunity to see other options. In B2B, buying decisions are sensitive, and smaller adjustments can make significant changes in products and services.
These adjustments and changes then influence the ideal customer profile (ICP) and list building process. On the other hand, decision makers are highly highly professional. They prefer an integrated email or linkedin outreach more than calls from a professional point of view.
Company Culture and Work Environment Do Not Allow Taking Calls
Some businesses restrict its employees to take any cold or telemarketing calls. But a number of businesses allow written communication channels like email or linkedin messages.
Disrupts Workflows
Calls shift focus. A decision maker’s job requires them to concentrate on every detail. Meeting, appointment and observation needs a sound mind. Calls however disrupts this deeply.
When decision makers lack concentration, their choices start to become inaccurate. Which affects the whole business.
Productivity Drain
Calls take time and focus to respond. So whenever someone calls with any marketing intention, it hampers one with what they are doing. Means waste of time which leads to productivity drain.
That’s why some highly sensitive businesses don’t allow cold calls or any type of marketing calls.
Psychological Impact
Sometimes marketing calls create discomfort or anger among decision makers. It can create a heated argument if anything goes wrong. This type of behaviour makes a negative impact on brand image for both caller and the contact.
Email and LinkedIn Are Allowed for Its Professionalism
Email and LinkedIn are considered as professional communication channels. Decision makers of a buying committee or business are highly professional individuals. They prefer these channels due to their convenience and trust-worthy nature.
Besides this, email doesn’t affect workflow. One can respond to queries whenever it fits. On the other hand, LinkedIn holds key information about who is messaging. That’s why, when someone messages, the opposite person can see their credentials and prepare their response.
But it doesn’t mean calling is obsolete. Integrating email, calling and LinkedIn gives a cold calling or outbound marketing agency a better way to connect and nurture decision makers. That is why multi-channel approaches are critical for reaching decision makers.
How to Get Decision Makers to Answer Your Calls?
To make decision makers answer your call, you have to first warm them up with LinkedIn messages, emails or from referrals. You also need to bypass or penetrate gatekeepers and risk managers.
Here are some tactics to reach and deliver message to decision makers:
- Warm-up decision makers by giving context by referrals or other mediums.
- Develop an email marketing tactics by doing prior research for specific decision makers. It helps to make outreach with triggering points.
- Do not just focus on telemarketing or cold calling. Rather, integrate email, calling and linkedin outreach. This increases the opportunity to connect actual decision making figures.
- First set an appointment through an executive assistant. This gives you a dedicated timeframe to pitch. In this type of arrangement, conversion rates typically increase.
- Avoid generic startings. Understand the psychology behind phone selling and influence decision makers with their trigger points.
- Pitching is an art. Your questions determine whether you will get a straight no or buy some more time to talk. For example if you question something that has a direct yes or no answer, the chase of negative response is high. But if your question needs a longer answer, you will probably get more chances to talk. Because psychologically people try to avoid longer negative responses.
Final Thoughts
Connection rates with decision makers in cold call and telemarketing are really low. It’s not because of any taboo. Rather the volume of calls they get damages their workflow intensely.
But it’s not totally the bottom line. With proper and satisfactory arrangements, you do have chances to make decision makers receive your call.
