guide to cold calling - remindermedia · of cold calling and help you master each stage of this...

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THE TECHNIQUES NEEDED TO

CLOSE MORE DEALS

Guide to Cold Calling

[email protected] www.remindermedia.com

INTRODUCTION Let’s face it: the sales industry is a grind. From prospecting to selling, it takes a large amount of patience and skill, and quite possibly a little bit of luck. One aspect of sales that both rookies and seasoned veterans find to be a challenge is cold calling. And we all know that without a solid foundation of cold calling, deals will be few and far between.

2 / Guide to Cold Calling

But don’t let the uphill battle dissuade you. There’s not a one-size fits all method when it comes to mastering the art of cold calling. In fact, with a lot of practice and discovering which tactics work the best for you, you can become a cold-calling machine, and close more deals than you ever imagined.

This ebook will provide a general understanding of cold calling and help you master each stage of this popular prospecting method: before the call, while making the call, and after the call.

Ah, the (sometimes) dreaded, but necessary task of cold calling has been a staple in sales for years. It’s one of the most effective methods of prospecting, and for good reason. It can lead to an influx of new customers and grow your book of business tenfold. However, if it’s not done properly and the deal can’t be closed, you could end up losing out on various monetary opportunities.

Cold calling makes the world go ‘round.

BEFORE THE CALL 4

MAKING THE CALL 9

AFTER THE CALL 13

Contents


THINK OF A SALES CALL AS A PERFORMANCE.

BEFORE THE CALL


Emotions define us as humans. From forming important relationships to improving our communication skills, emotions are necessary (whether we like them or not). But, did you realize that emotion plays a large role in cold calling? Possessing and displaying positive energy, confidence, passion, and respectfulness will help you close the deal from start to finish.

It all begins with emotional intelligence. According to Psychology Today, emotional intelligence is “the ability to identify and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others.” This means that a successful salesperson must be able to keep their own emotions in check while also being aware of how the prospect is feeling through-out the call. Sound challenging? It shouldn’t. If you approach every call with positive energy, confidence, passion, and respect, maintaining a high-level of emotional intelligence will become second nature.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IS “THE ABILITY TO IDENTIFY AND

MANAGE YOUR OWN EMOTIONS AND THE EMOTIONS OF OTHERS.”

Possessing Emotion



Positive Energy

If you’ve ever had a morning where you feel like you could crawl back into bed for hours, you’re not alone. While lack of energy can plague the best of us, there’s no room for it in sales. A salesperson must be enthusiastic and excited to get on the phone. Over the phone, your prospect can’t see you. Meaning, you don’t have the luxury of using body language to convey how you’re feeling. This is where energy comes into play. Positive energy is contagious. Being energetic from the beginning to the end will help to keep the prospect engaged throughout the duration of the call.

If you find yourself lacking energy make sure that you are feeding your body, mind, and spirit. This can be in the form of exercising, meditating, reading, and attending a conference. If you feel like your energy is out of sorts, it’s typically because one of those areas needs your attention.

Confidence

If you lack confidence it’s because you lack knowledge, and knowledge comes from training. When you understand a subject you can talk about it all day without fear. Consider asking yourself if you could teach a class on what you are calling about. If not, you need to put in more hours of practice so that you can enter the field with absolute confidence. Think about it this way: a professional athlete like LeBron James would never play in a game without preparing, and you should never pick up the phone without doing such either.

Passion

Passion falls along the same lines of confidence. If you don’t have a deep-seated passion for what you’re selling, your prospects will find it harder to see the value. You must be passionate about the results. You must live and breathe how your product or service can make a difference in someone’s life. You can’t fake passion, but it’s important to keep in mind that being overly passionate can come across as fake and deter prospects from buying.

Respect

Respect is quite possibly the most important aspect of emotion in cold calling. Sure, being respectful seems like a no-brainer, but it often goes overlooked. Think about the last time you received a sales call. Was the salesperson respectful of your time? If the answer is no, then there’s a good chance that you didn’t move forward with the purchase. It’s crucial to understand that your prospect’s time is valuable. Letting them know that you’ll be quick and the reason for your call can make a world of difference. However, this doesn’t mean that you always let them off of the phone when they tell you that they’re busy. Instead, you enter the phone call respecting not only the prospect’s time, but also their pain points. Having respect for what someone is going through allows you to better tailor your pitch to solve their needs.


