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Cold calling is one of the oldest and most effective ways to generate leads for a small business. Here’s how you can do it like a pro in 2022 & beyond.
Cold calling is a phrase that has been around for a long time. The term “cold” refers to the fact that the person doing the call does not know who they are speaking with and it is usually done over the phone. This can be an effective way to make money from home, but can also be dangerous depending on how you go about it. Read more in detail here: make money cold calling from home.
Cold calling is defined as making outbound calls to people with whom you have had no prior interaction. Cold calling’s primary goal is to promote your product or service options and raise awareness of your company in order to begin the prospect’s customer journey. Cold calls are also used to discover more about a prospect’s requirements, identify decision-makers, arrange visits or demonstrations, and follow up on referrals or online form submissions.
Cold Calling Objectives
Cold calling is a sales method that may be used for a variety of purposes in your company’s sales and marketing objectives, including lead creation, prospect research, and lead qualification. While cold calling is often done internally, telemarketing agencies may make cold calls on your behalf to raise awareness, find eligible prospects, and schedule meetings for your sales personnel.
Cold calling is often utilized for one of these goals, regardless of how it is done.
Obtaining Leads
The first and most important goal is to raise awareness of the solutions your company provides in order to generate leads. You may evaluate interest and start the customer journey of prospects through the phases of the sales funnel by exposing your company and its goods or services to a wide range of contacts.
One of the most prevalent sales lead creation techniques is cold calling. Other important ways for both outbound and inbound lead creation are included in our definitive guide to lead generation.
Leads that are qualified
After Obtaining Leads from sources like lead list databases or online webforms, cold calling can be used to determine whether or not a prospect would be likely to make a purchase from your business. Your team can place them to uncover their needs by asking questions about their current vendors, satisfaction with those vendors, budget, and willingness to change suppliers or see what else is available in the market.
Prospective Analysis
Cold calling is often used in business-to-business (B2B) sectors to study prospects and get information about new clients. Outbound phone calls, for example, might be made to discover more about a lead, such as the current contact information for a certain job title or the unique pain points a prospect would want to fix.
Inquiries are followed up on.
Following up on many forms of enquiries, such as downloading anything from your website, completing an online interest form, subscribing to your email marketing campaigns, or following up with referrals, cold calling is also employed. Although these sorts of prospects are theoretically aware of or possibly potentially interested in your organization, contacting them without previous direct contact is still termed cold calling.
Pro tip: One of the simplest methods to create new business is via referrals, which often result in the greatest deal-closing possibilities. Our advice on how to earn more referrals may show you how to generate referral-based business prospects in the most effective way possible.
How to Increase the Effectiveness of Cold Calling
Whether or not making cold calls is the greatest strategy to generate sales for your small company, it is still one of the most often used sales strategies in general. B2B technology sales people, for example, make 35 calls each day on average, and 41% think their phone is their most successful selling tool.
Most sales experts will tell you that if done correctly, it is quite successful. When conversing with a prospect, it’s critical to target the correct prospects, call at the proper times, and use successful conversational strategies. Cold calling success also demands a large number of calls and constant follow-up efforts to generate prospects at the top of the sales funnel.
Here are some tips to help you improve your cold calling strategy:
- Call during peak connection times: Between 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., and 4 p.m. and 5 p.m., call response rates often peak.
- Make calls on days with high connection: the best days to call are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Wednesdays, for example, have a 53.67 percent greater success rate than Fridays.
- Prospects will continue to respond at a steady rate up to the sixth phone attempt, but most sales representatives would give up after three tries.
- Call within an hour of receiving an enquiry: Sales professionals are 11 times more likely to connect with a lead if they make their first call within an hour of receiving the inquiry, compared to calls made 8 hours later.
- Target the proper prospects: Data reveals that half of the people you contact aren’t a good match for what you’re selling—a that’s lot of time and money wasted.
- 18 percent of sales representatives believe that getting access to the correct person or stakeholder is one of the most difficult aspects of filling their sales funnel. It saves time to do some research before phoning to be sure you’re speaking with a decision-maker.
- Start with emotional selling: Using rational language, such as presenting the average return on investment (ROI), may be less successful than an emotional sales presentation, such as how a product delivers a feeling of financial stability to the prospect. ROI language, in particular, is linked to a 27 percent drop in closing rates.
- Answer to objections with questions: Top sales performers ask questions 54.3 percent of the time to respond to objections, but typical performers only do so 31.3 percent of the time.
- Maintain conversational control: While listening to a client is certainly crucial, statistics suggests that controlling the discussion by talking for the bulk of the time is preferable for cold calling, with a talk-to-listen ratio of roughly 55:45 being optimum.
