The Art of Cold Calling Part 1- What I’ve Learned from 17 Years in Sales
Have sales been down? Leaders, I am here to tell you that your team struggles here. This is the weakest area of most sales reps. Why is that? Why are we afraid to pick up the phone and make a call. Growing up in a small town in New Brunswick, Canada, I needed to learn how to become really good on the phone if I was going to become successful in sales. Here are a few strategies to discuss with your team.
What is your plan when they pick up the phone? Listen, we are sales people and we can be a little arrogant at times. But you need to write some word tracks down on paper. If not, you are going to ramble on into nothing town and lose the prospect. Take the time to write a few key words and sentences down. And then follow the script, on every call. Test it for 20 calls and track the success rate. If it sucks, try something else.
Who are you calling? Get to know your prospect. Google them. What are their interests? Do they volunteer? Do they have pets? Kids? This will be useful information as you form a connection. This process should be fast though. It’s a numbers game so we don’t want to spend a lot of time here. Maybe 1 minute.
Be human. Stop talking about how great your products + services are because they don’t care yet. It’s not about you right now. We haven’t even determined if there could be a partnership for mutual benefit. Relax and be authentic and don’t ramble. Remember, our aim is to be helpful.
Role play. I am as serious as a heart attack. Nobody like role playing because it is uncomfortable. But guess what?? That’s how we practice and get better. And we learn from each other. In sports, we practice for the big game. Every call is the big game and we need to improve daily if we are going to build that pipeline.
What are you asking the prospect FOR? You need to nail this part. An in person demo, a 45 minute zoom meeting? Don’t go asking a stranger for an hour of their time. 15 minutes is enough. If you’ve been human and relatable, people will give you 15 minutes.
That’s it for now. I have no less than 1000 tips here. Keep an eye out for part two coming soon.
Are you not hitting your sales quotas? If I can help your team with sales + prospecting, please book a discovery call so we can chat.
Talk soon,
TL
