Introduction to Cold Calling Techniques
Although Cold Calling for sure is a thankless job, yet cold calling techniques are one of the most efficient ways to gather new customers and prospects for your business. Cold Calling techniques are equally exciting as well as terrifying but the feel a sales rep gets after a successful sale via a cold call is really priceless. Since the rapid increase of the online channel of sales and marketing, cold calling has really taken a backseat. However, if performed properly cold calling is still a hugely viable option for marketing even today.
In my current article, I am going to teach you at least 10 ways by which you’ll be able to negate your fear and in turn to make it a really cold calling success rate and viable mode of marketing. From reading how and whom to call to talking aggressively and appropriately over the phone, my article will cover each and every aspect of cold calling success rates. So, get ready to overcome your cold calling fears from now onwards and read on to become a master cold caller.
10 most important cold calling techniques
Here are the 10 most important cold calling techniques are as follows:
1. Must know to whom is the call for
The first cold calling technique is the well-known fact that without knowing to whom the call is intended for, no cold caller can do the job perfectly. Having the knowledge of the intended recipient of the call helps the caller significantly in making the right pitch in his/her calls and also the right approach to follow.
A part of this good approach also involves, knowing in prior what the company deals in, what is the role of the employee to whom you intend to call, and the issues they are facing in their respective companies. One of the finest ways considered to gather more info about your prospect is through the Google Search results. Also, browsing through their social media posts, forum posts and other similar information available on the web helps to know better about them. It is presumed that the cold calling service will possesses decent web and research skills before making his calls.
2. Keep a Plan instead of a Script
In the second cold calling technique gone by, it was considered really useful to have a script and recite it when you make your call as a cold calling service. My friend, those days are gone! In the present scenario, it is much rather beneficial to have a plan by means of research and analysis and approach your prospect by means of that. Moreover, just reciting a pre-constructed script on your recipient without using any brains would sound you like a robot and maybe a fool!
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Thus, it is highly advisable that you as a cold calling service is to keep a framework for your cold calls which can also provide you with flexibility and structure. Sometimes, it is commonly observed that there come spontaneous rejections which can be positively dealt with only if you possess a plan rather than a script.
3. Do not get upset by rejections
As cold calling techniques, you absolutely must be used to rejections. It is a part and parcel of this profession and it’s also true that you’ll be faced with rejections more times than not. This is because people most often are skeptical about you and your product and don’t really trust your brand for that matter too.
Don’t let rejection become an obstacle for you, instead consider it as a challenge that you still need improvements on your product and need to also refine your procedures over the course of time.
A piece of advice: Next time when your prospect says ‘no’ to your product, don’t just bang the phone down. Instead, ask him why not? This would tell you a great deal about why most respondents reject you and thus a chance to improve on it.
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4. Stand while you make the calls
It is a good idea to remain in a standing position whilst on cold calling techniques. It is so because the prospect to whom you are calling does understand your confidence level and his decision is more or less affected by that. Not only does a standing posture give you additional energy, it also makes your voice clearer and more convincing for the prospects.
Yes, agreed that this sounds a bit weird and like a psychological gimmick but in essence, it is not. The best strategy is to act in the way as the person by whom you get influenced and try to imitate his voice pitch and tone.
5. Identify their objections
There are bound to be numerous rejections and objections to your offer. Seldom does a turns out to be cold calling success rates on the first attempt. Firstly, you have to understand that there’s nothing drastically wrong with your approach, it’s just another way of enquiring about your products and offerings. The best way to deal with objections is to know in advance what they’ll be and prepare a decent answer to counter them. It works the same way, as you prepare for a debate competition. You try to know all the possible objections to your statement and prepare accordingly.
Each objection can actually be turned into an opening. For example, the “Too expensive” argument can be countered by explaining in detail the features of your product and its quality. The “Already appointed someone” argument can be countered by explaining how your offerings can make them better.
An objection is really an opportunity to reinforce with your prospect that you are not just like another cold calling service and that your products are much better and less expensive than the competitors’. Turning objections into persuasion is really the key to effective cold calling.
6. Get used to ‘No’
Firstly, it is important to understand that a ‘no’ doesn’t always mean rejection. It’s sometimes almost a reflex reaction of people as soon as they come to know that you’re a salesperson. Regardless of the utility or quality of your product, people would most likely say ‘no’, since they are used to saying it.
