The Senior Manager of Distribution walks by the rows of cubicles that the head-setted internal sales team calls home. Pausing at the Sales Desk Manager’s door, he asks, “Where’s the buzz? Why don’t I hear buzz when I walk by your team – shouldn’t phone reps be on the phone most of the time? When I was wholesaling the sign of a good internal desk was lots of buzz…”

The sales desk manager sighs.

In 2014 if you hear buzz it is likely to be internal sales reps leaving too many voicemail messages to advisors who are deleting them.

About 3 or 4 years ago, it became socially acceptable to not answer your phone. Especially if you don’t recognize the caller ID OR if it looks like a sales call. The productivity gurus proclaim that a huge sap of our time is an interruptions based  ‘start and stop’ mode.

I’m not suggesting total silence is ok, but given the preferences of advisors and difficulty in access, do we really still have ‘phone’ groups?

Here’s what gets in the way of buzz:

Unless you prep for a call using big data, Google, advisors website etc. to customize what you will say you have ignored what today’s advisors want from wholesalers – know something about my business. That takes time (quiet time).

Unless you are very strategic about the emails you send, they won’t get opened. That means a captivating subject line and customized content. No templates. That takes time (quiet time).

Unless you carefully input detailed information into the CRM after each call you jeopardize your ability to connect again with the credibility you need because you remember what they said.

No one has time for the days gone by chitchat that used to be the mainstay of phone reps.

The savvy sales desk managers know that effort to create buzz for the sake of buzz will get in the way of the quality conversations that are MUCH harder to have now. What really motivates the reps on the phone is to acknowledge how they are doing on the tougher metrics – not dials and connects but quality conversations.

Silence can be golden.