Traditional cold calling doesn’t work. Here’s some proof:
- According to the Direct Selling World Alliance, only 5% of all business lead phone calls lead to a sale. Worse still, fewer than 1% of cold calls lead to a sale.
- Harvard Business Review reported that over 90% of C-level executives said they “never” respond to cold calls or email blasts.
In fact, cold calling will likely lead to a negative experience for your prospects and salespeople, and can hurt your brand as well.
However, if you really need to make an outbound call, there are several effective hacks that can improve your chances of success and boost your sales.
Don’t make cold calls in the first place
Imagine walking around your favourite mall. There, a salesperson from a booth pesters you to try a free sample. What do you do when this happens? You’ll probably try to avoid or ignore them.
The same thing happens when you cold call someone. Here’s why: People love to buy, but they dislike being be sold to. Each person wants to think that they’re making the decision to buy.
Cold calling someone without establishing a relationship beforehand will most likely lead to failure because there’s no trust, which is an essential element in sales. Unfortunately, even a silver tongue isn’t enough to overcome this obstacle.
So make it a point to avoid cold calling.
Remember: The phone is an effective conversion tool, but it’s not good at lead generation. When cold calling, you have no prior contact with that prospect, which means you’re not talking to a lead – so you’re more likely to fail.
Instead, you should first capture your prospects’ interest in what you’re selling, then get them on the phone to convert.
Turn the cold call into a warm call
But what if your industry relies on cold calling and you can’t do away with it?
To offset the disadvantage provided by an unsolicited call, do your research ahead of time. Find out your prospect’s first name, their industry, and their profession. Look at their social media presence (e.g. their LinkedIn profile, Facebook page) to learn more about them.
This knowledge will help you during the call, especially if you have no prior relationship with the prospect. Why? Because you need to act as if you’re getting back to them instead of calling them out of the blue, minimising the likelihood of your prospect hanging up on you.
Make the call about them, not you
If you must make an outbound call, make it about your prospective customer. Don’t make the call about your product or service; it’s not about you needing to make a sale.
For instance, you can say something like:
Hi [client name], my name is [your first name] and I help [your market segment] looking to [the main benefit you provide]. Does that sound like you?
If they say yes to your question – and they will because you did your research beforehand – say:
Tell me about that.
When they start talking, practice active listening. Take notes of their pain points and goals so you can start your pitch by saying:
So what I’m hearing is…
When you’ve correctly identified your prospect’s pain points, transition by asking when they’re free for a discovery call. If they give you a date that’s weeks or months in the future, respond with:
How about tomorrow?
Often you’ll be able to get something on the calendar sooner than your prospect initially suggested.
Ultimately, make your outbound call an opportunity to learn about a prospect’s company, challenges, needs, and goals. This will show your prospect that you care about what they’re saying, helping them warm up to the idea that your product or service might be the solution to their needs.
Get as many inbound calls as possible
With technology advancements like social media, there’s a better way: you can qualify your prospects ahead of time. As mentioned earlier, the phone is great for converting leads, but not cold calling. Ideally, you should call potential customers only if they’ve shown interest.
So what do you do? Use marketing, branding, and social media to generate buzz and get leads. When they schedule a call with you or your salespeople, it indicates that they want to know more.
If you have this kind of setup, your calls become inbound, not outbound.
With outbound calls, you don’t know what your prospects are doing when you contact them. They could be taking care of their kids or doing housework, and you’re interrupting them.
Inbound is better because you have their full attention during the call, no matter how long it takes. Without their attention, you won’t be able to close that sale.
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