We Love Cold Calling!

Lead Generation is a Sales Cycle All Unto Itself

by | Oct 28, 2016 | Cold Calling Tips, Lead Generation

Sales leaders often have unrealistic expectations for their cold calling campaigns. They expect appointments will materialize quickly. They can lose patience, get frustrated, and consider the whole process a waste of time when this doesn’t happen. However, meaningful lead generation, where you are producing appointments with leads that are interested in what you have to offer, doesn’t happen overnight.

Generally, it takes 8-12 touches with C-suite executives before they pay attention! Then it’s a timing issue. Do they require your services at the time of the first conversation?

There’s more to cold calling than getting the appointment. Here’s what is involved in a meaningful cold calling campaign:

List Clean-up – When you begin calling you will find that some list clean-up will be necessary. This includes weeding out companies that are not a good match, as well as updating names, emails and telephone numbers.

Getting to Know You – Keep in mind that your leads don’t know you. Each time you make contact, you are establishing rapport and building a quality relationship.

Collecting Intel – As you make calls you are probing the prospect and collecting information about the company and the challenges that they are facing. This information becomes invaluable in relationship building and certainly in the proposal and closing stages of the sale.

Awareness – While you have learned a lot about the prospect and built rapport with them, the prospect may not be experiencing the pain that is required to make a purchase at that time. If there is no need, there is no sale. But with regular contact over an extended period of time, you will be top of mind when there is a need.

Recycle – It takes several touches before the decision maker is paying attention but it’s a delicate balance between staying in front of prospects and not becoming a nuisance. You start by working your list over a 4-week period. After some time without contact, the list is worked again. We recommend the entire process is repeated three times a year.

You can see how lead generation could be considered a sales cycle all unto itself. Impatience is quickly dismissed when the quality of the leads and appointments is realized.

Getting More Out of Your Sales Efforts

by | Sep 28, 2016 | Best Sales Practices, Cold Calling Tips

Bringing Sales Teams & Cold Callers Together Produces Greater Success.

Many sales organizations have a team of cold callers who feed leads to the sales team. Often the leads or appointments are simply handed over from one team to the other. Your cold calling efforts will be more effective and provide added benefits when you bring these two sets of people together. Collaboration between cold callers and the rest of the team is critical in order to get the most out of your cold calling campaign.

What is needed to make cold calling a successful part of your sales process? It is critical for these two teams to meet to:

  • Discuss first time appointments and opportunities
  • Share key information about the prospects
  • Classify hot, warm and cold leads in the pipeline
  • Identify and address any issues concerning the process
  • Review objective and outcome metrics

It is detrimental to view your cold calling team as a separate silo in your sales and marketing organization. They need to be privy to any discussion about sales strategy, various marketing materials and campaigns, and any market intelligence.

The lead generation team contributes a great deal to the entire effort as well. Cold calling is like a new sales team building a book of business. There will be a lot of information garnered from this effort that can be used in the sales process even when an appointment is not set at that time.

The outset of a cold calling campaign is the time when objectives are discussed, when changes are made to the scripting and when kinks in the process are worked out. An in-depth weekly review ensures that nothing is lost in the mix. As the campaign progresses, it may suffice to meet on a bi-weekly basis.

A lead generation campaign builds over time so success takes time. In addition, its success depends on the complete engagement of your cold calling team with your entire sales organization.

Internalizing Cold Calling Scripts

by | May 25, 2016 | Advice, Cold Calling Tips, Sales Prospecting, Sales Training

Cold calling is an opportunity to probe, build rapport and set the foundation for a long-term relationship. This involves improvising, asking probing questions and reacting to what the prospect is saying. That said, you still need to start with a script. While you don’t want to read it, you do want to use your script to prepare for the call.