Whether you consider yourself a thespian or not, you’re aware that in order for any performance to go off with-out a hitch, you must practice your lines. In fact, in order to nail down a winning pitch, you must spend countless hours refining, practicing, and perfecting your script. Here are three things that you should always keep in mind when building your pitch from the ground up.

YOU MUST SPEND COUNTLESS HOURS REFINING, PRACTICING, AND PERFECTING YOUR SCRIPT.

Developing a Script


Know Your Audience

You wouldn’t perform in front of an audience who you knew nothing about, right? Well then you shouldn’t jump into a sales call without knowing anything about your prospects. Your script must be geared toward your prospects. Which means that you have to be knowledgeable about both your prospects and their industry. Do your research and determine what the current state of the industry is, how it has changed over the years, and where it is headed. It’s also important to develop three to five go-to questions regarding pain points that your prospects may be experiencing. This will give you more insight regarding the individual prospect and help you get to the point of the phone call more quickly—a definite win-win for both parties.

Practice Makes Perfect

As mentioned previously, practicing your script is advantageous if you want to close a deal. But, how do you go about practicing? Fortunately, there are a few different ways that you can perfect your skills. The first is role-playing. Grab a friend, family member, or even a coworker, and run through your script. Someone close to you is more likely to provide constructive criticism. Another way is to record yourself using either a voice recorder or your smartphone. This is a good method to ensure that your voice inflection and tonality are up to par. Remember: if you wouldn’t listen to yourself, who would?

Regardless of how you choose to practice, it’s important to remember that a good sales caller knows exactly what’s going to happen during a call. Which can only happen if you put in the time before you dial. Keep in mind that an actor has never won an Academy Award for just reciting their script—it takes hours of practice. You must first memorize your script, and then make it your own by interjecting your personality into it.

Prepare for Objections

Objections—every prospect has them, and every sales caller needs to be prepared. When it comes to developing your script, have two to three rebuttals to common objections prepared beforehand. One effective rebuttal to have on hand at all times is current success stories. This can be anything from a video testimonial to hard statistics about how your product or service has helped a current client—anything to convince the prospect to move forward with the buying process. Preparing for objections will help you to avoid sounding scripted during the call.

IT’S TIME FOR THE MAIN SHOW—THE CALL.

MAKING THE CALL



You’ve spent countless hours ensuring that your emotions are in check and developing a script, and now it’s time for the main show—the call. But, before you press dial you need to take into account that sales is a numbers game. You’re going to make an abundance of calls. Sales is 90 percent rejection, and understanding that going into the call will help you find success.

Once you’ve come to terms with the numbers, you need to forge ahead to ensure that when you do get a prospect on the phone, you are persistent and consistent.

Persistence

In cold calling, being persistent is crucial to your success, especially when it comes to your follow-up tactics. According to a study done by Telenet and Ovation Sales Group, on average, it takes eight follow-up calls to reach a prospect. Since the average rep stops calling after 2.6 calls, you need to dial at least six more times just to get your prospect on the other line. However, what’s even more shocking is that 92 percent of salespeople give up after four “nos,” but 80 percent of prospects say “no” four times before they say “yes” (Marketing Donut). Meaning that if you don’t possess persistence and aren’t in it for the long haul, the hard work that you put in before the call will go in vain.

Consistency

Sure, you’ve practiced your script until you’re blue in the face, but what about putting it to use while you’re on the phone? To put it lightly, your script has to be present during every phone call. If you don’t utilize your script during your calls, you’ll never be able to determine what works and what doesn’t work. Not practicing the same habits on a consistent basis during every phone call will result in not having a benchmark for you to measure your success. Being consistent in your script and the number of dials that you make is the only way that you’re going to develop a winning strategy.

Persistence & Consistency

DON’T

STOP

How many times have you given an incredible sales pitch only for your conversation to come to a dead end as soon as you ask the prospect their thoughts? You expect them to be so enthralled with what you’re pitching that they’ll just willingly hand over their credit card information. And unfortunately, this doesn’t happen. Instead, you have to guide the prospect on the journey and assume the close every step of the way, even when asking for the prospect’s order feels awkward. Prospects often don’t like to buy because it’s a change that they have to make a decision about. But in reality, they’re only able to make a decision once you ask for their order. You should be keeping track of how many sales you asked for on a daily basis as metric. Once you ask, the call switches from a presentation to an actual sales call.

