Cold Calling Success By Design

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Many (many!) salespeople and entrepreneurs would rather visit their dentist for a root canal than spend an hour or so on the telephone cold calling.

Why?

The number one reason is a previous uncomfortable cold calling experience, which happens when we:

1) call outside our target market, bothering people with a message that doesn't apply to them; or

2) call the right potential customer, but use the wrong approach.

Once you put the necessary research into identifying your target market, ask these questions to design a successful cold calling campaign:

1. Can your message be delivered whether or not you speak directly with a specific contact?

If you can answer "yes" to this question, your campaign can be built around the easiest of cold calls.

For example, you might be inviting a large number of people to an event and you already have their email addresses. Simply compose an energetic, detail-filled message that can be left on voice mail and include a promise that more information is on the way.

The call might sound like this - "Hi Joan Smith, this is Dave Jones calling from ABC Company. I want to invite you and a guest to our incredible launch event tomorrow night which includes some well-known comedians, fabulous food and the chance to win one of several exciting prizes. I do have your email here, so I'm going to take the liberty of sending you an invitation with all the details. Of course don't hesitate to call or write with any questions or comments. All of my contact information will be in the email. I do look forward to seeing you at the launch!"

These are fun calls. They can be made quickly and when done with an energetic, welcoming voice, they always produce results. Not only that, by including a promise in your message (to send email), and then keeping it, you build trust.

2. Does your message need to result in a face-to-face meeting?

These calls are challenging because you have to reach someone in real-time, you must highlight the benefits of your product or service very quickly before asking for the meeting, and you must get the meeting organized in the first conversation. Approximately 50% more prospects will say "yes" to a meeting during a well-designed first call than in follow up conversations.

For example: "Hi Joan Smith, this is Dave Jones calling from ABC Company. The reason for my call today is we work in your industry providing tax advice that saves our clients as much as 15% on their tax bills each year. What I want to do today is organize a brief 20 minute meeting between you and our senior tax analyst to investigate the possibility of saving you money in this tax year. Would Tuesday or Wednesday of this week work for you?"

When asking for a meeting it is important to suggest specific dates. Everyone we contact today is busy, overwhelmed. When we ask the question "When can you meet with me?", it draws the prospect's attention to their entire calendar which is crowded with appointments and deadlines; it increases the likelihood of their responding with "Send me some information and I'll get back to you."

When you ask about specific dates, it narrows their focus, and helps them to see half-hour possibilities that allow for the meeting.

3. Does your message need to educate your prospect about your product or service?

This is the most difficult of cold calls - when your product or service is so unique or complex that a detailed conversation is needed in order to build your customer base and motivate people to find out more about you.

These calls require specific scripting and it is best to do some role playing before picking up the phone. You are designing a type of verbal choreography where you will use open-ended questions to inspire conversation and raise the interest of your target market.

These calls must also have excellent support materials that can be sent out by email and a commitment from all the salespeople to follow up diligently.

Selling magazine advertising is a good example of this type of call. Salespeople need to inspire conversation about the publication's circulation and its connection to the potential advertiser's target market. They need to send out links to the magazine online or a copy by regular mail, a rate card and testimonials. And they need to follow up faithfully in order to make the sale.

Increasing revenue through telephone sales is a valid option for a wide-variety of products and services. Success is in the details. Before putting salespeople on the phone, take the time to design your campaign so that your approach suits both your product and your audience.

Designing a cold calling campaign can be made easier with help and insight from someone with experience. I've spent 25 years calling companies both large and small, in North America and overseas, connecting with managers and CEOs. Please don't hesitate to contact me to discuss how I can help you create a cold calling strategy that will result in more sales and more customers. maryjane@thephonelady.ca

6 Tips to Give a Boost to Your Cold Calling Skills

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You've heard the story about the salesperson that postponed having a dreaded route canal at the dentist's office--until his manager scheduled him to make cold calls one morning.

Suddenly, dental health shot up to the top spot on this chap's agenda.

What he didn't appreciate is that cold calling can be amazingly easy, providing you use the following six techniques.

(1) Revalue this activity. Unconsciously, many sellers demean cold calling as being beneath them, or of use mainly to beginners or to the poorly paid. It is a supremely successful mode of contact, actually superior to most alternatives. For one thing dialing is nearly instantaneous, unlike flying or driving to see a prospect. It is interactive and flexible. You have the ability to adjust your message, on the spot, to suit individual buyers. Conversations can be designed to be as long or short as they need to be. And you can actually hear how the prospect is reacting, her authentic responses. Email and messaging can't accomplish these things, nearly as well.

(2) Get over yourself! Most sellers place undue emphasis on their own feelings and discomforts, projecting them onto prospects, which may not feel the same way. YOU may hate cold calls, but recipients might find them welcomed breaks in the routine, especially if you banter a little about the weather and their environs. Expect a negative response and you'll produce one!

(3) Accept the fact that a bad calling script succeeds more often than improvisation. By its nature, a script cuts to the chase, and often it will contain just what you need, a beginning, middle, and an end. You don't have to use a script jot-for-jot, unless, and this is important, it has demonstrated that doing so yields better results. Why reinvent the wheel with every conversation?

