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The Dos and Donts of Cold Calling
Having your fingernails removed! Many salespeople would rather have their fingernails removed slowly than make a cold call. And it's no wonder; with the abundant number of resistance-inducing techniques out there, salespeople set themselves up for failure. However, New Business Development is a major key to a company's long term survival. Ask yourself, what would happen if your number one client stopped buying from you today! Well, I think we all know the answer! Here are some common sense "do's and don'ts" to help you set more quality appointments on cold calls: 1. Learn about your prospective client first The more you know about your prospect before placing a cold call and speaking with them, the better your chances of an appointment. It will help you prepare a more customised opening and better questions, plus it impresses the prospect. Conversely, if you have to ask, "Mmm, what does your business do?" you could be labeled as a time-waster. Your main objective with the initial call is to get information on the company and get a name of the person who makes the decisions. Even before you make that initial call, do some research on the internet - if the company has a website (not many these days do not), have a look and see what they do. You can work with the screener or anyone who answers the phone, or you could actively speak to a department where you know you will get relative information that can be turned into a client's need. "I hope you can help me. First, I'm looking for the name of the person there who deals with the training requirements of your company. (After getting the name, continue.) Thank you. So I'm better prepared when I speak with them, there's probably some information you can help me with, first." You could get almost all of your qualifying questions answered by people other than your decision-maker on your cold calls. 2. Don't send information before the cold call Busy decision-makers toss unsolicited, bulging packages of literature with form letters (regardless of how many times your word processor mail merged their names into the body). Starting out a cold call with, "I sent you a letter, did you get it?" rarely elicits a response like, "Oh, yes I did. You're that guy. I want to meet with you!" 3. Don't believe cold calling is just a "numbers" game The lottery is a numbers game. Cold calling for appointments is a quality game. Approach each with an attitude of accomplishment and desire. Don't burn through the list of prospects as fast as you can with the expectancy that your number will be drawn eventually. 4. Don't ask for a decision in the opening of a cold call Never open the call by including the silly phrase, ". . . and I would like to drop by Tuesday at 2:00, or would 4:00 be better?" People are resistant when faced with decisions before they see any value. Also avoid the equally inane question, "If I could show you a way to ___ , you would, wouldn't you?" No one likes to be "techniqued." The only way they'll consider investing time with you is if they see some value in doing so. 5. Do have an interest-creating opening on your cold call Here's one you might be able to adapt: "Ms. Bigg, I'm ____ with ____. My company specialises in (fill in with the ultimate result customers want and get from you, i.e., 'helping organisations improve the efficiency of their company by developing the skills of their workforce'). Depending on what you are doing now, and your objectives, this might be something worth taking a look at. (Now you ask permission to continue the call) - I'd like to ask a few questions to see if you'd like more information." 6. Do ask questions on the cold call Some people suggest that you should go for the appointment on a cold call quickly and never divulge information. No! Those are likely people who are insecure with their (in)abilities to communicate by phone. If someone doesn't have potential, I want to find that out now from my office rather than wasting time setting up a meeting to learn the same thing. And if the prospect is qualified and has interest, I can pique their curiosity a bit by phone and pre-sell them on what we'll speak about when I arrive. For example: "Pat, based on what you told me, it looks like you could show quite a significant labor savings with a system like ours. The best thing to do would be for us to get together so I can ask a few more questions about your operation and show you some of our options to see if we have a fit. How about next week?" Then narrow down a convenient time for both of you. 7. Do make a confirmation call after the cold call Some might suggest this gives them a chance to cancel. That's right. And if they're of this mindset, they either wouldn't be there when you did arrive, or they wouldn't give you the time of day. A phone call gives you a chance to address either situation and save time. 8. Do keep cold calling And don't let a "no" get you down. The last call has nothing to do with the next unless you let negative feelings strangle your attitude. Talking to people generates income, but avoiding the phone, stuffing envelopes and walking around do not. Set a secondary objective, one you can accomplish on every call, such as simply qualifying someone as a prospect or not, so you can have a success of sorts on every call. Kevin is co-founder of Blue Eskimo Solutions and has had a successful track record in business management, sales and marketing for over twenty years. Kevin spent ten years with Bass plc where he held various senior positions within operations and general management. For the last ten years Kevin has enjoyed a very successful career working in the IT training industry with companies such as Informatics Group, as business development director, and at QA Training where he served first as e-learning director then sales and marketing director helping the company achieve some Ł45M revenue per annum. Before setting up Blue Eskimo, Kevin was also the managing director of Vizual Learning plc a subsidiary company of OneClickHR plc delivering HR software solutions.
