Sigma Computing understands that data storage and analytics are far too cumbersome. Organizations pay substantial amounts of money to store their data but only have a handful of people on hand capable of analyzing that data. In a world where organizations expect substantial growth despite reductions in budget, they believe that you should only pay for the data you’re actively analyzing.

Challenge

Getting in front of more ideal customers, more often

Sigma Computing’s ideal customers are fast growing companies who need to react quickly to stay ahead of the game. Sullivan Parker, Director of Business Development at Sigma Computing, understands, firsthand, the power of cold calling and saw a direct connection between instilling a calling culture and connecting with their ideal prospects faster. The value of the product is straightforward–getting data in front of decision makers faster. Sigma Computing needed to do the same.

Sullivan believes deeply in the power of establishing a calling culture. When he first arrived, their business development team was apprehensive about cold calling but sales management knew they needed to increase the number of connections they were making with decision makers if they were going to continue to grow.

Solution

Building a positive calling culture

By introducing Orum, the success of their SDR team was immediate. Today, spending less time calling, their SDR’s are more than doubling the number of calls they make. On a different platform, SDRs were spending eight hours on calling a week and hitting around 300 calls. On Orum, they’re reaching 600-700 calls and beyond each week in less time.

“Using Orum, our reps were able to double their call numbers in the same amount of time and some are making as many as 1,000 calls per week.”

Call volume is great but the ultimate success metric for sales development is revenue added to the pipeline. That starts with getting in front of decision makers and booking meetings with them, something the Sigma Computing team excels at. On the day Orum visited their SDR team for this customer story, they made more than 2000 calls and scheduled 19 meetings in a single call blitz. Something that wouldn’t have been possible with traditional dialing. Clearly they’ve done something right when building a sustainable call culture.

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SDR success goes beyond scheduling meetings

The environment that the Sigma Computing team works in can best be described as “positive.” There is a relentless positivity that each conversation between team members, managers, and leadership is imbued with. They’ve built a space where people are encouraged to share their experiences of both successful objection handling and their harshest rejections.

This positivity permeates throughout the sales floor and it comes from the fact that their sales leadership understands that positive outcomes mean more than meetings booked.

Sullivan stated, “Obviously meetings are always going to be a success metric but even if you schedule a meeting, you don’t know if that meeting will happen or if it will turn into a qualified lead. Booking a lot of meetings is great but you need to make sure they convert or qualify. We’re always working to build truly qualified leads and so we focus on positive connections.”

Positive connections can be anything from a prospect asking for a follow up email to asking for a callback at a later time or a referral to a decision maker.*

^{*Sigma Computing leverages their own tool to keep track of the team's average positive connections}

“You can go all day without booking a meeting, but if you get 20% of your calls to request you send them a follow up email, that’s a really good day on the phones. We want to book meetings, yes, but we want to book meetings with people who want to be in the meetings as well.”

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Orum x Sigma Computing: More reps, more experience, better coaching

A key component to the success of Sigma’s calling culture revolves around the volume of calls their SDRs are achieving with Orum. When asked where Orum was impacting the overall SDR experience the most, Sullivan’s answer was direct and succinct.

“Orum creates more practice for our team. More reps equates to more time on the phone. And more actual conversations.”

It’s not just the reps who are benefiting from using Orum. Sigma Computing’s sales managers have started using Orum’s Live Listen and call recording features to improve their coaching. The managers can bring up successful connections during team call reviews and allow their reps to discuss how they handled various objections to create positive results. Live listening also lets managers work with reps on aspects of their calls they may be struggling with.

“Recordings are essential for our coaching and it was a key differentiating factor when we chose Orum.”

Sigma Computing takes advantage of the recorded calls but they also rely on their Orum rep, Patrick Cairns, to help coach their SDRs. “Patrick has been great at providing an outside voice that echoes what our managers are telling our SDRs. He trains every new user we bring on and his experience with the platform and the sales world in general has helped build excitement within our team.”

The notion of positivity continues during the review meetings as well as team members are encouraged to discuss the details of their successful calls.

Sales leadership has built in psychological safety as an important aspect of these meetings because they understand that cold calling is hard. Instead of calling those meetings “safe spaces” they instead choose to call them “brave spaces” emphasizing the courage it takes for each SDR to keep hitting the phones and pushing through the challenging times.

Beyond numbers: More productive call blitzes on Orum

The time savings that Orum has created for Sigma Computing has enabled them to more deeply engage with both the platform and their prospects. Instead of doing a single call blitz where a rep seeks to make 100 calls, Sullivan suggests breaking it out by pitch.

“Instead of loading up a single list of 100 numbers, we can do the prep work and build out five 20-person contact lists where we’re going to pitch those people similarly based on industry, size, etc. Orum lets us build out those persona lists so we can tell the same story to them all so that I know my pitch style for each list.” When you have more to prepare for your calls, you create more opportunities to build positive outcomes.

Positive results make positive reps

Overall, Orum has helped establish a true calling culture where reps are cheering each other on and driving increased pipeline. Before Orum, there was call hesitancy due to an inability to get prospects on the phone. Today, they are calling and connecting with more prospects than ever before, creating opportunity and a hunger to call the next person.