Sales figures may provide you a better idea of what to anticipate and how to do things right. Take a look at the 18 cold calling statistics you need to know before picking up the phone to put yourself in the greatest position to succeed.
How to Begin Making Cold Calls to Prospects
Before you and your team start phoning, be sure you’ve done your homework. First, choose which leads your company should pursue based on buyer personas or ideal client types, and then get or gather contact information for those leads. Then categorize your contacts, create targets, and prepare scripts for yourself and your sales people to use during calls.
1. Do some research on your potential clients.
Prospective Analysis involves defining your ideal target market. Consider what type of individuals or businesses you want to sell to, what characterizes the leads most likely to need the products or services you sell, and what type of signals indicate that a prospect is interested or ready to buy. When targeting business buyers, identify which job positions are most likely to be decision-makers.
To prevent wasting call time on poor phone numbers, it’s vital that you have the most accurate and up-to-date contact information accessible. Before making a pitch, cold phoning may be used to scout potential clients. For example, you may need to contact a company to determine the ideal person to speak with and get their phone number.
For research, you may utilize prospecting tools like Uplead. Uplead is a business-to-business contact database that offers real-time contact information for decision-makers. To develop their prospect list, users may easily search and filter lead connections based on job title, industry, firm, and geographic location:
Contact Profile Search on Uplead (Source: Uplead)
2. Make a list of people to contact.
After you’ve decided which leads to call and have proper contact information, organize your call list in the order you wish to make the calls, such as by industry, company size, lead score, or another aspect. This list should contain the contact’s name, job title (for B2B leads), phone number, and any other information you believe would be useful during the call, such as their current vendor or prior experiences with your firm.
3. Establish Objectives
Set targets based on your study, contact list, and sales objectives. Cold calling objectives should specify the number of calls to be made, the ratio of intended conversions to the number of calls made, and the kind of outcomes or conversions you wish to accomplish. Not only could transactions be made, but appointments for a sales presentation or demo could also be planned, or contacts could be pushed through the sales funnel.
4. Write scripts for cold calling
Create calling scripts to serve as a reference point based on the goals you specified and your target prospect research. It’s important to remember that reading from a script may not sound natural. Rather, utilize scripts as a roadmap to help you and your team navigate through diverse circumstances.
“Do you have a few minutes to talk?” should be included in your introductory script to introduce you and your company, as well as an acknowledgement that you respect their time. If they say no, ask them to call you back at a more convenient time. Briefly outline how your company can assist the prospect in your sales presentation, and add a call to action (CTA). What do you want the prospect to do next, in other words?
Furthermore, scripts alter depending on the sort of circumstance. The following are examples of various kinds of scripts and when they should be used:
- Appointment script for cold calling: Set up an appointment with the prospect.
- Gatekeeper script: To get information from decision-makers, such as who to contact and how to approach them.
- Referral script: For mentioning a mutual acquaintance who introduced a prospect to your company.
- To assess if a prospect is qualified or a strong prospective match for your company, use the qualifying script.
- When a prospect is unavailable or your call is sent to voicemail, use this script.
Make use of our free cold call script templates, which can be found in our guide on developing cold call scripts.
5. Make a phone call
It’s time to start making calls now that you’re ready to start your cold calling campaign. There are a few things to bear in mind when speaking with a prospect over the phone in terms of preparing and what to say in a cold introduction.
First and foremost, attempt to relax and establish a conducive calling atmosphere. This may be accomplished by utilizing a cordless phone or a headset that allows you to stand or wander about while making calls. When you speak while standing, you come off as more confident and natural. It’s also a good idea to learn and practice the important elements of your scripts over the phone so you don’t come off as robotic.
It’s now time to put your script to use. Introduce yourself, explain why you’re calling, provide a quick pitch on what your company can do for them, and add a call-to-action (CTA) to get the prospect to take the next step. Each of these factors is shown in the cold call sample introduction below.
Salesperson: Hello, Mark. Katy from ABC Software Company here. I’m calling because I saw your company is one of the D.C. area’s fastest-growing consulting firms. I am certain that our project management software will give you with a scalable and cost-effective solution to fulfill your expanding client project requirements. Is there anything more we can talk about? Prepare to address inquiries, concerns, and objections while on the phone. Because most consumers don’t expect to get a sales call, they may be taken aback or even annoyed.
Mark: Hello, Katy. This isn’t the greatest time to talk, and I receive a lot of cold calls like this every day, so I’m suspicious of the true cost savings.
Salesperson: Your worry is absolutely understandable. Is a three-month free trial going to help you overcome some of your reservations?
