1. Get Their Attention in 15 Seconds or Less. That's how long you have before your prospect realizes that this is just another lousy sales call and stops listening to you. 2. Create Excitement. Think yourself into this mindset: you have a fantastic product that will make a great improvement in your customer's lives. You're about to give the person on the other end of the line a huge present by telling them about this wonderful product. Then make sure that energy and enthusiasm comes across in your tone of voice. 3. Mirror the Prospect. People are most comfortable dealing with other people who are like them. Jot down a few words or phrases that your prospect uses and work them into your pitch. Try to match their volume, speed and tone of voice as well (without taking it to the point of caricature). 4. Use Their Favorite Word. Studies show that a person's favorite word is their own name. As soon as the prospect tells you his or her name, write it down and then use it at least three times during the call. 5. Don't Take “No” for an Answer.
Many prospects will reflexively say “I'm not interested” or “I'm busy” without really hearing what you have to offer. Instead of hanging up, try asking an open-ended question to jump-start the conversation. Possibilities include “What is your biggest problem right now?” or “What are your goals?” 6. Use Emotion. Benefits sell because they inspire emotion in your prospect: happy feelings about your product, bad feelings about not having it. Storytelling is very effective so toss in an anecdote or two about your customers and how your product improved their lives. 7. Provide Value. Offer the prospect something useful regardless of whether or not they buy your product. This can range from a free sample to a no-strings-attached trial period. Giving something valuable to your prospect creates the feeling that they “owe” you. 8. Close Every Prospect. If the prospect won't talk, ask about a better time to call back. If you get a chance to make your phone pitch, ask when you can come over to make a full presentation. Close every single call, – and even if the prospect seems completely uninterested. You really have nothing to lose – and a lot to gain – gain – by by making the attempt.
If you place a cold call and find yourself in your lead's voicemail system, don't give up and hang up the phone. Voicemail provides a golden opportunity to get your lead to call YOU instead of spending days trying to chase her down yourself. But if you expect to get many calls returned, you'll need to make a point of leaving messages that will motivate the lead to get in touch with you.
1. Know What You Want to Say Before you even pick up the phone, jot down a few sentences that you can use as a 'default' voicemail message. These sentences should act as a safety net, not a script. In other words, if your mind goes blank at the sound of the beep, you can glance down at the paper and start talking instead of sitting there saying “Uh, uh, uh...” 2. Speak Clearly If your lead can't understand what your message says, she's not going to call you back. This sounds fairly basic but after the fortieth cold call of the day, you might start to mumble without even realizing it. So make an effort with each and every voicemail message to speak slowly and clearly. 3. Repeat Yourself Give your name, company name and phone number twice on each message – once at the beginning of the call and again at the end. That way, if your lead didn't have a pen in hand at the beginning, she doesn't have to replay the message to get your information. Take special care to speak your phone number slowly and clearly – picture the recipient sitting there with pen in hand trying to take down the number as you say it. 4. Not Too Short Some salespeople like to leave a message with nothing but their name and phone number, and possibly a hint that they're calling for “business purposes.” This is not usually a good idea. The only people who call for business purposes and don't include details in the message are salespeople and collection agents. Either way, your lead isn't going to be in a hurry to call back. 5. Not Too Long On the other hand, a voicemail message is not the place to describe your entire product line in great detail. The ideal sales voicemail message is no more than one minute long, tops. You want to leave just enough information to intrigue the lead into calling you back. Don't wait until the end to mention your “hook” because if the first 15 seconds of the message are boring, your message will be wiped before it gets that far. 6. Mention Your Connection If you got the lead's name from an acquaintance or co-worker, drop that person's name early in the voicemail message. Or if you met the lead (or someone from her company) at a convention or other event, then bring that up instead. Failing any kind of connection between you and your lead, say something like, “While researching your company, I noticed that your website mentions XYZ...” This shows that you aren't just calling your way through the phone book. 7. Pick Your Time Wisely The worst time to leave a voicemail message is Friday afternoon, especially for B2B sales. By the time the lead gets your message, it will be Monday and she'll have twenty more important things to deal with. And don't leave messages at times far outside of the business day, like 2 AM, because the time stamp on the voicemail message will make the lead think you're either calling from China or keep really bizarre hours. Weekday mornings are the best time to leave messages because your lead will have the option to pick up the phone immediately, instead of having to wait until the next day to call you back (by which time they may have forgotten all about you).
