How To Cold Call Sales

For some of my clients I have actually been doing a little bit of cold calling. When I started doing this I dreaded it as I did not at all know how to cold call sales prospects in an effective manner. I am not too sure why I continued experimenting with it but for some reason I did. As I did I found I was able to get some success as a refined my skills. I still don't know that I really like it but it is becoming more interesting. I have also started to pick up on some tips or tactics I changed that have significantly increased my success rate. Here is a list of just a few of the tips I have learned and started to implement.

1. Believe They Should Want To Talk To You

If you are not confident that you are adding value it will come across in your delivery. When I started calling believing they should be happy to talk to me because I had something of value to them to talk about my success rate increased dramatically. I realized that because I believed I had something of value to discuss I approached the conversation differently, was more confident and used a completely different tone.

2. Accept Rejection

Be ready for people to reject you and don't let it affect your next call. Just because one person does not see the value in what you offer that does not mean the next person won't. The next person is just as likely to be ecstatic that you called as they are likely to not be interested as well. Some people may also just reject you because they are in a bad mood that day and it has nothing to do with you, that you are calling or that they don't see value in talking to you about what you are offering.

3. Smile As You Talk

When you smile it naturally forces you into a good mood and it forces you to be more up beat and pleasant to talk to.

4. Ensure You Introduce Yourself

I have found in cold calling I have done that if I state my name and what company I am from I immediately get a much warmer response then if I do not state my name. It is interesting because stating my name should make no difference since they don't know me. I think what unconsciously happens though is that the interaction feels more personal because the person on the other end of the line now knows my name. I guess I don't need to understand why it works, just that it works.

5. Ask For Help

People in general want to help other people, it is just natural in all of us. When I changed what I said early in my cold calls to ask for help to be pointed in the right direction of the person I should talk to I saw a great increase in my success rate of actually getting to talk to the right person. Now when I phone and get a receptionist they happily put me through to the appropriate person almost 100% of the time.

If you are looking for more tips you can also read 10 secrets of cold calling customers which is an article that was sent to me.

I help various B2B small businesses in Waterloo and Kitchener generate new customers. If you are interested in keeping up to date on issues related to advertising, marketing, sales execution or generating new customers for B2B small businesses consider subscribing by email to this blog.

I hope you have found this article on how to cold call sales prospects useful for improving your businesses sales efforts.