5 Cold Calling Tips to Get You in the Door
Cold calling is a sales tactic salespeople use to connect with potential clients who haven’t expressed interest in the goods or services a brand provides. Its ultimate goal is to speak with prospects on the phone without first making contact.
Cold calling has evolved from the mere reading out of the sales pitch to a communication strategy that increases sales.
However, as a sales strategy, cold calling has its inherent challenges.
In fact, among salespeople and marketers, it is arguably one of the most disliked yet effective marketing methods.
It can be challenging to make a cold call to someone who doesn’t know you or what you have to offer.
Nonetheless, cold calling has refused to fade into the annals of history due to its efficacy.
Mammoth Fortune 500 companies and startups continue to reap massive benefits from it.
For a fruitful cold calling campaign, here are five top tips you should implement when undertaking this strategy
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Research
Knowing your prospects is your first step towards improving your interactions with them and your sales.
You won’t be able to please prospects and provide the most satisfactory response to their query if you don’t understand them.
Despite reaching out to and calling a sizable number of people to advertise their services, businesses still fail to improve their sales.
That is because they are skipping a step that should be taken long before making a call.
By undertaking research, you familiarize yourself with the prospects’ issues.
You are better placed to assess whether your services and products can help them solve their problems.
Research also enables you to develop a custom targeted list of warm prospects.
If your product will be of help, it means you have an easier time convincing these warm leads and converting the call into a sale.
Conversely, suppose your research shows that the people you are about to target are not interested in your services or products.
In that case, you can search for alternatives instead of squandering time and money pursuing potential dead ends.
2. Preparing a sales script
Although you might believe that scripts make you sound less natural, they are nonetheless essential to cold calling.
Here, you need to think carefully about the message in your script because it can make or break your encounters with prospects.
A well-done script makes it easier for new salespeople to adjust to the process.
Thanks to it, your brand-new salespeople will gain traction, making it easier for them to get started and ease into the process.
Script preparation entails consideration of several factors.
First, you must understand when and how to mention products or services, what to avoid saying, and how to tackle queries and pivot back to your sales pitch.
The script mentally prepares you for the call, and your preparedness demonstrates that you have considered potential customers’ comments and possible responses.
Lastly, the script improves your focus and confidence and helps you avoid rambling, getting repetitive, or getting off-topic altogether.
3. Be positive and confident.
Your behavior during the call is just as important as what you say.
Keeping the prospect on the line is the main objective of every sales call.
When making that call, your first ten seconds are critical. That is the time it takes to convince the prospect of your value.
Therefore, after a brief introduction, you need to focus on the information you have learned about the prospect from your study.
While at it, you could congratulate the prospects on their most recent accomplishment.
Remember that the prospect does not know you and if given half a chance, would rather not be speaking to you.
Therefore, you must take care to prevent the other party from having the opportunity to hang up.
As such, questions such “Is now a bad time?” should be avoided lest the prospect opts out of the conversation.
Instead, try to pique the prospect’s interest with personalized statements, so they want to keep talking to you.
4. Accept rejection
We’ve all come across salespeople and marketers who immediately switch to an aggressive and defensive approach upon sensing rejection.
When cold calling, maintaining your composure is a valuable skill. It’s critical to understand that rarely is rejection personal.
Also, consider how you may have contributed to this particular adverse response. Was it a weak voice or a weak introduction?
If possible, make insightful inquiries and uncover why the thing you’re delivering isn’t appealing to that prospect.
Remember, customers want to believe that you are mindful about them. Talking and pitching to them would make you appear arrogant and like an average cold caller.
Instead, determine your customer’s priorities and connect your offering to those. Show genuine enthusiasm for the opportunity.
Should rejection come your way, learn how to tackle it and move on to more fruitful calls.
You must maintain a positive attitude and a strong enough disposition to pick yourself up and move on.
After all, your next prospect is likely unaware that the previous one rejected you.
5. Close the call with a booking
You did your homework. You made a smooth call and kept the prospect engaged.
You have sold the meeting. The interest of your buyer is at its highest.
The next step is to close the conversation with a follow-up appointment or booking.
Have the client agree to the next step of the purchase process and schedule a meeting to make that happen.
Where feedback is needed, schedule an appointment or date by which such feedback shall be given.
Keep the ball rolling towards the next stage. Never let the call end without agreeing on a way forward with the prospect.
One of the best Sales Development Representatives’ (SDRs) best kept secrets is that they have mastered the art of scheduling follow-up meetings at the end of a cold call.