Regular cold callers always end up leaving lots and lots of voice mail messages. Decision makers tend to be busy people. If you're in B2B sales, you're trying to reach executives and purchasing officers who probably field dozens to hundreds of phone calls a day. If you're selling to consumers, you're calling people who are juggling work and home responsibilities. As a result, it's common to require multiple phone calls just to reach a decision maker. The question is, how many calls is too many? For that matter, what's a reasonable time frame for leaving those calls? Studies show that the average sales cycle takes multiple contact attempts to get rolling, so salespeople who give up after one or two contact attempts are throwing away a huge number of sales. On the other hand, calling every day for three weeks is going to annoy your prospects, not convince them to buy. The best contact pattern for you will vary depending on your sales strategy and the type of product you sell. However, a good place to start is to contact leads once a week for at least four weeks. If you sell a high-value, low-volume product and/or sell to CEOs and other tough-to-reach executives, you might go as long as eight weeks and eight separate contact attempts. Each time you leave a message, add a reference your previous message and let them know when your next contact attempt will come. Naturally, you should also leave your contact information and perhaps a time when you'd be available, so that the prospect can reach out to you if she's sufficiently intrigued by your message. If you've made several contact attempts without reaching anyone but the voicemail system, try varying the time and day you're calling. Busy executives are often easiest to reach very early in the morning, before their assistants arrive and while the decision maker is answering the phone himself. Consumers tend to be available early in the evening (but not during dinnertime!) and on weekends. Don't forget that cold calling isn't limited to the telephone. Decision makers who are nearly impossible to reach by phone may be quick to respond to an email. Snail mail can also be an effective way to reach important prospects, especially if you have some interesting tidbit to share – like a magazine article featuring the prospect or a bit of breaking news that's relevant to the prospect's industry. Dropping by the prospect's home or office in person can also be a good way to get her attention and show how serious you are about talking to her. If you use one of these other sales channels to reach out, count it as your contact attempt for the week and then mention it in the next phone call (something like, “I hope you got that newspaper article I sent you in Tuesday's mail – what a great photo!”). If you're getting hung up on a gatekeeper rather than on an answering machine, then your job is to turn the gatekeeper into a co-conspirator. Each time you speak with him, jot down a note or two about the conversation – particularly his name. Then the next time you call, you can drop a remark about that topic to prove that you're actually listening. It's amazing how much a spouse or assistant will appreciate a simple courtesy like listening to and remembering what they said to you. If you can get the gatekeeper on your side, reaching the decision maker will become far
easier. And since gatekeepers often act as advisers, you're more likely to close the sale if they approve of you.
If you think of gatekeepers as cold calling obstacles or (worse) as opponents to outwit, you are missing the point. True, there are a few receptionists out there who delight in giving salespeople a hard time. But the vast majority of them will treat you much the same way as you treat them. Your average gatekeeper is overworked and underpaid. He knows a lot of “inside information” about his boss and possibly about other decision makers as well. And he's used to salespeople trying to trick or strongarm their way past him to get to the management level. That's why getting the gatekeepers on your side will do wonders for your sales record. If you can convince them that their bosses will benefit from speaking with you, not only will they give you access to the decision maker, they'll be able to tell you all sorts of useful information... like how their boss really feels about the company's current vendor, for instance. Always start out on the right foot by being polite and respectful. Use “please” and “thank you” and don't forget a pleasant tone of voice. And never try to trick the gatekeeper into letting you past by pretending to be anything other than a salesperson. Most experienced gatekeepers will pick up on your identity instantly – salespeople who spend a lot of time cold calling inevitably develop a “smooth” tone of voice from the sheer number of phone calls they make. Since the gatekeeper will be used to salespeople who try to sneak past, do the opposite. Give your full name and company name, and if they ask, tell them it's a sales call. If the gatekeeper announces that he'll be shunting you into voicemail now, ask if there's someone else you should be speaking with regarding (whatever it is you sell). Or ask if there's a better time to call or a better way to reach the decision maker, such as email. By asking for advice you're both showing that you respect the gatekeeper's knowledge and also treating him like a person, not a malfunctioning piece of office equipment. If the gatekeeper gives you his name, write it down immediately and use it once or twice in the conversation. Stick it in with the rest of the information you've got about that prospect. The next time you call, assuming that the same gatekeeper answers the phone, say something like, “Hi, Joe, this is Fred Smith – I talked with you on Tuesday.” Then work in something from the last conversation. For instance, if Joe said that he was really busy and didn't have time to talk, say something like “You were really swamped Tuesday! How are things going now?” Again, treating the gatekeeper like a person will make him more inclined to do the same to you.
