Cold Calling

Cold calling is a sales technique that implies communication with a prospective customer who had no interaction with a brand before. This person doesn’t know about the product, its benefits, and its features and shows no interest in it. This sales approach is usually based on phone calls or telemarketing.

In this article, we’ll unveil how cold calling works and share five tips and techniques. We’ll also show you how to create a cold-calling script.

Does cold calling work?

Cold calling is an old but gold marketing approach that implies contacting people who have yet to show interest in a specific product or service. Sales representatives from different companies often call prospects or use telemarketing to reach them. Sales teams present the product and tell how people can benefit from it. Salespeople can also apply other popular channels to contact consumers. They use email campaigns and door-to-door visits.

To win customers during cold calling, sales reps should possess specific traits of character. They need to be persistent, sympathetic, friendly, and ready to face objections. Before communicating with consumers, sales representatives conduct short research on their customers’ demographics and

explore the market. It helps them find the right words during phone, in-person, or messages.

When sales reps call potential customers, they can receive numerous responses. Salespeople must instantly react to these responses to continue communication and convert a person into a client. Many consumers hang up the phone or terminate calls because they are unwilling to engage in cold calling. However, some consumers still become interested in a product offered and show interest in meet-ups.

Nowadays, many new methods like email, text, and social media are considered more effective, so cold marketing has become less popular. However, if the technique is perfect for your business, then go ahead and implement it with your sales team.

Now that you know how cold calling works, it’s time to explore tips and techniques if you feel like incorporating cold calling into your company.

5 Cold Calling Tips and Techniques

If you need cold calling for the success of your business, you probably need some effective techniques. We’ve listed tips and techniques below so that you can successfully implement this sales strategy in your company.

1. Do research before calling. Calling without research isn’t an option if you want to close deals. To attract customers’ attention, you need to come up with a worthy offer. That’s why conducting research and knowing your prospects is necessary.
   You’ll be able to address their needs and solve problems. This way, you have a higher chance of being heard. By exploring leads’ data, your sales reps can avoid getting into undesirable scenarios, objections, disputes, frustrations, and phone terminations. Moreover, a clear understanding of your prospective consumers allows you to personalize offers based on their needs and save time.
2. Create a script. To successfully implement cold calling, you need to have a clear script. You should write it and cover the following aspects: a step-by-step plan of action, answers to FAQs, and approaches to objections. However, your sales team shouldn’t get your script by heart. Consumers won’t appreciate listening to a generic message. The communication shouldn’t be robotic because prospects can hang up the phone. Your salespeople should use this information to their advantage without making interaction the same for everyone. Make sure that they find a personalized approach to every lead.
3. Identify the best timing. The day and time you decide to contact your potential customer also matter. There are busy days and hours when people simply don’t have time to communicate with sales reps. You need to look at your call records to identify the best hours to call. This way, you’ll be able to figure out when prospects answer the phone most often. It indicates that they are willing to communicate at this time.
4. Make sure you are ready to find arguments. As a sales rep, you can’t give up on a customer after the first objection. This role requires your sales team to deal with objections professionally and always find arguments for customers. You’ll be able to prove that your product is worthy and make leads change their mind. Consider developing a guideline for newcomers to sales. However, if your sales representatives encounter rejections, your sales team should be ready to accept “no” and proceed to the next prospect. It prevents your company from spending time, resources, and efforts on potential customers with no interest.
5. Avoid starting a conversation by presenting your product. The most common mistake salespeople make during cold calling is beginning their talk with a sales pitch. You should first question customers’ opinions about the product, their needs, challenges, etc. After you figure out that it meets customers' requirements, craft the offer based on their needs, and start your personalized sales pitch. It will enable you to achieve the best sales results.

Now that you know the techniques, it’s time to proceed to the process of cold-calling script creation.

How to create a cold-calling script?

Cold calling can be ineffective if your script isn’t detailed and thoughtful enough. In this section, we’ll uncover how to write a cold-calling script that helps convert prospects into customers.

1. Find your verticals. Rather than spending time on people who aren't into your product, you better focus on those willing to buy and value your product or service. In cold calling, picking up the right potential customers is crucial since it can be time-consuming to work with objections and hang-ups. Moreover, if consumers demonstrate a negative history of communication with your sales reps, it’s better to avoid contacting them again. Focus your efforts on people who can become interested in your product. Analyze the list of your leads who successfully converted into consumers. Try to find a consistent pattern. Choose a couple of verticals. After a short analysis of your customers, you can find out that consumers from retail and banking prefer to purchase your product or service.
2. Find 20 suitable leads. Once you are done with verticals, continue looking for a perfect fit. Consider using all your outlets and tools to identify your prospective customers for cold calling. You can get the best results by searching on LinkedIn. The platform is perfect for finding potential clients. Use the service’s filters to narrow your search and find the right people. Say you are looking for educational platforms that might need your online course builder. Type “General manager” and use the necessary filters. In this case, you might need filters like “People,” “Country,” and “Education.”
3. Conduct research. In cold calling, there’s no need to rush. The more you explore your prospect, the higher the possibility of winning consumers. Use LinkedIn at its most: explore the company’s main tasks, the prospect’s responsibilities and duties, your experience with similar businesses, and a “fun fact.” Besides, make sure to spell the potential client’s name right. You can check the name pronunciation on LinkedIn or use PronounceNames.

Congrats, now you know what cold calling is and how it works. Hope that our short step-by-step guide brought you closer to understanding this technique. If this method doesn’t suit your main business purpose, consider using SendPulse’s bulk email service, chatbot creator, SMS, and web push notifications.

Last Updated: 22.03.2023