Guest post by Steve Richard co-founder at Vorsight:
No doubt all of us need to get better about marketing ourselves and our offerings with creative content. But what about maximizing your normal cold calling and prospecting activity?
11 Sales Tips for Cold Calling and Prospecting:
- What is your caller ID strategy?
- You are probably getting the title of your correct contact, but do you know the reporting structure?
- Do you understand why calling into direct lines is so critical and how to find your prospects’ direct lines?
- Have you optimized your time management to capitalize on call windows and phone stalking opportunities?
- Do you revisit your talking points periodically to more effectively tell your story and stand out from the vendor noise and static?
- What conversational lead ins do you deploy to break the telemarketer role and quickly establish rapport as a business development professional?
- Do you overcome your prospects’ initial knee jerk reaction objections to taking a meeting the same way that you overcome objections to closing?
- Are you using non-commercial emails as part of your outreach strategy?
- Have you incorporated social media into your emails and voicemails to add an extra dimension of personalization and customization?
- Are you monitoring process metrics that serve as leading indicators to getting a meeting?
- What qualification questions (like BANT) are you asking to ensure that you spend your time on the prospects that are most likely to buy?
A Sales Prospecting Story.
Many sales reps really struggle with their initial lead in to build rapport. Next time you’re making cold calls try using the title of the person you are calling as an ice breaker, then clarify their responsibilities to show them that you did your homework. This lead in technique can help you convert 50% more initial cold conversations into meetings.
It Plays out on the Phone like this:
“This is David”
“Hi David, Steve Richard from Vorsight. Do you have a sec.”
“Sure, what’s this regarding?”
“It’ll only take a minute to explain. I understand that you are the VP of Marketing of ABC Corp, is that right?”
“Yes, on a good day.”
“And you oversee the online marketing strategy including email marketing, SEO, social media, etc, correct?
“Correct.”
“Are you familiar with Vorsight?”
“Rings a bell, but go ahead.”
“We are an interesting story…”
Now you are free to tell a quick story to get their attention, do some initial qualification and set up a meeting if a fit for both parties.
Give it a try — it works!
If you liked this post you should read the New Rules of B2B Sales by clicking here.
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Steve Richard is the Co-founder at Vorsight and is known to clients as “The Meeting Scheduling Guru”. Steve is responsible for on-site training and development workshops for all Vorsight clients, as well as managing our team of inside sales professionals. Steve works closely with Vorsight sales managers to structure their cold calling teams, and then trains these sales teams how to set up more, better qualified appointments. Steve works with our clients to establish goals, evaluate metrics and analyze results.
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I have read your blogs and comments before. Some are interesting. With this post I am confused – What are the 11 tips for Cold Calling and Prospecting? These are 11 questions that are worth addressing for your Cold Calling strategy.
In addition I feel you might be a little way off the mark with your story example. Yes a great tip for breaking the ice and making them feel it is a call relevant to them – but what about application and making it relavant? Your role play example could have benefited from a continuation to support your 50% more appointments statement.
Look forward to reading more.
@Michael: I'm sure Steve will chime in with his thoughts too, but here is my take on your question. The 11 tips are the result of answering the questions presented by Steve. Take question #4 for example — do you know the best times to call your prospects? For most industries the times are between 7:30 am and 9:30 am and 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm. Track your calls, connects, meetings, and opportunities to understand your best times. When you answer these questions you will see an increase in your conversions to meetings because you will be practicing strategies that have been proven to work. Sales tips they are indeed!
There are many ways to make your call relevant to your prospects and more of a warm call then cold call. Linkedin is one of the best social media tools to use and a simple Google search can dig up conversation gold. InsidveView is a really cool Sales 2.0 company that delivers actionable info and sales alerts right in your CRM — pretty cool stuff and worth checking out. I also like Jigsaw for finding direct lines and emails for prospects. Give it a try. Hope this helps.
Michael: I appreciate your post. Let me address your comments in turn.
1. I structured these sales tips as 11 questions for three reasons
a) the answers depend on the cold calling situation and are specific to each organization
b) the questions are intended to get you thinking and collaborating with peers to find your own best practices
c) I didn't have enough space to elaborate on each point!