he more planning you put into your cold calls, the easier and more successful they will be. Prior planning will take up some of your time, but once you've laid out your calling plan you will be amortizing that time with each call. It won't be long before your time investment pays off! The first step in planning out your cold calls is to set specific goals. For most salespeople, one of those goals is to get an appointment with the prospect. However, it's not a bad idea to take a step back from that. Set your first goal as getting the prospect's permission to have a conversation with them. Your second goal can be getting the appointment, and a third goal might be getting permission to contact them at a later date (this is the contingency goal if you fail to achieve #1 and #2). Once you've set your goals, the next step is to lay out a conversation flow chart. This doesn't have to be an actual script, although that's certainly an option. The conversation flow chart is a way of mapping out each of your goals, and the general path you're going to take to achieve each goal. For example, if your first goal is to get the prospect to have a conversation with you, you might write out the exact opener you intend to use. You can also jot down a few responses you'd make to the most common objections you're likely to hear. Then you can chart out a few paths to take towards goal #2: getting the appointment. These might be more objection-handling responses or a few techniques to build fast rapport. Finally, you could write out a phrase or two for accomplishing goal #3. Of course, you won't always reach a live human being on the other end of the line. That's why writing out a voicemail script can help, so your mind doesn't go blank at the sound of the beep. Knowing exactly what you'll say to the machine takes some of the stress off of you while you're on the spot. Finally, before you make a call it's a good idea to do a quick bit of research on your prospect. This doesn't have to be a major effort. Even a minute or two of internet digging can turn up amazingly useful information. Remember, Google is your friend. So are Facebook, Twitter, and (for B2B salespeople) LinkedIn. Just plug in the prospect's name and see what comes up.
Tips for Telephone Tact "From the minute you answer the phone until you hang up, everything you say and do influences how the caller perceives your business," she continues. Therefore, make sure you: 1. Put on a happy face -- Before you answer, smile. positive mood 2. Be prompt: When you answer the phone by the first or second ring, you communicate enthusiasm, efficiency, and professionalism. 3. Speak properly: Your voice is the only part of you. Therefore, don't rush or mumble your words; speak slowly enough, and clearly. Also, put some life in your voice by varying the inflection, to avoid a monotonous tone. 4. Identify yourself: say your own name, preceded by "This is...," since people tend to remember the last thing they hear. 5. Offer your help: Joel Linchitz, president of New York City-based Phone for Success, "When you use the word, 'how,' the person focuses more on why they're calling, so you can both get to the point more quickly." 6. Be pleasant: "Never be too busy to be nice," says Friedman. 7. Be enthusiastic: When you are, it's often contagious. The caller feels excited about doing business with you. Show your eagerness to talk to and help the caller when you use an up-beat tone of voice and words that convey you care. 8. Listen actively: Probe the caller with comments that reflect her words, such as "I understand what you mean," or "You seem to feel pretty strongly about this." Paraphrase her, to assure her that you're listening to and understanding what she is saying. And keep a pen and some paper by the phone so you can take notes. 9. Keep the caller talking: Use open-ended questions to encourage more information from the person. Says Sanford, "The more you know about the caller and what she wants, the more opportunities for cross-selling and upgrading." For the dissatisfied customer with an angry complaint, let her express it; this will calm her down and provide you with valuable information to serve her better The telephone can be a really powerful marketing and management tool - yet so many people fail to use it correctly. Here's ten powerful tips on how to make winning telephone sales calls. 1. Speak clearly. Even if your voice sounds a little exaggerated off-line, telephone distortion will make it seem more like a normal voice. 2. Get a little hyped up before you make the call (ignore your colleagues in the same room!) 3. Don't hold on if the prospect is engaged - you'll lose your initial enthusiasm. And don't accept any offer to 'phone you back'. 4. Sound great, sound positive - but not too far over the top. 5. Keep the tempo going - sound busy 6. Stand up if you are making an important call. It's too easy to sound laid back if, physically, you are.
7. S-M-I-L-E :-) ! . You really can 'hear' a smile over the phone. A smile relaxes the throat muscles and your voice sounds warmer. It really does work! 8. Try to visualise the person you are talking to. And use visual words in your conversation. 9. Be decisive. Don't use words like 'Maybe' and 'I'll try'. 10. Use gestures if it helps you. No-one can see you. One good book to dip into is "Telephone Selling Techniques that Really Work" by Bill Good (published by Piatkus). It's a little over the top in places, but there's some good stuff in it which can be applied not just to selling on the phone, but the use of the phone generally.
cold calling techniques effective cold calling techniques, tips and methods for selling and sales training
Cold calling is an important stage and technique in the selling process. Cold calling abilities are also useful in many aspects of business and work communications outside of sales activities and the selling function. Good cold calling - performed properly and not as merely an indiscriminate 'numbers game' - is a fundamental and highly transferable capability, whose basic principles are found in the behaviours and techniques of all great entrepreneurs and leaders. In essence cold calling is the art of approaching someone, professionally, openly and meaningfully, with a sensible proposition.
