Top 7 tips on how to cold call impactfully
“Hello Ms. XYZ. This is ABC from company Y. We are working on solutions to help streamline sales and marketing processes in the business industry. Would you like to hear more about it?”
The moment people hear this coming from you, their first instinct probably is to roll their eyes and hang up.
What makes them react that way?
A routine, plain cold call made just for the sake of it.
This blog will tell you about the most workable cold calling tips and techniques so that the person on the other side of the call listens to you and acts on it. These tips enhance your chances of increasing your win rates.
First, let us start by understanding what a cold call is.
Cold calling can be defined as a sales technique where representatives reach out to potential customers they’ve never interacted with before, with a hope of getting them interested in the offered products or services.
Typically cold calling refers to solicitation by phone or telemarketing, but it can also involve in-person visits, such as door-to-door sales talk.
There is no doubt that cold calling is tough. It takes more than just the ability to talk and convince a stranger, quickly engage them and pitch your products and services. Doing it each time is even more difficult and challenging.
Over the years, cold calling has developed from just reading a sales pitch script into a target-driven sales communication. In today's time, sales representatives target the right prospects to increase their success rate.
In the remote world of 2022, cold calling can be extremely thriving if done the right way.
Here are the top 7 tips and techniques to crack a cold call:
1. Accept Rejection
Even the most experienced sales representative can hesitate to pick up the phone to make a call. It’s a human thing — fear of rejection, fear of making a mistake or fear of saying the wrong thing. Realise that rejection is just the first of making a cold call. It's an important part of sales activity. Accepting rejection enables you to grow and become fearless. It teaches you how not to take things personally. If an opportunity does not come your way, take a step back to process the situation and analyse to take corrective actions. No one closes 100% of their prospects. In other words, mistakes and rejection are inevitable, but they’re not the end of the world.
2. Do your research
Cold calling is not a random process. You will attain greater success if you set up your process and prepare the right documents before you get started. It is all about planning and execution. Compile a list of decision-makers and whenever possible, obtain their phone numbers and emails. Collect information about the prospect that allows you to engage them in a meaningful conversation. Spend some time to document what questions they might ask and what your responses would be.
3. Follow your cold call script
Don't indulge in rote learning of the pitch or read the cold call script as random lines that you just need to say and finish. You need to get into an actor’s shoes and the role. You will have to fill it with emotions. Decision-makers get spammed all day with calls and emails. To effectively break through the monotony, you must ensure that you don’t sound like a robot and most importantly, different from your competitors. Your cold call script should vary depending on how the conversation flows.
4. Lead with a value prop and a question
After those crucial 10 seconds of opening the conversation, go straight to business - specifically talk about why you (their pain points), why me (how you can help them) and why now (sense of urgency). Your goal is to provide them with a value prop and a leading question that gets the person thinking. The important part is to make it more than a yes-or-no question. It should prompt a response that will give you more information to build a relationship.
5. Always close with a meeting request
The goal of making a cold call is to book a meeting to discuss your solutions in detail. Ask them if they are open to having a conversation about it in the coming week? Preferably, propose the available time and get an okay before hanging up. The best way is to send a calendar invite immediately after the call. If they do not agree to the date and time you proposed, keep following up at regular intervals to schedule the meeting. Don’t get on their nerves though!
6. Find a calling schedule that works
By keeping track of when your prospects are more likely to answer the phone, and when they’re more likely to speak with you, you can better focus your efforts during times it will make a bigger impact.
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The best days to make prospecting calls are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday- according to comprehensive research from CallHippo.
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The best time to call prospects is between 11am and noon and 4pm to 5pm.
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The best time to send those personalised emails are late mornings and mid afternoons, according to multiple studies.
7. Use technology
There are so many tools available to the modern salesperson that you should never have to suffer through tedious, inefficient sales activities again. The correct customer relationship management (CRM) helps to achieve contact management, lead management, sales forecasting, instant messaging between employees, email tracking and integration with Outlook and Gmail, file and content sharing and dashboard-based analytics.
There are several CRM tools like Salesforce, SAP, ZOHO, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, Nimble, Sugar, HubSpot, PIPEDRIVE, Creatio and so on.
To conclude, successful cold calling doesn’t happen because of luck. It comes down to strategy, planning and execution. All of the above tips and techniques can influence a cold call's success and nothing beats practice. Practising and polishing your cold calling game will improve your success rates with prospects. So what are you waiting for? Pick up the phone and open your lines with how you can help them!
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