With Chad's go ahead, I'm more than happy to elaborate on a few points where readers want to see more. Pick a number, and I'll throw a bunch of tactics out there.
2. This "50% more meetings" statistic comes from one of our clients who sells to government contractors. They have a well defined buying center and need to talk to executives with a very specific role and set of responsibilities. Previously they tried to open the conversation with a little joke or by launching right into the pitch. Once we flipped them over to asking if the prospect has a sec, then clarifying title and responsibilities, booked meetings jumped 50%.
In all of our training classes we make live prospecting and cold calls on speakerphone as if we are the client company. We also have a team of 20 people in our Arlington, VA offices doing outsourced cold sales meeting setting for about 30 more clients. We practice what we preach and do this stuff day in and day out. When I say that a technique works or a technique fails, please know that there are literally thousands of calls supporting the claim. The best part of all is that there are myriad techniques that work differently for each person calling – in that way there are a lot of right answers so you have to find your own path!
@Trish: I like to feature different posts with varying viewpoints because it gets discussion going — much like on this post.To your point, it is always best to know as much about your prospects or buyers as possible. The more info you have the better the opening conversation will be if you use it wisely.
This easily ties into Sales 2.0. There are many companies that actively use lead generation specialists that qualify leads and fill the top of the sales funnel. They cold call — a lot. For some organizations this reduces their cost of sale because they are not paying their high cost sales reps with non-sales activities, it is incorporated into their sales process, and it works. Other organizations choose to outsource this to companies like Vorsight or ConnectandSell. Different viewpoints and different strategies.
Thanks for your comment.!
Hmmmm…. with all due respect to Steve (and he does run a great business!) I have to say that I am surprised to see this post on a Sales 2.0 blog. First, you annoy the prospect by asking them the most obvious questions about their title and role and then you immediately transition the conversation to being all about you? What happened to having a conversation that creates value for the buyer, what happened to trigger events, what happened to showing that you understand the buyer's business and pain? OK, this works for setting introductory meetings but what happens if you want more than that and need to establish credibility and launch your own sales process? Bring me back to an effective Sales 2.0 process with this…. am I dense?
Trish – totally agree with you on sales 2.0. You need to understand the prospect's business, pain, trigger events, etc. before you attempt to do any of this. That said you can have the ability to unearth all the pain in the world, but still be unable to have those little hooks that get your prospect willing to listen to you in the first place to let you uncover the pain. My 'tips' are for that bit before you kick in with sales 2.0. Call it cold calling 2.0. It still brings to bear all of the sales 2.0 ideas but gives you the ability to exercise those skills with a targeted audience. The 'all about you' part only lasts 30 seconds until you can transition the conversation to questions and make it about them. You have to establish some credibility before coming with questions otherwise you are just coming from left field and will hear a dial toine pretty fast. I know because I make a ton of calls!
So many salespeople living in the day to day of sales 2.0 still struggle with these opening skills. I'm pretty sure that's why Chad wanted to post this – it gets to the heart of some of the down in the trenches stuff that salespeople still need. I agree with all of the ideas in this blog. These skills are only meant to compliment everything here.
My biggest challenge is still in figuring out who to call from the 10K of potential prospects. A number of companies I know rely on such triggers as management change, M&A, etc. as their entry attempts into new accounts and use for their call lists. Do you have suggestions on how to best integrate this concept with tactics you mention? Further, do you know of companies that offer sales trigger alert services (there is inside view – but they are not accurate; and http://www.ctosonthemove.com – but they are only IT execs-focused)? Thank you for your input. JS
I agree with you trish
This is great..a great tip I've learned in cold calling is practice. When a sales opportunity presents itself, it’s time to practice. Based on the industry for which you will be meeting, make a list of questions, potential challenges and possible solutions. Keep in mind that every situation is unique, but there are always similarities. Practice does make perfect, and can create the perfect sale. Find more at http://www.top1percentclub.com.
I think the best tip is to be yourself, establish an relationship with the people your calling. When it clicks there are opportunities for making business. When there isn't a click, strategy may help you setting up an appointment but probably your not going to make business.
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