Important Cold Calling Tips To Follow
Cold calling can be an effective way to get in touch with your ideal clients, because it allows you to cut through all the noise and get in direct contact with the potential decision maker.
Cold calling does have a bit of a bad reputation; but this is because Sales Professionals don’t know how to use it effectively.
In this article, we’ll look at some cold calling tips to help you with your sales targets and goals.
Important Cold Calling Tips To Follow
Cold Calling Tip 1 – Build Familiarity Before The Call
One of the things we teach our Students at The 5% Institute, is that if you do in fact need to cold call; try to build some familiarity with your ideal client first, prior to making that call.
There are a number of ways you can do this; but we like to have you find them on LinkedIn first.
LinkedIn allows you to find people in your country, city, by company and job description; so it can be a very powerful tool in finding the right person to speak to.
If possible, start connecting with them there first, so they’re at least familiar with your profile; who you work for, and what you do.
Related article: Sales Targeting Strategy – Your Complete Guide
Cold Calling Tip 2 – Get In Touch, But Don’t Pitch
The second tip we teach our Students is to not pitch up front.
The goal of becoming familiar with them on LinkedIn, liking a post or two, and then messaging them, is to try n find a time to contact them.
If you reach out an get no response – no problem at all.
You can either go into the next step (phone call), or use a scraping tool to get their email address.
To learn more about the tool we use, templates to send and how to find your exact ideal client on LinkedIn, check out our cost-effective program by clicking this link.
The Call – Tip 3
When you’ve created some familiarity, you can now make the call.
When you call, it’s important to let them know up front who you are. The reason being, is once they start asking who you are and what you want, you’re already lost control of the call and it’ll only get worse and more awkward from there.
When calling, ask how they are and let them know that you won’t take too much of their time.
Cold Calling Tip 4 – What’s The Meaning
The aim of the cold call isn’t to sell them on our product or service; this is where so many Sales Professionals make mistakes, and why they think cold calling doesn’t work.
Instead, let them know why you’re calling and try to sell the next step.
The next step may be:
- An in-person meeting
- A Skype call or some kind
- A meeting with decision makers
- Learning more information on how the decision makers are
It’s crucial to know at this stage that you have no right to sell them yet; if you start selling your product or service, you’ll be committing a cardinal sin we call Premature Presentation.
You can only start selling once you have followed the sales process, and both you and your prospect know that your product or service is a need.
It’s important to emphasise on the meaning of your call, and why you want to meet with them.
Cold Calling Tip 5 – Use The Word ‘Open’
I’m not a big script person, because we’re not actors living in a movie.
However, I do like using the word open, and I’ll show you why.
Instead of asking them to meet with you to discuss whatever it is you want to discuss, simply ask them if they’re open to meet with you on a date or time that works for them and you.
People are more accepting to be open to something new, rather than being given an ultimatum that makes them feel like they’re being pushed into something.
Related article: Why Most Sales Scripts Suck (And What You Should Do Instead)
Tip 6 – Let Them Know You Just Want To Discuss It
Letting them know you’re not going to go in for the hard sell, can be a useful tool in breaking down some of the initial friction.
Your prospect would be used to getting called day in and day out, so hearing that you just want to meet and discuss how you can help them can be refreshing to hear.
Let them know you’re not going to try and sell them anything as you don’t know if you can in fact help them yet, and that you instead just want to learn about their situation, and in fact help them get to where they want to be.
Final Thoughts
Cold calling is a great way to get in touch with your ideal prospects, but work more effectively when you do it correctly using a process.
If you want to learn more about the sales process, feel free to join the 7 day sales challenge here.
Want To Close Sales Easier?
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If so, you should check out our self-paced and affordable online sales training program; The 5% Sales Blueprint.
It’ll give you everything you need to close sales consistently.
To learn more, simply click on the link below for more information.
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