All great entrepreneurs and leaders possess this ability or they would not have become successful. Cold calling therefore enables success, chiefly because cold calling is strongly focused on initiative and action.
cold calling is how you see it
Since selling became a recognised profession a couple of generations ago, countless sales training organizations, sales gurus, writers, theorists, and sales people of all sorts, have attempted to create effective cold calling techniques and scripts. There is no magic script, and while there are many helpful frameworks and methodologies there is no single magic answer. Successful cold calling - including the effectiveness of methods and techniques - essentially relies on your own attitude towards cold calling. Viewed positively and creatively , cold-calling is empowering and potent.
Cold calling actually enables the sales person to:
supersede existing suppliers
pre-empt the competition
identify and create huge new business possibilities
become indispensable as someone who can make things happen and create new business
build (your) personal reputation beyond job title and grade
establish relationships and a respect (for you) beyond normal sales responsibilities
and be an entrepreneur.
So, do you want to be the human equivalent of junk-mail, or do you want to achieve entrepreneurial reputation and success that will take you anywhere you want to go? Like so many other aspects of business, management, and especially selling, cold-calling is how you see it, and whatever you want to make it.
the enormous potential of cold-calling
It's worth making a big effort to see cold calling in a different way because it is both a key to personal success and to business success. Why does cold calling hold so much potential? Cold calling uniquely: 1. positions you in a crucial pivotal role - you are an interpreter, translator, controller 2. is the key to new fresh opportunities - business and anything else 3. and more generally the cold calling capability empowers you to define and determine and take control of your own future. Cold calling by its nature opens business opportunities that are new, fresh, 'shape-able', free of baggage and history, and not weighed down by unhelpful patterns and expectations, etc. Also, cold calling situations can largely be of your own making. You are in charge. You own it. You can define each situation as you want - even if apparently you are quite constrained. Believe it - people who are successful at cold calling can very quickly become extremely independent and powerful. Your cold calling activities can create effectively a new 'virtual' business for yourself, within the organization or project, as if it were your own. This especially applies in B2B (business-tobusiness), where business opportunities are unlimited. This is because cold calling is the life blood of all business - and any organized activity. Without it nothing happens. Even in largely automated businesses the automated systems would not have first come into being without someone doing the necessary cold calling. And nothing would develop or improve without someone being able to use basic cold calling skills to instigate the changes.
Cold calling dictates what happens, to whom, when, how - and even if cold calling is positioned and managed as a lowly activity, as is often the case, two things are certain:
cold calling alone can create and be a business in its own right - because cold calling is effectively the ability to make things happen - whereas every other business activity needs cold calling to start up and survive
therefore successful cold callers can go anywhere and do anything - they are entirely selfsufficient and ultimately are not dependent on anyone or anything.
The philosophy applies in consumer businesses (B2C) too, where even if you are forced to work to a script or a strict list of prospects, you still have the opportunity to develop your own strategic ideas and style, which when successful can (if the organization has any sense) be extended into initiatives and campaigns for others to follow - placing you in a key role as a 'champion' or trainer or project leader. If the organization has no sense (some don't) then the successful cold caller can simply leave and start up by themselves, or step up to a bigger job with another employer. Successful cold callers are always in demand. They can always make things happen - for themselves and for other people. Contrast these opportunities and outcomes with those offered by existing or established business relationships, or where the selling process has already begun. In these more mature situations the scene has already been set, along with expectations on both sides. The project has a shape, a life of its own, along with the distractions found when supplier and customer are already engaged. The project managers or senior consultants who have to pick things up at this stage have very little of the freedom and flexibility enjoyed by the cold calling sales person. As a cold calling specialist you will always have the greatest potential - because you are working with fresh open situations - making things happen. Making something from nothing. It's difficult to put any limited value on such abilities. Significantly, cold calling situations are the natural preference of all entrepreneurs. Cold calling situations are the natural hunting (or farming) ground of all entrepreneurs. This is another way to look at cold calling: it is the favoured approach of all entrepreneurs - and the reason most entrepreneurs choose to start up their own businesses - they recognise that the best opportunities are new ones. Cold calling welcomes and makes the most of a blank sheet. Pastures new. No limits. Seeing cold calling in these terms is 90% of the personal battle to be successful at cold calling. To enable cold-calling to be this liberating - especially within an employed role - you have to make it so. You have to want to put your own personal stamp on things. To be creative, adventurous - to see beyond the script - beyond the conventional "we've always done it that way..." Cold calling is an invitation to adopt the mind-set and ambition of an entrepreneur - to see cold calling as the key to opportunities and personal achievement, to independence and choice.
