Ten tips for cold calling success

Post on 14-Apr-2017

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Ten Tips for

Cold Calling Success

Use a sales script

A good sales script will:• Provide structure and clarity by forcing you to think about and polish your process.

• Facilitate teamwork through a collaborative and growing framework.

• Promote active listening by freeing up mental energy to focus on your prospect’s needs.

A script equips you with the mental tools you need to confidently face any sales

situation.

Document prospect’s objections

Follow these three steps:• List the top 25 objections you face in your market.

• Create a short (1-3 sentence) response to each question.

• Review your answers with at least ten others.

Instead of trying to formulate responses in real time, create an objection management

document.

Check out our full walkthrough and start building your own objection management

document.

Ask these three questions before calls

Before you pick up the phone, ask yourself:• Why am I calling?

• What do I want to accomplish?

• How am I going to achieve this?

The three most important questions in sales aren’t directed at your prospect, they’re for

you.

Captivate your prospect

Hook your prospect from the start with these strategies:• Optimize for energy | Your emotional state is contagious; make sure it’s something worth

catching.

• Use silence as a tool | When your volume goes down, their attention goes up.

• Ask for attention | Say, “This next bit is crucial. If there’s one thing I want you to remember,

it’s this.”

First impressions are everything. Unless you engage your prospect immediately, you’ll

lose ‘em.

Learn all about how to use these powerful tools in

How to captivate your prospect.

Laugh in the face of fear

How about trying to fail? Sabotage your next three calls like

this:• Speak reaaaaaaaaaaalllllyyyyyy slowwwwwllllyyyyyyy.

• Stutter y-y-y-your way th-through the p-p-pitch.

• Talk as quickly as you can as soon as the prospect answers the phone.

Rejection is a big part of cold calling. How do you get over that fear of failure?

Create a distraction-free environment

Here are three ways you can minimize screen distraction• Turn off your monitor.

• Install a productivity browser extension like StayFocusd or Momentum.

• Put on a wireless headset and go for a walk.

The computer can be hugely distracting in a sales call, and distraction is the death of a

sale.

Learn more about how to combat the dangers of distraction in

our article about multitasking.

Never pitch price before value

Your initial sales call should be about gathering insights. Find

out:• Your prospect’s budget.

• The challenges they’re currently facing.

• How your solution solves those challenges.

When you talk about pricing before you establish your value, you’ve given away all

your sales power.

Learn more about how to redirect a prospect asking for pricing in

Never talk price before value.

Stop leaving voicemails (kind of)

We got tired of leaving voicemails too, so we created a feature

that:• Records a standard voicemail message once

• Leaves that message with one click

• Allows you to move on to the next call while it records

How many voicemails can you leave before you want to throw your phone across the

room?

Recover quickly from bad sales calls

Instead, take a five minute break before the next call and ask

yourself:• How can I deal with people like that better?

• How can I develop more emotional control?

• How can I respond to this differently in the future?

Venting about a rude prospect feels good in the moment, but creates a negative work

environment.

Anyone can sell to an easy prospect. Learn how to deal with the difficult ones on our blog.

Track your sales data

Track these three metrics:• Activity | How many cold calls did you make?

• Quality | How many decision-makers did you reach? How many of them were qualified?

• Conversion | Of those who were qualified, how many deals did you close?

Every process has room for improvement, but you need to track your data to know

what to improve.