Your Inside Sales team needs help with haveing more success with Cold calling

1. Cold Calling and the Success
Mantra
Balasubramanian Jayaraman
21st May 2012

2. Undoubtedly the first 30/60 seconds
conversation with your Prospect
is very crucial in cold calling.
If you fail to get his attention,
the whole purpose of the call is defeated.
Here are a few ways to improvise your approach
and create a window of opportunity by having
an engaging conversation with your prospects.

3. That’s right, SCRIPT it out.
I am not a great believer in having a script.
I don’t mean the entire call.
Just your opening introduction statement.
Like many people, even I believe that
scripting would lead to people sounding
monotonous in their conversations.
I have tried this in the past to try sounding casual and impulsive approach to
sound more natural.
It may be more natural but ultimately it is far less effective.
You totally, certainly need to have a well scripted introduction to ensure you
make the most of those few vital seconds where the person decides to listen
or drive you off. Remember, if you don’t get their interest here, the call is
DOA.

4. The main purpose of your opener is NOT to establish rapport.
It is NOT to make a new friend.
It is NOT to go into your sales pitch.
And it is NOT to secure a meeting.
The primary objective is to get the client to pay attention and
not hang up the phone for another twenty or thirty seconds. It’s
to hook them and get them interested enough to give you a little
more rope. (See Page #9 to learn how).

5. Do NOT ask “How are you today?”
Survey after survey tells us that prospects think this is a out of
date and insincere question.
And let’s be frank; they are right.
This question reeks of “salesperson” right from the get go and it
puts your prospect on the defensive. If you do this, stop right
now.

6. When you do this, you immediately give your
Prospect a reason to get rid of you.
Instead, use this handy little phrase,
“Brian, if I have caught you at a good time,
what I would like to do is ask you few questions…”
The prospect senses that you’re asking if it’s a good time but what you
are really saying is that you’d like to ask some questions. This is a VERY
good and proven technique.

7. Unexciting! They hear that 20 times a day.
It’s a ridiculous claim and by the way, who cares?
Do you think they actually believe it?
How will that help them solve a hitch they have?
If you want a prospect to sit up and take notice,
use adverbs that describe the problems that you
solve.
For example, you might say, “I work with similar industries or
verticals like yours’ who are worried about their Social Media
ROI.”

8. Remember: Your prospect is not expecting your call.
You are catching him off guard.
Their focus is probably on a completely different
subject.
Therefore your message should be concise and straight to the
point. Tell them exactly why you’re calling and what you want. In
the above example, the reason is extremely clear: “… what I
would like to do is ask you few questions…”

9. Please!. Sadly, this is the most often ignored section of an
opening statement.
This is how you get the prospect to
actually want to LISTEN longer (see Page #4).
When you script your opener put yourself in the client’s shoes
and ask “Why would I care?” You must be able to answer the
question, ‘what’s in it for me?’ The more specific the benefit is,
the better your chances of continuing on. What will working with
you (or buying from you) do for that prospect?

10. Once you’ve established who you are,
the company you work for,
the reason you are calling and
the benefits your provide,
simply ask a question.
This will get the prospect involved and engaged. Most
importantly it will stop you from pitching further. It creates a
dialogue. It eliminates a monologue

11. Every word, every nuance, every syllable, even your tone must
be practiced until it is delivered with absolute conviction.
If you don’t practice, it will sound like your reading from a script.
If you don’t practice say goodbye to continuing the call. If you
don’t practice, you’ll start to wing it and you will dilute the
quality of the call. And that too, will be the end of the call. You’re
on stage. Deliver your lines like a Super star.

12. Stick to the script you’ve developed for the first twenty five live calls.
Don’t change a word.
You’ll be tempted to try and edit after every call.
Note your thoughts but do NOT change it.
It will take that long for you to feel comfortable
with the words and it will take that long
to properly evaluate the prospect’s response.
Only then should you go back and edit your opener. But then only
change one element of the opener. In doing so, you are controlling the
‘variables.’ If you try to revamp the entire thing, you won’t know what
was working and what was not. Change your benefits. Or change the
reason for your call. But do so, one at time and make another twenty
five calls before making any other changes

13. Create a script which covers:
Who you are
Where you are calling from (Company)
The purpose of your call
And benefits to the prospect
Messaging:
Should be clear and concise
Ask one or more questions (Make it interactive)
ALL THE BEST FOR YOUR NEXT COLD CALLING SESSION