The Sales Angle

Subject: Connect rate is 6.3%. Here is how to read yours.

One number to hold against your own team

Last week our SDR teams made 42,897 dials and reached 2,705 people. That is a 6.3% connect rate.

Of those connections, 672 turned into ICP conversations of 60 seconds or more. That is about one in four (24.8%) of the people who picked up.

If your team's connect rate is far above 6.3%, check who is answering. Many dialers inflate it with switchboards and gatekeepers. If your ICP conversation rate is well under one in four, the problem is usually the opener, not the list.

What a qualified meeting looks like

Of those 672 ICP conversations, 29 became booked meetings. That is 4.3% ICP-to-booking.

Agencies quoting 10-20% usually count anything put on a calendar, including tentative slots weeks out. We book only inside 7 days, never tentative, and only when the prospect qualifies on the call. So our raw rate looks lower, and the meetings hold up.

Here is the evidence:

• 74% of last week's bookings were set within 7 days of the call, with a median of 5 days out.
• Of meetings booked in the last 30 days that have been held, 86% were qualified by the client (80 held meetings).
• On our longest-running fintech campaign, that figure is 92% (12 of 13 held meetings over 60 days).

A lower booking rate with a higher qualification rate costs less per useful meeting than the reverse.

What your buyers are saying

Three patterns from our fintech and insurtech calls and the posts we wrote about them:

• "We're covered." This is the brush-off that ends most cold calls. Arguing features does not move it. Selling the cost of silos does.
• Wording matters in payments. Pitching "digitize payments" lands better than leading with "virtual cards" in B2B conversations.
• No urgency, no meeting. A prospect who agrees to talk but has no active evaluation cycle rarely becomes a real opportunity. We qualify for the cycle on the call.

One thing to use today

Pull every meeting your team booked in the last 30 days. For each one, record two things: how many days out it was booked, and whether the account executive called it qualified after the meeting.

If a large share sit more than a week out, or the qualified share is under 80%, you are measuring a booking rate that flatters you. Put those two numbers next to your booking rate.

Worth a read this week

• Stop Saying 'We're Covered': Sell the Cost of Silos
• Why "Digitize Payments" Beats "Virtual Cards" in B2B Pitches
• Meetings Without Urgency: Qualifying for Active Evaluation Cycles

If it is useful to talk

We take a limited number of campaigns per cohort, on the 1st and the 15th. If you want to see how this would work for your team, book 15 minutes at calendly.com/nurturance-sales/discovery-nurturance-inbound.

Cormac