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So, do you like being in sales? Are you pumped to make your first contact? How do you like to contact your leads? Have you tried out-bounding with cold-calling? Are you a little pissed not knowing what to say on phone?
Trust me when I say this, you're not alone. Most sales professionals who make cold calls are confused about how to proceed once they dial a number. Anticipate objections, learn to take a NO, internalize strategies, and see sales skyrocket.
".. Each call is a learning experience."
An essential part of making best cold sales call possible is knowing what a right definition of a "contact" is. Contact is rather an actual action of contacting your desired decision maker or an influencer within an organization or leaving them a voice message. It is important to define a contact in this manner so that you have discipline to follow through with enough calls to get a sale. If you spoke on phone with VP of Marketing as you intended, then it would count it as "contact". But if you simply spoke with receptionist, that simply does not mean having established a contact. If you spoke with a receptionist several times, but never spoke with a person who could approve your proposal, you wouldn't count those calls as contacts as they didn't further your objectives.
Only a fraction of your outbound calls end-up as sales.
The big mistakes salespeople make on cold calls is simply not doing math. Know how many calls it takes to get a sale, on an average. Also, try to work on the commission money you make on each sale. When you put both of these together, you can figure out how many cold calling it takes to hit your income targets.
For example, let's say you want to earn $120,000 a year. And you earn a commission of $500 per sale. Therefore you need to make 240 sales per year (240 x $500 = $120,000) to achieve your income goal. So you need to make 20 sales per month (20 x 12 = 240).
If you work five days a week, that's about 20 days per month, so you need to make essentially one sale per day that you work. And if it takes you 25 calls to make one sale, then you need to make 500 calls per day.
Know exactly how many calls to make and stay motivated. Getting rejected can hurt, but when you understand that those first few "Nos" were simply laying path for that few first "Yes" you begin to become very powerful on cold calling.
Good sales people overcome objections when they hear them. Great salespeople anticipate them before they even happen. If all you hear is a NO, revise your scripts, revise your leads, do your math before moving on to rest of cold calls.
"… Learn to embrace rejection"
Building your list of leads is incredibly important for-making successful cold calls. You must have a pipeline that is full and healthy, or will run out of people to call on (and won't have anybody to sell to). To build your list quickly, start with friends and family. Make a list of everyone that you know, and make a list of everyone you used to be friends with, even if you don't think they would buy what you're selling.
After all, they could just know somebody and refer them to you. Once you've made list of names, it's time to look for their contact information and put it beside their name if you have it. Most people don't adequately prepare before they make sales calls, especially cold calls. Think about it, you're going to call and interrupt someone's day. You need to have confidence and mindset to overcome any unease and doubt when on phone with them or they will sense it and hang up on you.
".. Listen to your prospects."
Honestly, make sure you are in an sales environment that suits you. Perhaps you enjoy working out of coffee shops, or maybe public places are too loud for your phone calls and you prefer a private office. Maybe you even want to be in a packed room with ten other sales professionals so you can feed off of energy. Specifics don't matter, just as long as your process helps you get prepared.
Avoid making calls when you feel hungover, tired, or angry. Prepare for call by warming up. Do a light exercise like jumping jacks, practice speaking with your voice in a friendly manner, and listen to your favorite music to get pumped up. You want to be enthusiastic and on your A-game when you make cold call. Even if you feel that you are a natural salesperson or that you have ability to create conversations instantly on phone, you should never go into a cold call without a script. The big reason is that you can create a script that is well thought out before hand that will be awe to guide conversation in direction that you want to head.
There are four key elements to a great cold call script: greeting, reason, qualifying, and appointment setting. A greeting should be short and sweet and let them know who you are and what company you're with. Your call should be compelling and be tied to benefits for your prospect.
In qualifying stage, you want to ask questions that determine if they are even in market for your product or interested in pursuing your services. Finally, if it seems like a good prospect, set an appointment with them. Then get off phone. Because here is a key fact about cold calls point is to make an appointment and do your presentation on an agreed upon time, not to sell them on cold call.
Paying close attention to your prospects helps them feel valued.
Even pros need to constantly practice their skills. Don't get too sure of yourself once you've mastered above parts of cold call. Work the routine every day if possible. Ask a fellow salesperson in your company or anyone you trust to give you great feedback on your cold call technique. Even if you live alone in woods, you should talk to walk every day if that is what it takes.
But always make sure you are practicing as a daily discipline. If you do this every day, you'll see your results improve drastically. If you fail to do it, you might just lose that one crucial sale that makes all difference due to your lack of role playing.
"… Stop selling on first contact. "
Being too aggressive about making a sale is one of the surest ways to make a potential customer end your call. While your focus should be on keeping the lead comfortable, not rushing them into anything and simply gauging their interest in what you have to offer them matters.
Ask them how they feel about receiving some additional information about how your products and services can help them and your results will be much better than if you used pushy sales tactics. You can follow up after they have received and reviewed your information, and then proceed to the next step in the sales process.
With that being said, most businesses at times approach cold calling as a old school of thought, and their sales figures can shoot the stars with tried and proven methods. Despite drastic changes in world of digital marketing in recent years, cold calling is still a viable and effective way to make sales.
Good luck, Always stay motivated.