Cold Calling Tips When Making Cold Calls For Your Business
Cold calling refers to the process of calling individuals, who may become potential clients, on behalf of your business to promote your products and services to them. Cold calling can be quite an overwhelming task, but there are numerous tips for you to follow, to make it a little bit easier for you as well. Learn more about cold calling by reading on through this article.
1. Focus your call on your client.
One of the most important cold calling tips for you to remember is this: When you are cold calling, you have to make sure that you focus your call on your client. Remember that not everyone is going to give you even five minutes of their time. Do not waste time and chances by spending too much time talking about yourself. After the initial introduction, jump right in and ask the person on the other line questions.
In this manner, you are immediately engaging yourself with your listener, and you do not bore them out with opening spiels that are too long. It is only when they ask you follow up questions about yourself that you should dwell on this matter. If they don’t, use the time wisely to try and win their full attention.
2. Call prospects right after they open your email.
Usually, the process of cold calling doesn’t begin with the call itself. It goes way back, to that time when you first sent them that marketing email. Many software and applications allow you now to check when the recipient has first opened the email that you sent. Do sign up to these software, so that you can immediately get notified of when the recipient has opened the mail. Right after opening the email, directly call that same recipient as well. There are higher chances of gaining positive results when you do this technique.
If you do not have any of this software on hand, give it at least three to seven days after sending your email for you to call that prospect as well. This timeframe is short enough for them to still remember your email but long enough to give them ample time to open the same, in case it took them longer than usual to check their email.
3. Plan your conversation ahead of time.
Think of cold calling as if you are courting someone. You do not just send a random text, or a random call, without a plan of how you are going to keep the conversation alive. You should do this technique in cold calling. Following your schedule of prospects that you are going to call, take some time to research on crucial information about them, such as:
- Data that is public enough, so that they do not get creeped out or suspicious as to why you have so much private information about them.
- Use this information as a conversation starter, and to get the call going. Apart from this, do plan your questions as well. Ask yourself: “If the prospect says yes, how do I respond? If the candidate is negative, how do I try and turn the conversation around to be more positive?”
Never start a call without planning strategically, as this will only result in wasted calls, which could’ve been time spent on another prospect who might’ve ended up with a more positive response.
4. Create an outline of the information that you will talk about.
One of the essential tips for you to remember in cold calling is not to sound too scripted and robotic. Let’s face it: if you received a cold call from someone who is too scripted, don’t you just get irked out immediately, and also tempted to drop the call? You certainly wouldn’t want the same thing to happen to you.
Hence, in cold calling, never memorize a script. What you can do instead is for you to create an outline of all the critical and relevant information about your product or service that you have to introduce to the listener on the other end. When you have an outline, you achieve the following goals:
- You can cover all the necessary information; hence, your call is effective
- You refrain from having unnecessary pauses, simply because you still have to think long and hard about what you are going to say
5. Avoid selling too much on your very first call.
The process of cold calling also doesn’t end with just one call. For you to be very useful, you will need to make numerous follow-up calls as well, especially if, after the first call, the result seemed hopeful or positive. One of the most essential advice that you should remember is never to sell too much on your very first call to a potential client.
On your first call, you should focus first on building rapport and a relationship. Be friendly and engaging, and try to win the prospect’s heart so that you can make more calls for you to start selling your products and services.
Conclusion
As difficult and daunting as the task of cold calling may seem, do remember that the rewards of gaining potential clients will always be worth all the extra effort that you put in. Winning the hearts and the time of clients you are talking with may not always be easy. Hopefully, these tips can help you greatly in achieving success in your cold calling endeavors. Now, all you have left to do is to pick up that phone and start making those calls.
