This is the blog transcript of our video “Cold Calling Tips and Tricks!”. If you’d like to see more of our videos, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel here.
Cold calls may have the word “cold” in them, but that doesn’t mean they need to make you feel that way. Even in today’s internet-saturated world, cold calling remains an effective way to get new business. In fact, with all the resources we have at our fingertips, you’re able to make your cold calls more effective now than ever before.
If you’ve been watching our videos over the past several weeks, you know we’ve been trumpeting the benefits of cold calling and have been working to help you find value in them. With today’s video, we’re going to round this topic off by giving you a handful of tips and tricks to help you make your cold calls as effective as they can be.
Hey everyone, I’m Ian Campbell, CEO of Mission Suite. Before we jump into today’s video, do me a favor and hit the subscribe button and ring the bell so that you’re notified whenever we post new videos.
For the past ten years, I’ve been helping Mission Suite clients leverage their contacts in ways they didn’t think possible. Cold calls are one of the many ways they’ve learned to do that. If you’re building a network of professional peers, at some point, you have to make a cold call. For the past month, we’ve been informing you on the best ways to make cold calls as painless as possible.
Today, we’ll boil down everything we’ve taught you into an easy-to-digest list.
Don’t let the term “cold call” scare you.
Seriously, it’s just two syllables, and far too often, we associate the wrong things with it.
The reality is that we make cold calls all the time. We even make them to people we know. In fact, the most successful calls are made to people we know.
In order for a cold call to be a cold call, the person your calling just can’t be expecting it. They may know you, but they aren’t expecting the call. So, how does this affect anything?
Think about it. When tasked with the idea of making cold calls, many of us head to our desks with a pit in our stomachs. We look into companies in our industry and the people connected to them. People we likely don’t know. We ignore the simple fact that we already have contacts in our digital Rolodexes. Don’t start with the unknowns. Start with those people you already know. You’re already setting yourself up for more success there. And success brings with it more success.
And we can’t ignore the positivity it brings to us mentally. If a cold call doesn’t have to be from some nebulous company, it instantly brings with it fewer unknowns and a lot less dread, making you more likely to actually follow through with your cold calls.
For more information on this point, be sure to check out our previous video on the difference between cold calls and warm calls.
Create tiers of REALISTIC goals for each call.
We all tend to have an all-or-nothing mindset.
You can look at something like fitness as an example. If we can’t work out five days a week, many of us don’t even bother. Or if we can’t do it for a full thirty uninterrupted minutes, we may call the complete day a bust.
The same goes for cold calls. We go in there shooting for the moon.
That’s all well and good, but when we miss, we don’t leave alternative goals for us to fall back on. So, even if we get close, we could leave a potentially great call with nothing to show for it.
That “failure” leads to decreased morale, and with it, less productive calls. But if you have a set of tiered goals focus on, then you can put a stop to that negative spiral right away.
You start with your most important goal. If your call isn’t leading in a direction to you achieving that goal, you can fall back on to priority two. And so on until you end up with your least important priority. For more detailed information on that, I highly recommend you check out our video on Cold Call Anxiety.
Why is the tiered list so important?
Two things.
One, it ensures that you walk away from the call with something. If you’re putting in the effort to make these calls, you may as well make them as effective as possible. Information is power to help grow your business, so the more information you have, the more likely you are to be successful.
It also helps you out mentally. If you aren’t going into each call with the expressed desire to reach the moon, you likely won’t be as stressed going into each call, as there is less pressure. This will not only make you more relaxed on your call, but it’ll make you more likely to make these calls more frequently, increasing your overall chances of success.
Talk more, listen less.
I know what you’re thinking.
“What? Isn’t a salesperson supposed to listen?” And you’re 100% right. That is indeed what a salesperson should do during a typical business conversation. But with a cold call, your goals should be different.
As mentioned above, you shouldn’t be shooting for the moon. That’s a recipe for failure and disappointment. Instead, your main goal is just to get a meeting. It’s there that your standard salesperson practices of listening and finding solutions to your potential client’s pain points should be followed.
But in a cold call, things are a bit different. You are intruding on the caller’s time. They weren’t expecting you and aren’t in the mindset to unload all their problems on you.
So, instead of asking them hard-to-answer questions, pelt them with your sales pitch. Make them listen and intrigue them so that they eagerly set up your next call. Once there, they’ll be more open to whatever it is you’re trying to sell them.
I don’t know about you, but that last one was a huge eye-opener for me. In my attempts to be as helpful as possible, I likely set my early cold calls up for rampant failure because the potential client wasn’t in the right mindset to tell me all their pain points.
Let us know in the comments down below if you made a similar mistake in the past. And don’t forget to hit that like button if you’re getting something out of this video!
Make a ritual
No, I don’t mean lighting candles and building a shrine to the cold calling gods — though, I guess if that works for you, go for it.
What I really mean by this is that you need to find a way to regularly get yourself into the cold call mindset. I don’t know about you, but with anything, I find it useful to set a ritual whenever getting into something important.
Just like throwing on your headphones can help put you in a deep work mindset much quicker, find some sort of ritual for before you start your cold calls. This will help you hit the ground running as soon as you pick up that phone and start dialing. It could be something as simple as listening to a song or video, but whatever it is, over time, your brain will start to associate it with work, and it’ll help flip that switch in your head to up your instant productivity.
For more information on getting yourself psyched and motivated to jump into your cold calls, check out our video from a few weeks back!
Create your cold calling script.
If it isn’t clear by this point, cold calling requires a lot of preparation in order to be successful. The more you’ve done your homework on a potential client, the better off you are. But it also helps to have a script to work off of. That’s where your cold call script comes in.
Sure, you’ll want to cater each call as specifically as possible to whoever you’re speaking to, but a script is really a great way to start. After all, a lot of the benefits of what you’re selling to your potential clients are the same. You’ll also be starting off your conversation in a very similar way, as you will with many cold calls.
And once you have that foundation set, you can find ways to further tailor your template based on all your research. Maybe there has been some turn in the industry that has affected this particular company in a way that works to your benefit. You can work that aspect into your pitch so that you’re more likely to lock down your meeting.
If you want a great place to start, I recommend heading down to the description, clicking the link, and getting access to our cold calling script builder.
This script will help you set the foundation for what you want your calls to be and make the process as painless as humanly possible — for both you and whoever you’re calling.
So, what’re you waiting for? Get your free script builder down below and make 2021 the year you absolutely dominate cold calls!
Hey I hope you got something out of this video. And if you did, go ahead and give it a thumbs up and maybe a share so that others can see it too. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell so that you’re notified whenever we post new videos and while you’re at it, check out these videos too!
We’ll see you next time around!