With the right positive attitude to cold calling then rejections cease to be problems. Resistance ceases to be insurmountable. All obstacles become instead welcome steps towards success and achievement. The challenges are now the essential experience towards inevitable success.
cold calling - controlling, strategic, empowering
The sales person's role between supplier and customer is the most significant and pivotal at the cold calling stage. The sales person's influence in leveraging something from nothing is at its highest point. Cold calling determines fundamentally whether something happens or not. Cold calling can also then decide the nature of the proposition, the fit between supplier and customer, the way the relationship is defined and can develop - all these and more can be defined by the sales person at the cold calling stage. When we examine cold calling more deeply we understand why. More than all the stages in the selling process, the cold call enables the sales person to interpret, to define and to command the situation - just like the conductor of an orchestra. The sales person at cold calling stage determines the interpretation, direction and cooperation between customer and supplier. This - rather than merely delivering a script to a list of contacts - is the sales person's role and opportunity at the cold call stage. See and understand the fundamental significance of the '1st Law of Cybernetics' - it relates strongly to cold calling. The 1st Law of Cybernetics states that "The unit within the system with the most behavioural responses available to it controls the system". Think of the system as the supplier, the potential customer, and the market-place, including the competitors and all influencing market factors. Ask yourself, of all the people involved in the customer and supplier organizations, who is best positioned to view and respond to the overall system? Not the CEO's, not the managers, not the technical project managers. The person best positioned to see and adapt to the whole system is the cold caller. Only that person has the breadth and depth of view back inside their own organization, and also outwardly into the prospective customer organization. The cold caller is the single pivot - the main connector, interpreter and translator - between supplier, prospective customer and all the other market forces. (Sharon Drew Morgen's excellent Buying Facilitation methodology exploits this very principle, i.e., the sales person has the crucial overview.) Having this view of the overall system, combined with the fresh open nature of cold calling situations, is what makes cold calling so commanding and powerful.
Merely understanding this helps immensely to adopt an empowered and strategic approach to cold calling.
why it's good that cold calling is so difficult for most sales people
Cold calling is traditionally the most challenging part of the selling process. Moreover, for most sales people cold calling is becoming increasingly difficult - because the prospective customer's time is increasingly pressurised and therefore increasingly protected, and so cold calling sales people are increasingly resisted. Prospects and decision-makers are increasingly difficult to reach, on their guard, and very sensitive and resistant to obvious 'sales techniques'. Consequently the sales person feels extra pressures, not helped by scripted or contrived language, or an over-zealous sales management or system, which understandably creates a feeling in the prospect of being pushed or manipulated. In these circumstances any hope of forming vital trust is of course lost at this point, and recovery is virtually impossible. However, sales people who adopt a positive and skilful approach to cold calling generally find that cold calling becomes easier.
This is because cold calling itself is influenced hugely by market forces, i.e., all the other cold calling sales people attempting to do it. The more difficult cold calling is for the majority, then the easier it becomes for the successful minority.
If the cold calling challenge were easy, then it would be easy for everyone, and therefore very difficult to achieve differentiation or advantage, to stand out, to be noticed and respected and valued - to succeed. Your aim is to be one of the successful minority. Then you will be thankful for obstacles and challenges because they'll block the competition, leaving you free to focus on the business opportunities and adopting a solid strategic approach towards achieving the best outcomes.