(4) Study success! I'm currently on a consulting assignment where fifteen people are succeeding, all with different conversational styles and selling techniques. Each of these sellers has strengths to offer to the observant student. I'm trying various tactics, melding together what I believe are the best practices of the group. Moreover, I'm getting on the phones to prove or to disprove the applicability of these areas of distinctiveness to all. A huge occupational hazard successful cold callers face is that they stop growing and learning, and above all, improving.

(5) Appreciate that the benefits of cold calling can be indirect, but still significant. Use cold calling as a baseball hitter uses a "doughnut" to take practice swings. This device, which slides over the barrel of the bat, purposely makes swinging harder to do. When coming to the plate, the doughnut is removed, and the batter's bat-speed is enhanced. After cold calling, believe me, you'll be an utter tiger in pouncing on any warm leads that come your way, making them far easier to close.

(6) Tune-out the naysayers that say cold calling doesn't work, or that it must be hopelessly inefficient. I tell the story about the financial services seller that cold called for nine months before earning his first sale. It didn't get him down, because he knew the rewards were there. Sure enough, his first sale RESULTED IN A MILLION DOLLAR COMMISSION!

Keep these six points in mind as you cold call, and you'll boost your results!

Dr. Gary S. Goodman is a top speaker, sales, service, and negotiation consultant, TV and radio commentator and the best-selling author of 13 books, including perennial favorites YOU CAN SELL ANYTHING BY TELEPHONE and REACH OUT & SELL SOMEONE. He conducts seminars and speaks at convention programs around the world. His new audio program is Nightingale-Conant's "Crystal Clear Communication: How to Explain Anything Clearly in Speech & Writing." He can be contacted at gary@customersatisfaction.com.

Cold Calling - Cold Calling Techniques That Really Work!

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Call it cold-calling; call it telemarketing; call it sales; telesales; call it lead nurturing. At the end of the day one thing remains common: you want to connect with the person at the other end of the line and sell them something.

Now I'm in a unique position as a marketing professional. Not only do I have the pleasure of working with "inside sales" and developing programs, scripts, etc., I also have the pleasure of receiving many of these "cold calls". As such, I feel a kinship, heck even empathy, for those folks who are on the other end of the line/email when it seemingly appears out of the blue.

I have made it a personal rule over the years that if I don't recognize the incoming phone number, it goes to voice mail. If I do happen to pick up the phone, in a momentary lapse of judgement, you'd better be on the ball. I can promise you, no matter what time it is, I DON'T have a few minutes to spare right now. Offer to book a time and send me some information in advance.

If you REALLY want to talk to me then I need to see the value in it. How will you make my job easier, my day better or my campaigns more successful? Know who you're talking to, both from a business perspective and a persona perspective. Understand my challenges and offer a differentiating alternative.

On the other hand, I do tend to sympathize more than others, since I too am measured on the success of outbound marketing and lead conversion. This means that yes, I may fill out your survey, I might listen to your pitch, I will review (skim) the material you send me and I will probably visit your website.

So if you want to elicit a response from me, here are my top tips:

Do speak slowly and clearly. Spell your name and/or company name if you have to. And for goodness sakes don't whiz through your phone number!Do tell me why you're calling.Do send me a proper calendar invite when I agree to a call. Make sure your contact details are included should I need to reschedule.Do spell-check your email and any attachments you send me.Do have a compelling subject line for your email and make sure the 1st paragraph supports it.Do make sure you know my name and the name of my company.Don't leave a voice mail that says you want to discuss an "opportunity" without giving me some clue as to what it's about.Don't leave your whole pitch in a voice mail. If 10 seconds has passed and you're still droning on, I will hang up.Don't tell me you have done work with IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, etc. Apparently everyone has. It doesn't differentiate you.

Finally, if it sounds like you're reading from a script, if there are lots us "umms" and "errs" then, you guessed it....CLICK.

But here's the good news. If you impress me with your approach and if I see a fit for your product/solution, chances are very high that I will give you an opportunity to quote for my business. And once you win me as a customer, and deliver on your promises, then not only will you have a repeat customer, but you will also have a loyal recommender to a vast network of colleagues and friends.

About Joanne Gore

Joanne Gore has nearly twenty years of enterprise marketing and communications experience, including corporate and small office environments. She is a talented and creative marketing professional, always positive and able to see the big picture. She possesses the organization/prioritization skills which allow her to manage multiple projects from inception to implementation, meeting deadline demands and budgetary constraints.

A true mentor, Joanne marries her passion for marketing with clear, creative feedback and inspiration. Joanne develops lead generation and conversion programs, re-brands product lines, implements social media strategies, manages PR and media relations campaigns, overhauls websites, develops highly targeted marketing campaigns, and delivers results.

Joanne is a marketing geekette by day, a fitness instructor by night, and a mom 24-7.

Email: joannegore@rogers.com
Blog: http://joannegore.wordpress.com/