In a cold call the main thing is the first minute of conversation, and during this minute we must form an interest to continue communication, so that we have a chance to develop this interest to the emerged need and, as a consequence, the purchase.
For effective cold calls it is necessary to:
- The first principle of cold calling is to make it so that neither the receptionist nor the decision maker identifies the cold call manager, from the first words. The easiest identifier is an elaborate detailed introduction of the company and yourself. Simplify the beginning of the dialog and you will be more willing to talk to you.
- Don’t count on anyone needing your great offer without establishing trust and dialog. For interest, start calling and offer your product at half its actual cost or for free, you will be very surprised, the number of refusals will not decrease much.
- Clearly define the portrait of your client and the questions by which your client can be calculated. For example, at a car dealer training, the first question we asked was “Do you operate cars?” Statistics showed that 93% of car buyers already have a fleet of cars. Therefore, we could find out whether this is a target client for us or not, even without getting to the presentation and introduction.
- Call about something unrelated to the sale. If you offer something, you may be immediately sent to email or even further away. If you want to invite to a free seminar, or send an industry overview, or send a free test sample, the likelihood of making contact and continuing the dialog increases dramatically.
- Determine the primary purpose of the call – to identify a potential customer and establish a relationship with them.
- Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and embarrass yourself.
- Put calls into the system. It should be clearly understood that one cold call is nothing, even if it is more or less successful. Ten or a hundred contacts is also a little bit for cold calls. Practice shows that you can achieve stable sales on cold calls only when the manager in the base of more than 300 customers with whom there was a productive dialog. All the more so because every call made adds experience and confidence.