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Careers and Employment 3 Simple Rules For Your Next Sales Call The other day I received a call from a telemarketer selling a website "starter kit" for small businesses. If you are reading this right now, then you undoubtedly know that I have a website. Normally, I would quickly get the telemarketer off the line so I could get back to showing people how to make more money. But this call got my attention because I thought that this might be a potential service that I could recommend to my clients. So I decided to listen to this sales pitch to evaluate the offering and the approach that the telemarketer used. High Phone Bills Can Affect More Than Your Expenses I got a phone call today from a gentleman in Arizona. He wanted to talk to me about a report I downloaded from him about network marketing. I wasn't interested in network marketing, and I told him that. The Dos and Donts of Cold Calling Having your fingernails removed! 7 Ways to Jump Start Your Cold Calls Cold calling has to be one of the most feared aspects of every sales person's and business owner's day. With some important key tips, you can make cold calling painless and enjoyable and as easy as calling a friend. Predictive Dialers - Human Interaction Maximized Predictive dialers are many steps removed from their predessors, the automatic dialers of the past. Whereas automatic dialing allowed callcenter agencies to dial numbers quickly and efficiently, predictive dialing also processes and makes use of a whole range of information, linking callers to live voices every single time. In fact, with predictive dialing, agents' 'talk time' has increased from an average of twenty minutes per hour to fifty minutes per hour. This is a fabulous rate of improvement - instead of wasting more than half of their time on listening to busy signals and answering machine messages, agents now spend the majority of their time engaged in producting interaction. The dialer also manages the line to agent ratio by pacing the call rate at the desired level. In this way, quotas are met, and agents are neither idle nor overwhelmed. In other words, because the hardware and software does its job, agents are able to spend much more time doing theirs. And of course, increased contact time means that the center's goals are reached much more quickly. Phone Tips To Get Things Done: Professional Phone Skills It happens all the time, you hear someone over the telephone and you make a generalization about the person you are speaking with. It may not be fair and it is akin to judging a book by its cover, but it's true nevertheless. 10 Tips for Telephone Success The telephone is an often under-appreciated and much maligned piece of office equipment. Have you stopped to consider how much business you conduct over the telephone? These 10 tips will help you improve your telephone presence and presentations. This is a Sales Call: How to Begin Prospecting Calls with Integrity "Hello. I'm looking for Sharon Morgen?" "Sharon DREW Morgen." "What? Sharon Morgen?" "No. Sharon DREW" "Um. Hello. Are you Mrs. Drew?" "Ms. Morgen. That's me. Is this a sales call?" "Um. Hello. No. I'm with XYZ bank and I'm giving you a service call." "Regarding what? I don't do business with you. And you are not supposed to be making a telemarketing call on me. So what type of service are you offering for free?" "Well, it's not for free. But we thought you'd like to know about our new banking services." "Ah. So it IS a sales call." "We're not allowed to say that." Telesales HEADSETS & TELEPHONES Overcoming Objections Over the Telephone In sales, one of the things you will be doing a lot of, is making phone calls. You can't escape it. It just comes with the territory. Sales Therapy 101: Breaking Your Fear of Cold Calling Almost every day, visitors to my Unlock The Game? website click on my live instant-messenger chat button, which invites them to "Ask Ari a selling question." How To Be A Cold Calling Superstar! Our emotions and feelings are changing all of the time based on our interpretation of events. Does this mean that even a sales superstar feels bad if they lose a big deal? Of course they do. They wouldn't be human if they did not. It's natural for your feelings to fluctuate as you go about your business. Cold Calling Does Not Generate Sales Leads It is a fact of life for most new sales people; they get the dream sales job with unlimited earning potential and expect to earn so much money that they can now enjoy the fruits of their coming wealth. Everything seems perfect until they realize that before closing a sale and earning the big commission, they must first prospect for new customers (read, cold calls). Cold calling is hard to do. People hate to make cold calls and people hate being on the receiving end of them as well. 7 Cold Calling Secrets Even The Sales Gurus Dont Know More and more e-mails are arriving in my in-box from people who hate cold calling. Here's what they're saying: What Level Of Telephone Sales And Customer Service Do You Provide? Using the telephone as an effective sales and customer service tool begins before you ever pick up the receiver to answer the telephone or make an appointment or sales call. When you reach for a ringing telephone, you need to put a smile on our faces and then greet people with the same enthusiasm you'd show them in-person. People can hear a smile, can't they? You also need to have music in your voices and an attitude that conveys to a caller that he or she is your top priority. The impression you create on the telephone can help you stand out from other organization If you don't stand out, you lose your competitive edge. Get Instant Rapport On Sales Cold Calls Immediately establish rapport on cold-calls by matching your prospect's voice qualities - tone, pace, and emotion. Matching the emotion, or mood, of your prospect is key. If you begin your call sounding excited when she is not, you will be immediately branded as a salesperson, and the prospect's guard will be way up. Closing That Big Sale With Conference Calling So you are in business. Whether it is micro, small, medium, or enterprise; you know the one key element you need to succeed in your business sales. How to Make Sales with Noisy Kids in the House Kids play hard, and sometimes that means they play really loud in the midst of exploring their worlds and role playing with siblings and friends. Generating Leads Through Telemarketing Telemarketing is one of the most common ways that a business can generate leads. It is a versatile approach. Lead generation telemarketing can be inbound or outbound, meaning that systems use prerecorded messages and can dial either random numbers or numbers from an imported list. Stop Selling and Make More Sales A few months ago I spent time training some telephone sales agents who were new to selling. They'd mainly been involved with handling incoming calls but now their company needed them to do some out bound sales calls. I spent two days running a sales workshop for them and another three days coaching them on the job.
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