The assuming the close mentality is one that revolves around both confidence and passion. It’s being so confident in what you’re selling that you already know that you’re creating a solution for your prospect’s needs. However, it’s important to recognize that your assumption should be more assertive than aggressive. Being overly aggressive can hinder your progress and ultimately deter the prospect from moving forward with the purchase.

YOU HAVE TO GUIDE THE PROSPECT ON THE JOURNEY AND ASSUME THE CLOSE EVERY STEP OF THE WAY.

Assuming the Close



The Either-Or Close

With the either-or close, you don’t give prospects the option. McDonald’s utilizes this tactic with every order. They automatically ask you if you would like an order of medium or large fries and they don’t directly give you an option to say no. They’re always assuming that you want a side order. This tactic can be useful when you’re trying to set up a presentation and give the prospect two options for a date and time.

The Yes Close

With the yes close, you focus on reiterating the benefits that your product or service brings to the table. After you detail what you’re bringing to the table in terms of value, you then assume the close. For example, you can ask the prospect, “are you looking to increase your referrals and size of your transactions?” Naturally, they’ll say yes. Once you receive the yes, you can move forward with setting up their account.

YOUR PROSPECT’S FIRST “NO” ISN’T THE END OF THE ROAD.

AFTER THE CALL



You were prepared for the call and asked all the right questions, only to hang up with no deal. While the first thing you might want to do is slam your headset down in defeat, it’s important to recognize that regardless of how frustrating this situation may feel, it happens. Fortunately, there are a few things that you can do immediately following the phone call to ensure that the next conversation you have with your prospect will end with you collecting their payment information.

Staying Organized

We all know that staying organized is easier said than done. But, when it comes to a sales call, it’s imperative that you spend adequate time organizing your notes. Once the call is finished, be sure that you’re taking good notes in your CRM. Include unique talking points, how the call ended, and specific objections. The more detail that you include, the more leverage you’ll have during the next phone call.

Being Motivated

Let’s face it: if you’re in sales, you’ll lose countless deals. Unfortunately, it’s part of the territory. However, it’s how you bounce back from the rejection that matters the most. Possessing the ability to put a loss behind you and start from scratch every time you pick up the phone will help you to close more deals in the long run. The only way that you’re going to succeed in sales is by staying motivated, having a positive outlook, and using your failures to find success.

A common motivation exercise for sales callers involves displaying two jars on your desk. One jar is filled with money, and the other is labeled “commissions” and is empty. Every time that you receive a no from a prospect, take the money from the one jar, and place it in your commissions jar. Doing such will help ingrain in your mind that every no you hear is taking you one step closer to your commission.

Organization & Motivation


Your prospect’s first “no” isn’t the end of the road. In fact, it leaves the door wide open for you to reach out again. It’s your responsibility as a salesperson to set the necessary reminders to follow up via phone and email.

Following up via phone is a no-brainer. But, ensuring that you pull out all of the stops can make a world of difference. Before you call, review your notes from the previous conversation as a reminder of what you learned about the prospect during the first call. While on the phone, use your talking points from your notes as leverage to begin the conversation, and then reiterate the value of what you’re offering, and continue to work on solving their initial objection.

Another popular and effective follow-up method is email. An email is a more subtle way to follow up with prospects, and remind them of your product or service. Again, it’s a good idea to review your notes from the initial phone call to help you formulate your message. In addition, your email should contain valuable resources—video testimonials, pdf samples, ebooks, etc.—that can help to solve your prospect’s pain points and overcome their initial objection.

FOLLOWING UP IS VITAL IF YOU WANT TO CONTINUE TO STAY TOP OF MIND AND EVENTUALLY CLOSE THE DEAL.

Following Up

CONCLUSION At the end of the day, it’s safe to assume that cold calling will forever be a significant piece of prospecting. While developing a cohesive strategy will take trial and error, determining the tactics that work the best for you will help you to close more deals, and ultimately take your business to the next level.


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guide to cold calling - remindermedia · of cold calling and help you master each stage of this...

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