cold calling - changing your perspective changes cold calling
When we look at what actually happens - and can happen - during the cold call, we see why the cold call stage of the selling process is so potent and full of opportunity for the sales person. When we stop looking at cold calling from the sales person's viewpoint and from the customer's viewpoint, and start seeing it from a business perspective, cold calling becomes a wonderful opportunity that any one can enjoy and optimize:
how sales people how customers see what successful cold calling typically see cold cold calling done should be calling poorly
fearful
nuisance
honest/open
boring, repetitive
unwanted
straightforward
unpleasant
interesting/helpful
pressurised
different/innovative
unimaginative
thoughtful/reasoned
rejections
prepared/informed
thankless
professional/business-like
confrontational
efficient/structured
unproductive
respectful
enthusiastic/up-beat
informative/new
thought-provoking
time/cost-saving
opportunity/advantage
credible/reliable
demonstrable/referenced
indiscriminate, unprepared
pressurising
tricky, shifty
dishonest
reject, repel cold callers
shady, evasive
contrived
insulting
patronizing
disrespectful
demoralizing unhappy numbers game
Obviously the aim is to move cold calling behaviours and methods into the third column, and definitely to stop anything which produces the feelings and effects of the first and second columns. This is partly achieved by changing methods and techniques - and in some cases adapting or using scripts quite differently - but more so changing attitude and style. Changing attitude and style - behaving as a helpful strategic enabler rather than a deliverer of verbal junk-mail - will automatically start to re-shape your methods and techniques.
cold calling techniques - underpinning principles
Important basic cold calling techniques are: 1. Preparation - self, environment, knowledge, and who you represent 2. Introduction - key phrases explaining and positioning yourself and your purpose 3. Questioning - help, facilitate and enable rather than assume, sell and push
4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Objectivity - the mark of an advisor - do not sell Listen and interpret - do not sell Inform and educate - do not sell Involve and coordinate - do not sell Keep in touch - keep notes and keep informed - keep ultimate ownership (by now you will probably be selling)
You will notice an over-riding theme of not actually selling during the cold calling process. Arguably of course all of this theory is selling of a sort, but it is not selling in the traditional sense of pushing, telling, advancing the features or benefits of your own products or services. Generally the aim of cold calling is simply to open dialogue, to get to first base, and possibly (if it suits the prospect) to make an appointment for further discussion and exploration. An appointment need not be a face-to-face meeting. It can instead be an appointment to talk on the telephone again. Or a conference call. Or a video conference. It should be whatever suits the prospect's needs and processes and situation. 1. preparation
Preparation for effective successful cold calling is in three parts: 1. the supplier/product/service you are representing 2. your mental approach - the way you see yourself and the cold calling activity 3. and your understanding of your offering/proposition in relation to your prospects and their situations. In detail: 1.1 Ensure you are representing a good quality ethical supplier/product/service
Your products and services do not need to be the most expensive or highest quality, but they must be completely fit for purpose for the given market and application, and they must meet the expectations created by your marketing and advertising communications. Similarly your organization does not need to be the most ethical and socially responsible and environmentally friendly on the planet, but again the ethical standards of your organization must meet the reasonable expectations of your target market. If either of these criteria is not met then you are building on sand and you should find another supplier or product/service to represent. 1.2 Your mental approach - the way you see yourself and the cold calling activity
Read and absorb the notes above. See cold calling as strategic and empowering, and yourself the same. Leave behind any temptation to treat cold calling as an indiscriminate or impersonal numbers game. If you want to succeed at cold calling then embrace it as the powerful process that it is and aspire to be great at it. Address and alter other factors which affect your attitude and mood for cold calling, for example: Your working environment (change it to suit yourself and the cold calling activity as far as you can - see tips in time management especially). Standing up rather than sitting can make a remarkable difference, as can posture and ergonomics of desk and equipment.