The important thing here is that you shouldn’t always consider the ‘no’ as a plain rejection. Rather, treat it as an invitation to ask more questions and know more about your prospects. Don’t let it become a signal to apologize and hang up the call. Many times a prospect is actually interested in your product but had said no out of hand. You must recognize those prospects and persuade them more aggressively in order to get the ‘yes’ you would so much love to hear.
It’s true that some novice cold callers are afraid of hearing ‘no’ and often give up on the first attempt. What really must be the approach is that you should take the ‘no’ as an opportunity to just be more verbose with your prospect and get to know more about them.
7. Learn to deal with the ‘Gatekeepers’
If you are in the Business-Business (B2B) area of sales, you would very often come across some administrative and blue-collar officials who are commonly termed as ‘Gatekeepers’. The role of these people is to avoid direct contact between you and your prospect. They would virtually ‘stand at the gate’ before you could meet your prospect. However, there’s not much to worry about as in this article I would teach you exactly how to deal with such ‘Gatekeepers’.
The first thing to remember is that ‘Gatekeepers’ are just as human as you and I. In other words, they could be bypassed with some psychological tactics that work almost immediately. A good tactic to use in order to get past the ‘gatekeepers’ is to act as unsure of whom you’re seeking and subsequently request them to put you online to someone from the department where your prospect belongs to.
Believe it or not! This tactic works more often than not since the ‘Gatekeepers’ are themselves tired of several pushy salespersons and if you ask for a specific individual they are quite willing to help in order to save themselves from the task.
8. Be familiar with your product thoroughly
Some of the prospects are charmed by your product’s price, some fall to the design and looks, some are fond of your sales pitch and persuasiveness. Although it’s not necessary to know about your product beforehand always, however, if you do it’s very useful. This is because some customers really want to know the technical details of your product before they buy. This is very true for the products involving IT and business process consulting.
For that cold calling service, who are in such fields of sales it is highly advised that they also spend some of their time trying to know the technical details and specifications and how they are better than the competitors’ products. They should not look to merely master their selling and marketing skills but be aware of the technical aspects involved as well.
9. Give special offers/discounts
Everyone likes special treatment. Isn’t it? In the same way, your customers like special discounts on their valued products. Offering a special discount or a bonus to a prospect who’s on the fence about using your product is often ‘the’ way of closing this subtle deal. And in most cases, it has been observed that it is the exclusivity of the deal rather than the amount of discount that sways the deal in your favor.
Thus, it is a feasible practice to prepare two or three distinct special discounts or offers like free samples or extra quantities that can be used to lure those indecisive prospects. As a general rule, a five percent discount is all it takes to get an uninterested prospect into your roster of clients.
10. Keep a track of your sales results
Keeping a track of all your sales and related activities is an invaluable habit that is sure to pay off heavily in the long run. Firstly, keeping a track of which sales activities and which don’t you’ll be able to enhance your cold calling success rates over some period of time. Likewise, you must also keep a detailed track of all your calls, completed or incomplete, to quickly analyze the data later.
You must keep a note of all the involved factors such as time of the call, whom you spoke to, size of the company, and the script you used since all make a huge impact on the analysis of data and thus allows for easier comprehension of desired techniques and variables to use.
It is also advisable to use specified CRM software, one of the available options of several of them. A specialized MS-Excel spreadsheet or a basic pivot table can also be used containing your key sales variables. All these allow for a simpler and in-depth analysis of data to find the most optimum variables to employ in your cold calls.
Conclusion
Cold calling may appear scary at first, but if you can overcome your anxiety about rejection and begin viewing objections and queries as opportunities rather than barriers, cold calling will swiftly become your most favored way of acquiring fresh customers and prospects.
If you still are short of motivation or have begun to drop faith in the benefits of cold calling then, you can remind yourself of this remarkable story of Uber. This is one of the best innovative and disrupting cold calling success rates for stories of the recent era. They’ve got an extremely robust technology culture and like to recruit only top engineering graduates from the best institutions.
That’s why it sounds even more incredible, that Uber got into velocity not by leveraging some cutting-edge, revolutionary tech solution but merely by simple orthodox cold calling.
If you want to gather more pertaining to growing your business with the use of cold calling then, wait no further. Read our article and update your knowledge about the concepts and merits of cold calling in the sales profession. Any suggestions/queries are welcome via the comments section below.
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