One number to hold against your own team

Last week our reps made 53,610 dials. 7.2% connected, and about 30% of those connections ran past 60 seconds (1,175 of 3,855).

If you run outbound in-house, pull the same two rates for your reps. A connect rate near 7% is normal for cold calling. The 60-second rate matters more. It shows how often a person picked up and chose to stay on the line. If your connect rate is healthy but few calls pass a minute, the opener is the problem, not list quality or dial volume. Our post on The 60-Second Test covers how to measure it.

What a qualified meeting looks like

Of those 1,175 longer conversations, 64 became booked meetings. That is 5.4%, well under the 10-20% some agencies quote.

The gap comes from what counts as a booking. Many agencies count anything put on a calendar, including tentative slots weeks out. We only book inside 7 days, never tentatively, and only when the prospect qualifies on the call. So our raw rate looks lower, and the meetings hold up.

Here is the evidence:

• 91% of last week's bookings were set within 7 days of the call, with a median of 4 days out.
• Of meetings booked in the last 30 days that have since been held, 88% were qualified by the client (85 held meetings).
• On our longest-running fintech campaign, 83% of held meetings were qualified (29 of 35, over 60 days).

A high booking rate tells you little until you know what the number includes. Define Qualified Before You Pay explains why we agree the definition before a campaign starts.

What your buyers are saying

• "Not a priority." This is the objection reps hear most. It is rarely a final no. It usually means the buyer hasn't yet connected the problem to something they own this quarter. Reps who ask one question about what is taking priority instead of pushing back keep the conversation going.
• Senior finance buyers will take the call. One of our reps was reaching CFOs at large companies, inside the revenue range the client asked for. Seniority was not the obstacle. The opener decided whether the call continued.
• Scripts get noticed. Buyers hear a read-aloud pitch within seconds and disengage. Why Scripted Cold Calls Sound Robotic covers the fix.

One thing to use today

Pull last week's calls for your team and count how many connected calls passed 60 seconds. Divide by total connects. Then listen to five of the calls under 20 seconds and write down the first sentence each rep said.

If the same opening line shows up in most of them, rewrite it before you change anything else.

Worth reading

• Sizing Call Lists to Rep Capacity Before You Scale Campaigns
• Meeting Count Is a Vanity Metric in Outbound Pilots
• Why High-Ticket Buyers Prefer Pay-Per-Meeting Over Retainers

If this is useful

We take a limited number of campaigns per cohort, on the 1st and the 15th. If you want to see whether this would work for your team, book 15 minutes at cal.com/cormac-repman/15min.

Cormac