Avoid behaviours that add to your stress levels. Eat and drink properly. Exercise. Take breaks. Manage interruptions and other demands. Cold calling is much easier when you are relaxed, fit, focused and free of distractions. Have some personal goals and aims - whatever is meaningful and achievable - aside from whatever daft targets might be imposed from above - incorporate cold calling into your own personal career plans and aspirations. Focus on developing your ability, confidence and experience in dealing with ever more senior people, and discussing issues on an ever more strategic level. Visualise how you want to be regarded by the people you speak to - and you will grow into and live up to that image. For example: "People I speak to will regard me as a highly professional business person - beyond a sales person or a telephone canvasser - they will think of me as someone they can trust - an expert in my field, someone who can enable improvement, clarity, cooperation, solutions, etc., completely irrespective of my actual job title." See the assertiveness and self-belief pages. 1.3 Your understanding and wording of your offering/proposition in relation to your prospects and their situations
You must understand your business extremely well. If your boss tells you that your job is simply to 'get leads' and not to bother with knowledge about anything else (for example products and services, the organization you represent, the market, the competition - see Porter's Five Forces for a much wider strategic list) then find another employer. Your usefulness to the market is defined by the way you help reconcile needs with information. Your success is ultimately limited by your knowledge. So inform yourself. Become expert, and the world will open up to you. You must also research large organizations before calling them. For all organizations, large and small, you must prepare and understand well your initial or basic proposition - whatever it is - as it relates to the organization and/or the organization's situation. This might not require you to research the prospective customer in any great detail, especially if you are calling domestic consumers, but you must have a good strategic appreciation of the issues faced by your prospect in relation to your basic opening proposition. This is an absolutely fundamental requirement and when omitted will drastically reduce the effectiveness of cold calling. The prospective customer has a very keen sense of what is important to them and what is not - and if you fail to acknowledge this in your opening exchange, or worse demonstrate personal ignorance about their perspective - then your cold call go no further. Bear in mind also that your basic or initial proposition should not make assumptions as to the final offering or product/service specification, which, especially in the case of large organizations might be several weeks or months away from defining. And even in the case of simple small supply situations, the customer must necessarily be involved later in the selling process in defining the precise specifications. So instead, your opining or initial or basic proposition must be of a strategic quite general nature, but at the same time sufficiently important, different, new, interesting, etc., in order to be worthy of continuing the dialogue and exploring possibilities in greater detail. This crucial strategic positioning is typically achieved by refining several different short introductory statements, or questions, which you can mix and match according to the situation. It comes with preparation and practice, and constantly seeking and adapting the words that you use to achieve the desired results. You must write down these phrases as you develop and refine them. Most sales people fail to do this - and then they wonder why their opening statements don't work. See
the sales theory page and especially the section about the 'product offer'. Your opening proposition in the introduction should be a broad strategic interpretation of your more detailed product offer - this is both to save time and also to avoid making assumptions about what the prospect actually needs and how the final proposition might eventually be formulated. 2. introduction
Be very clear and concise about who you are and the purpose of your call, and have a powerful strategic basis (your main reason) for requesting dialogue, now or to be scheduled later, depending on the availability of the other person at the time. Base your opening proposition on your more detailed product offering, but keep it concise and strategic - not detailed and specific. See the guidance and explanation about product offers, propositions and benefit statements on the main sales training page. 3. questioning
Prepare and ask good facilitative questions which help the other person to see the situation more clearly, and which invite them to consider and explain how they decide about such issues. Sharon Drew Morgen's Buying Facilitation methodology is particularly helpful in developing superb and helpful questions. 4. objectivity
Remain fair and neutral - objectivity is the mark of an advisor. It's a tricky thing to do given that you are selling your products and services, but ironically the more you 'push' your own solutions and services, and the more you denigrate or criticize the alternatives, then the more you will damage your chances. People don't want to be 'sold' - they want to be helped and guided by an expert in a particular field to make and then implement an informed decision. This of course makes it important for you to be representing a supplier or products/services which are genuinely excellent. If you act on behalf of a crappy or unethical supplier then you will ultimately damage your own personal reputation. This comes back to very early preparation - you can afford to be objective only if you represent a good quality supplier. 5. listen and interpret
It is far better to listen and interpret from the customer's perspective, as would an expert advisor, rather than act as as a biased one-sided self-interested sales person. The former behaviour is helpful and appealing - giving - whereas the latter traditional pushy sales approach is seen immediately for what it is - taking. Remember your visualised image of yourself: how you want people to see you, and behave like it. 6. inform and educate
You are the expert in your service or proposition or technology (not necessarily in great technical detail, but strategically, in overview definitely) and if you are not then you need to be, otherwise
you are wasting your prospect's time. Giving information and fair and useful feedback educating effectively - in response to customers' requests for answers is much better than leaping in to 'close the appointment'. It's not a race or a rush. The aim is to build understanding and identify whether there is a potential useful fit between what you can offer and what the prospect might need. Do this and the situation quite naturally develops. Focus only on the appointment and you'll tend to skip the all-important stage of establishing yourself as a helper, informationprovider, and enabler. 7. involve and coordinate
