Are you looking to get more out of your cold calling efforts? If so, then these ten cold calling tips might be exactly what you need!
1. Invest In Your List
There’s no point calling people who have absolutely no interest in your products or services. You may be the greatest salesperson in the world, and somehow convince the odd person to part with their money, but it’s not going to bring lasting success.
The success of your cold calling all starts with your list, so take the time to make sure it’s focused. Information is key; the more you know about a prospect, the greater your chances of starting a meaningful conversation.
The first of our cold calling tips is to focus your time on the people who are most likely to become your customers by investing in your list.
2. Let Technology Make Your Life Easier
Cold calling is, in part, a numbers game. You’re going to dial a lot of numbers just to reach a voicemail, and even when you do reach someone, your conversion rate isn’t going to be high.
This means you’ve got to maximize your time. All those seconds you lose searching for the next contact, dialing the number, and leaving a voicemail are wasted seconds, and when you’re making hundreds of calls a day, they add up.
Technology like sales dialers can instantly make you more efficient and allow you to get through more calls.
3. Call at the Best Times
No matter what your intentions are, there’s always a right time and a wrong time to talk to someone.
If you were a kid wanting candy from your parents, you’re probably not going to ask when you’ve just been naughty and are getting told off, and it’s similar when it comes to B2B cold calling.
While it’s hard to judge the emotional state of your prospects at any given time, you can get a good idea of what they might be doing and whether they might take your time. For instance, a good time to call is often between 4 and 5 pm. Why? People might be coming to the end of work and be thankful for a distraction.
Use the data and your knowledge of your prospects to learn the best times to make your cold calls.
4. Build Yourself a Cheat Sheet
The art of cold calling isn’t about making sales then and there - it’s about starting a conversation.
To do this, you’ve got to appear natural, rather than reading through a script like a robot. This is why we like to call it a cheat sheet, rather than a full-blown script.
One of the best cold calling tips is to create a cheat sheet is to keep you on track It can highlight different questions you can ask, show you how to deal with common objections, and generally keep you focused. This is a great tool, particularly if you get a little nervous when picking up the phone.
5. Create a Two-Way Conversation
The last thing anyone wants is to pick up the phone and be bombarded by a sales pitch.
Often, it’s beneficial to switch your thinking away from making a sale and more towards building a relationship. To do this, you’ve got to create a two-way conversation using open-ended questions to engage the person on the other end of the phone.
If you can ask the right questions, then you’ll learn about the prospect’s pain points, giving you an insight into how your product or service can solve that need.
Use questions to help the prospect discover their pain points, and allow them to come to the conclusion your products are the answer on their own. This will mean you start more conversations leading to more effective cold calling.
6. Learn from Frequent Objections
Rejection is a natural part of sales. You’re going to make lots of calls where you get shut down, but each of these calls is an opportunity to learn.
Some rejections there’s nothing you can do about, but there will be others where you have an opportunity to turn things around. A key cold calling tip is to understand the common objections you face and come up with plans to overcome them.
Again, this is another reason to take your focus away from selling and shift it towards learning how you can foster the relationship. Learn about the objections people have, and find answers to the most common ones.
7. Understand What You’re Asking For
On the initial cold call, you’re probably not going to be asking for the sale. You do want to set expectations for how the relationship will proceed though, so you should try to agree on a course of action.
This can be as simple as saying you will send a follow-up email.
Your aim is to progress the prospect through your sales funnel, so what do you need to ask for to put this process in motion?
8. Update as You Go
It’s important that when you’re learning about your prospect you’re keeping track of everything. The information they give you is vital to helping you progress the person from lead to customer, so you need to look after it.
To do this, you want your dialer to seamlessly integrate with your CRM. This is going to save you lots of time, making it easy to update notes and access all the information you need on your leads.
Sales is a process in which effective cold calling is just one step. You’ve got to use it to build your knowledge and help you progress the relationship.
9. Always Follow Up
People lead busy lives. If they don’t pick up your calls or call you back when they said they would, it’s not necessarily because they don’t want to. Sometimes it’s simply because they forgot or they haven’t had time - if you don’t follow up, then you’ll never know.
It’s estimated that the ideal number of calls needed to make a sale is six, and yet, 50% of leads never get a second cold call.
Yes, you’ve got to respect people’s privacy, but if you’re offering them something useful, then you shouldn’t give up after the first try.
10. Keep a Cold Call Journal
Cold calling is a skill. Some people are more natural at it than others, but we can all learn and improve our performance.
A great cold calling tip to help facilitate your learning is to keep a journal to write important notes in. This is where you can track the things you find work well, note common objections, and test out tactics.
If you have call recording capabilities, then it can also be useful to go over your calls from time to time and see if you can find areas to improve on.
Conclusion: Cold Calling Tips
Cold calling is still an excellent way to reach prospects and start a relationship with them. When it’s not effective is when you look to win the sale then and there at the first point of contact.
Many of these cold calling tips are focused on giving you the best chance of reaching a prospect and having a beneficial conversation. This is the basis for making sales in the future and it’s what cold calling is all about.
As you can see, there’s something of an art to cold calling, so sometimes, it’s a good idea to look at outsourcing this part of your marketing to experienced professionals.
Want to hire cold callers? Learn more about our cold calling services.
