Cold calling do’s and don’ts in 2018

Many businesses rely on cold calling to drive revenue, whether its a fortune 500 company or a fast growing startup. According to DiscoverOrg, 60% of more than 1,000 polled senior executives from the IT industry reported taking an appointment or attending an event after receiving a cold call or unsolicited email.

But gone are the days of a frail cold call script and pushy salespeople. Today’s sales calls are to be better researched, more valuable to the prospect and a bit warmer. Here are the do’s and don’ts of cold calling that will help your company boost your pipeline and sales.

DO tap into social intelligence

In this age, researching a prospect takes less time than it ever has. Instantly, one can gather so many insights just with a glance at a prospects LinkedIn profile or Tweets. What are they talking about? What content do they share? Which topics do they discuss most? What are their interests? Having this information in hand can warm up a cold call. According to Vorsight, if the person you are calling is in a common LinkedIn group you are 70% more likely to get to speak with them on a cold call.

 

DO use digital sales tools to automate efforts

With digitization at its peak, sales relationship building  and intelligence tools have become most impactful to the sales team. There are various automations apps and services that can assist with research, tracking and documentation. Outreach.io, a sales engagement platform that will help you close more deals by personalizing, prioritizing and ana and analysing sales activities.

 

DO Focus on your prospect

The main point to remember when trying to manage the flow and direction of the cold call is to avoid talking about yourself, but instead focus on the prospect. A good way to do this is to shift to asking questions about the prospects needs and their pain point. This will not only help you to grab and maintain the prospect’s attention, but it will also help you to extract very valuable information. Use the cold call as a way to learn more about your prospect rather than pushing your product.

DO master the 15 secs pitch

15 secs won’t sell you anything but having a pitch ready can make or break the deal. Hone in what value your company brings to the customers, choose a specific product or service that is complete unique to the company. Also do make sure to check the the clients latest details/profile and relate a product or service to them.

DO Ask Questions

For the right outcome from a cold call, the answer is to ask the right questions. Questions engage the prospect and keeps the conversation momentum going. Make sure your prospect’s interest doesn’t end along with the call by asking the right questions to keep the conversation and the deal moving forward.

 

DO call strategically

Calling a prospect that has never heard about you or your brand doesn’t work. However, if they have, then the chances to connect and have a better a successful conversation increase. Connect and Sell  helps sales reps  overcome the challenges of getting people on the phone.

DON’T call before you have done your homework

The focus is to have a blueprint ready for the cold call; so that the conversation is mapped out before picking up the call. Beyond the call script, this method will help you set up the right path for the conservation and push towards achieving a higher level goal for the call – whether its qualifying the lead, booking an appointment opr closing a deal.

DON’T  try to counter all objections

The harsh truth is that you are guaranteed to face objections on may be every cold call. But a small step that can make an impact is to list out the objections that are anticipated and prepare for each of them which will have a good chance of keeping the conversation going. A way to keep the call going is not to resolve the objection, but to redirect the conversation into a new, yet related area. An easy way to do this is to redirect to one of your qualifying questions or common pain points.

DON’T  sell to the wrong buyers

According to Forrester,68% of B2B customers prefer to research independently online. When buyers have pain points, they rack up a lot of digital footprint through articles, ebooks, white papers and consume content across the web. Hence, intent data allows sales and marketing teams to initiate contact with buyers earlier in the buying cycle. Bombora, provides B2B marketing and sales teams insights about when their customers are actively in-market.

 

DON’T use a cookie-cutter sales pitch

A client needs to be treated with value. Using a cookie-cutter sales pitch isn’t at all personalized, and chances are the client won’t be interested either. It’s important to get know the client, draft a pitch to match their position and stature.

The golden rule of cold calling is to avoid pressuring prospects. Any attempt at pressure results in “I’m not interested”. Unlike robo-calling, cold calling has a human element. Organisations and clients have needs and problems, but often wait for a solution to come to them. By following the above points, your prospects will be much more receptive to your message, and you will see a higher ROI through cold calling.