Involve the prospect in the discussion and decision to move to the next stage. Ask how they would find it most helpful to explore or move matters forward. Be guided by the prospect and also be guided by your own organizational systems and protocols. The prospect knows their systems and processes; you don't. Identify how the situation can be coordinated in order to progress things. You are the pivotal person. Revisit the cyberneticsprinciple. You must aim to be the unit in the whole system which orchestrates events and people - on behalf of your prospect to achieve what the prospect needs in terms of process and outcomes. This is your value to the prospect. You are the bridge, the interpreter, the enabler. Aspire to this role and you will begin to acquire a personal value and reputation greater than anyone. 8. keep in touch - keep notes - keep ultimate ownership
Information and knowledge are crucial to your ability to act as interpreter and coordinator at the start of the cold calling process. You must therefore take full notes and keep clear records of the cold call at all stages. You should also take notes or keep yourself informed as the situation develops, whether the development of the opportunity remains your responsibility or not. If you stay informed and knowledgeable about the resulting sales relationships then you can keep a watchful eye on situations, and thereby grow your personal standing and role beyond canvasser or sales person. This is not to say that you must be 'hands-on' involved at all times. On the contrary; your role as coordinator - together with the systems and processes within supplier and customer - should ensure that other people are brought into the situation as required to progress and develop the opportunity and the trading relationship as it grows. You are however the ultimate owner of the relationship and responsibility - whatever your title if you want to be. How you meet your commitments to your customer counts more than your job title or job description. It's a matter of personal integrity. Staying involved and informed is not be easy in certain organizations which rigidly compartmentalise sales and after-sales activities, especially sales organizations which marginalize cold calling or canvassing teams, but whatever structures exist, you should try to
maintain an awareness and background involvement - especially with large customers - whenever and however you can. You have a responsibility for all relationships that you begin: to your customer contacts - and arguably a personal commitment which transcends organizational systems and policies. Many customers, especially personal contacts who put great faith in you at the beginning of the relationship, will expect and appreciate your staying in touch - if only as a last resort in the event of unresolved problems. For junior people this is not always easy, but retaining an informed and ultimately responsible interest in relationships that your cold calling instigates, is the sort of behaviour and determination on which great careers and reputations can be built. This last piece of advice might not fit the divisionalised sales processes of certain organizations, in which case if you personally are serious about building a career in selling or business - or if your organization is serious about developing people - then you might discover that your cold calling activities will benefit from defining them more in terms of personal integrity and commitment than mere numbers on a board.
successful cold calling - example methodology
As already explained, the best cold calling methods tend to focus on developing open honest trusting dialogue, which in turn enables a climate of trust, within which progress can be made further into the sales process. Among the best examples of effective new transferable and learnable cold calling methodologies, is the thinking of sales expert Ari Galper, who with his aptly named model Unlock The Game®, has done much to develop the cold calling specialism in the sales training and development field. Here is a summary of Ari's excellent methodology directly from his Mastery Program, reproduced here with his permission, which is gratefully acknowledged. Galper's ideas are effective and ethical, based on a philosophy that positions selling in the area objective advisor, mediator, translator, trusted expert, etc., rather than the traditional image of persuader, manipulator, chaser, pusher, etc., which behaviours are no longer effective for achieving sustainable good quality selling and business.
summary of ari galper's cold calling methodology
Ari Galper's model is called Unlock The Game®, which he describes as "A new cold calling and sales mindset focused on building trust." 1. Shift your mindset away from 'making the sale' towards whether the fit exists or not. Look for what the other person is thinking and whether there is actually a real
possibility of a fit. Do not assume they should buy what you have. Aim to qualify, not force or persuade. 2. Be a helper not a pitcher. Help your prospect, instead of referring to features and benefits - this centres the conversation on the other person, not you. 3. Focus on the beginning - not the end. Be sensitive to the early interaction with your prospect - keep your mindset and behaviour stay in the present moment (with the client) and avoid pushing forward (where you want to go - which you can only guess at best). 4. Stop chasing prospects - behave with dignity. Create an open pressure-free atmosphere - set a tone of equality and mutual respect - strive to be regarded as a helpful human being instead of a typical sales person. 5. Connect with your prospects rather than work through a list. Focus on how to make a true connection with each prospect - this naturally helps build trust - think about and discuss their issues, not yours. 6. Creating trust with your prospect is your primary goal - not making the sale. Creating genuine trust is the essence of building real relationships and real relationships turn into more sales. 7. Diffuse any pressure that you sense in the sales process. By diffusing the tension and pressure in the sales process between you and your prospects, you bring both of you closer to an honest and truthful conversation. 8. Change your languaging away from 'sales speak' to natural languaging that connects with people. By using phrases like 'would you be open to' instead of 'would you be interested in', you immediately set yourself apart as someone who is patient, open minded and willing to listen. 9. Understand your prospect's problems deeply so that they feel 'understood' by you. By having a deep understanding of the problems that your prospects experience everyday, the easier it will be for you to really feel that you know and care about their situation. 10. Use the Unlock The Game Mindset - both in your business and personal life because relationships are the same in both worlds. By also applying these principles in your personal life, with people you care about, you'll begin to see a deeper trust being built that can strengthen your relationships for the long term.