Mark: It could be possible.
Salesperson: Excellent, so we’ll give you a three-month free trial to determine whether it’s a good fit for you. One of the primary reasons our software is widely appreciated for how well it adapts to expanding enterprises like yours is because of our demo and per-user price model. If you have time early next week, I’d be happy to give you a demonstration of its features.
If the conversation went well, make sure you and the prospect are on the same page regarding the next step. Sending follow-up emails with the information required to take advantage of a free trial, or sending calendar invitations for a presentation or product demo, are examples of the following steps.
Make a note of the specifics of your cold calls so you can go back to them later. Even if the call is unsuccessful, make notes on changes that might improve the effectiveness of your efforts. Also, keep in mind that cold calling is intended to establish and grow connections, so don’t expect to complete the deal on the first call. Instead, concentrate on moving the lead through the sales process to the next level.
Overcoming Cold Calling Obstacles
Despite the advantages, some small firms may find it less effective or feasible due to certain issues. Even firms who must depend extensively on cold calling for lead generation may face certain disadvantages, such as the ones listed below.
Cold calling requires preparation.
The first barrier to employing cold calling as a sales method is the continual cost of training both new and current salespeople. You can’t normally expect a brand new employee to be effective in a cold-calling function. Existing salespeople want frequent feedback and modifications depending on their performance on the phone.
The first step in creating and sustaining a successful sales organization is to design an effective program for onboarding new representatives and offering continuing training. Our training suggestions for a high-performing sales staff will teach you how to provide your representatives the skills, resources, and information they need to succeed.
Cold calling is disliked by certain employees.
Another disadvantage of cold calling is that some workers dislike it, limiting the tactic’s sales potential. According to one survey, 48 percent of sales people are reluctant to conduct phone calls, which might be one reason why 53 percent of cold callers quit up too soon.
Using training to prepare representatives for campaigns and hiring employees with previous cold-calling experience or who exhibit a desire to cold call may help overcome their fears and give them greater confidence. Another technique to generate passion is to use sales gamification software to transform performance assessments into a game. Our selection of the best sales gamification tools will assist you in selecting the best option for your team.
One of the most difficult aspects of managing a sales team is keeping them motivated and engaged. You can receive the knowledge you need to teach, develop, and encourage your team to achieve the best possible sales outcomes with our complete guide to sales management.
Cold calling takes a lot of time.
Cold calling for lead generation may be time-consuming, especially if you just obtain a little amount of traction. According to one research, sales professionals across all sectors call 45 times each day on average, but only have five productive interactions as a result of their efforts. In the same research, it was shown that contacting a prospect required an average of nine tries.
Dedicate time for team members to place a predetermined number of calls during peak hours and on peak days to make your efforts more efficient. Remove or limit distractions including business meetings, personal chats, non-urgent emails, and other disruptions that may interfere with call dialing during certain hours.
Incoming calls from unknown numbers are another aspect that reduces efficiency. Unknown number calls now account for up to 94 percent of all calls. As a result, time is wasted attempting to contact prospects. Virtual phone number providers such as Nextiva, Grasshopper, and Google Voice address this problem by offering local phone numbers that make calls seem to be coming from a recognized source rather than a distant place.
How Do CRMs Aid Cold Calling?
CRM software helps you improve your cold calling strategy by allowing you to organize contacts, add interaction notes, and measure the results of cold calls. It’s now simpler to interact with team members on lead progress and track sales data. Pipedrive, for example, groups contacts into lists that users may call via connections with phone systems such as Kixie or Ring.io:
Kixie has been integrated with Pipedrive Contact List. (Image courtesy of Kixie)
Power dialing tools, which automatically dial a list of phone numbers, are available as a feature or via integrations in several CRMs. Because you don’t have to spend time searching for and calling phone numbers, your sales staff can make substantially more calls in a given amount of time. Freshsales CRM, for example, connects with Freshdesk, a native product that supports power dialing:
Power Dialer by Freshdesk. (Image courtesy of Freshdesk)
Integrating software with your CRM streamlines and automates sales processes, allowing your team to complete activities on a single platform, enhancing productivity. Our complete guide to CRM connectors contains further information about how CRM integrations function and some of the most common connections for sales operations.
Conclusion
Cold calling is a tactic used to introduce your business to potential customers over the phone. Its effectiveness varies depending on when calls are made, who they are placed to, and how many are completed as well as the quality of your scripts and the knowledge and abilities of your sales reps. Its main objective is to develop relationships by scheduling appointments, Leads that are qualified, or making prospects aware of your business and what it offers.
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