Warming Up a Cold Call

I have seen many articles, blogs, and books professing to help sales people never cold call again. I like the idea myself. In fact, I wish people would give me business without ever writing a proposal or having another meeting again. Unfortunately as the old cliché goes: “Sales is a contact sport.”

Networking, publicity, great websites etc. are all great tools for generating warm leads. What happens if you need to double the size of your sales pipeline in 30 days? Unless you have a huge database already or a considerable advertising and marketing budget the cold still is an invaluable tool. With that said here are many variables that need to be addressed before this prehistoric version of SPAM becomes a useful sales tool.

The cold call isn’t dead; it’s just grown up and has become more sophisticated. Today’s executive is busier than ever. Their e-mail inbox is overflowing with mission critical messages and topped off with an extra helping of SPAM. They’re overbooked, and getting pitched on the phone, fax, PDA, PC and every other communications tool imaginable.

We need to get above the noise, and enter the prospects world with a different positioning than “another pitch artist telemarketer.” At the end of the day it’s an art. Everything from tonality, and time of day to pre-call research and how you handle their first question is critical. Most cold call strategies focus on volume almost exclusively; focus on value and people instead. Here are a couple of things to do to warm up your call:

1) Talk to the right person

This seems like its so common sense that I shouldn’t even mention it. Instead of saying “talk to the right person,” maybe I should say “stop kidding yourself.” It feels good to make a whole bunch of calls sometimes; but if they’re to non-decision makers just realize you’re just doing it for your own entertainment and self delusional reasons. It looks good on our call sheet in month one.

We might even put these prospects in our funnel. In a couple of months it will become obvious to us and those were accountable to that our funnel is full of fluff. Spend the time researching and finding real decision makers. Spend the time networking with people that connect you with or at least inform you about decision makers. Spend it servicing existing clients. Go a read a book even. Non decisions makers drain our energy, and time. Stop calling non-decision makers.

2) Ask Permission

When you prospect answers the phone, introduce yourself briefly and then ask them if you’ve caught them in the middle of something. More often then not they’ll make the time for you right away or give you a time to talk to them later. The alternative is to launch immediately into a sales monologue where your prospect says hello. This usually results in them checking their e-mail and their watch until you stop to take a breath. When you stop to breath they politely interject and request that you send something by post or e-mail or more directly tell you they’re not interested. The reason? You forgot to ask permission.

3) Delete in advance

Prospects have a tendency to delete cliché’s when we call them. I once had a senior executive for a fortune 500 company tell me “If I have one more person call me and tell me they’re going to save me time and money I’m going to lose it.” Sales people, especially those selling in the same industry or region tend use the same jargon and value proposition, often laden with useless terms and acronyms that prospects don’t care for anyway. We say we provide a “value-added”- “end to end” -“scalable” telecommunications solution, and that we have a “customer centric philosophy.” And all they hear is that we’re in “Telecommunications.”

Get rid of the jargon, resist the temptation to pull buzz words off competitors web-sites or from the latest flavor of the month business book. Simplify, differentiate, hire a writer to help you expand your corporate vocabulary if need be.

4) Get into the long-term mind-set

In reference to point number 2, when we ask for permission to chat with them our real goal is not to close them in most cases. Our goal is to set the stage and begin the development of the relationship. Cold-calling is planting seeds, not harvesting a database. Close them, but not on the deal, on the next step and then get off the phone sooner than later.

5) Use a rifle not a shotgun

Simply put; know who wants and uses your stuff. Break down a set of criteria that can define your ideal client industries, regions, and behaviors. Know their core pains, history, needs, names, details, trends etc. before picking up the phone. Become an authority on your ideal customer. Use that information to find more ideal candidates and spend 80% of your time, energy, money, ability, and reputation calling those types of clients.

6) Know why

Before picking up the phone figure out why you are calling, from the clients perspective. Ask the question what benefit, insight, or value can I legitimately bring to this prospect today? If it’s just to flog products or services; don’t pick up the phone. Know why it’s important to them and what it can do for them. It can be anything from solving a critical business problem to just making them laugh. Remember, the more value you add today to the relationship the more receptive they will be to answering our call tomorrow.

Shane Gibson is President of Knowledge Brokers International Systems Ltd, and can be reached at shane@kbitraining.com or 604-331-4471.