 

A well written script will:

  • Remind you of what preparation needs to take place before the call begins
  • Break down the call into steps so you know exactly where you are in the process at any time
  • Provide ways to encourage conversation and get the prospect talking
  • Help you avoid leaving out any questions or areas of information that you need to cover
  • Give ways for probing the prospect to get to their pain points and other critical information and keep the process moving forward
  • Provide reminders for critical pauses in the conversation
  • Provide different call to action scenarios to maximize the outcome of the call

 

When cold calling, you absolutely want to be sure that you have a natural sounding conversation with your prospects. The only way to do this is by internalizing the script. Internalizing means incorporating within oneself as conscious or subconscious, the steps, questions and cues that you need to cover. This can be accomplished by knowing the script inside and out and making it part of you. The way to do this is by practicing.

 

What you don’t want to do is read a list of questions. Approaching the call in this way lacks the impression of genuine interest in what the prospect has to say, and your prospect will quickly lose interest in continuing the process. Reading the script will result in hang-ups, getting less information than you need, or the prospect will blow you off, either in a nice way or not.

 

Customize your scripts to address your particular circumstances and goals, and to address the information known about the prospect. This process of customizing and internalizing scripts is proven to be an effective approach in fulfilling your ultimate goal: setting sales appointments.

Cold Calling Is More Than A Handshake

by | Jan 27, 2016 | Advice, Cold Calling Tips, Sales Prospecting, Sales Training

In networking, a handshake is used to introduce yourself. It conveys a willingness to engage with someone that we don’t know or don’t know well. In the course of networking, we’ve all shaken a countless number of hands. Sometimes it leads to business relationships, but more often than not, it doesn’t.

 

 

Cold calling is like a handshake in that it is a way to introduce yourself to a potential business partner. Like networking, cold calling is the beginning of the sales process. However, the difference is that cold calling is more effective at turning introductions into business.

 

Unlike networking, cold calling, when done correctly, is directed to very specific prospects, with a very targeted message. Cold calling is comprised of a series of specific deliberate questions that engages a conversation about the prospect’s pain. Well-developed cold calling uncovers issues and challenges that can be used to formulate a more productive sales call.

 

Cold calling is a no-pressure conversation. It nurtures the relationship, which a lot of hand shaking can’t do. It is a means of digging deeper so you can learn more about the prospect and they learn more about you. The cold calling process is more productive in bringing in the highly qualified leads that you need.

 

For most people cold calling is the most avoided part of the sales process. Most would rather have root canal than undertake cold calling, but a well executed cold calling process is more productive than hours of networking and shaking hands.

How To Use The Presales Process To Improve Revenue

by | Sep 28, 2015 | Appointment setting services, Cold Calling Tips, Sales Prospecting

If you are looking for growth, (and who isn’t), it’s a good idea to pay more attention to Presales. Presales is key in obtaining, winning and keeping customers. You may not feel this way now but you’ll change your mind when you have a better understanding of what the Presales Process is and what it delivers.

The Presales Process is comprised of three steps:

Research – In the research portion of the Presales Process a list of prospective “ideal customers” – those most likely to buy the company’s products – is developed. Once those prospects are identified, you’ll collect and study relevant information such as product descriptions, prices, and competitor information. This allows you to begin to understand the prospect’s needs, and their potential as a client.

Preparing for the call – The 2nd step involves creating a call strategy and script. Including prequalifying questions in your script helps weed out those that are not a good fit for what you have to offer.  Each script is customized for each prospect.

Making the call and setting the appointment – During the actual call you are not only introducing yourself and the company to the prospect. Much of the call involves actively listening to uncover the needs and wants of the potential customers, as well as determining if they are a fit for your products or services.

The Pre-Sales Process not only identifies leads. It is an important step in building rapport and establishing the relationship with the potential client. It uncovers important information about the prospect’s business, such as goals and challenges. It is the groundwork from which the sales proposal will be made and the sale will be won. The Pre-Sales Process makes your sales team more efficient and armed and ready to close the sale.

Putting effort into your Pre-Sales Process is worthwhile. The Harvard Business Review sums it up as follows: “Souping up the presales engine can yield a five-point improvement in conversion rates, a 6–13% improvement in revenue, and a 10–20% improvement in the speed of moving prospects through the sales process.”

The upshot is that a well-run, dedicated Presales Process will improve your bottom line.  If you’d like your organization to take better advantage of the Presales Process, One Of A Kind Solutions can help.