How To Cold Call

The cold call is the one part of selling that most salespeople dread. We all love closing sales, giving presentations, going to networking events, and other enjoyable activities, but making cold calls is one thing that most of us would love to eliminate from our lives.

Having said that, most sales organizations today still require cold calling, or at least they strongly encourage it. And to make matters worse, it’s usually the only thing that new salespeople are taught to do to generate leads. The problem is that they’re told to do it, but no one tells them how to cold call.

The average rookie sales rep comes out of new-hire training, is handed a stack of business cards and blank contracts, and is told to go out and “dial for dollars,” “bang on doors,” and somehow find enough people to buy to make your quota. So if you’re in that situation – or your boss said that you have to cold call – here are some tips on how to cold call effectively:

1. Determine who you want to call. It does you no good to call strangers at random. It’s this traditional shotgun approach, of calling total strangers with no clue as to who they are or whether they’re even qualified to buy from you in the first place, that gives cold calling it’s horribly low 1-3% success rate.

If you avoid going out and calling blindly, like most salespeople do, you’ll dramatically improve your odds of success. The way to go about this is to use readily available information – the Internet, LinkedIn, and sales lead & CRM databases to identify who your best prospects are. Begin brainstorming about what kinds of people and organizations have a strong need for your product or service. Then, using the online tools mentioned above, create a target list of prospective buyers in your sales territory.

Once you’ve done that, you’re already ahead of the other 98% of sales reps who don’t know how to cold call.

2. Drill down into available information and find the right contact people. Once you have your list of target companies, the next thing you need to do is find out who the decision maker is who you’ll be cold calling. This information is also readily available on the web, whether you find it on the company’s website, or in one of their social media pages or profiles.

Hint: When it comes to small business, usually the person posting on the Facebook or LinkedIn page is the business owner, and therefore is the person you’ll want to contact.

3. Learn about your prospect on a personal level. The amount of intimate information that people reveal about themselves via social media is astounding, and almost frightening. Use this to your advantage. Subscribe to your prospect’s Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn feeds. Find out if they have a blog, and subscribe to that RSS feed. Learn about them. Find out as much as possible about their likes, hobbies, interests, and so on, and look for common areas where you can connect. Maybe you have the same favorite restaurant or went to the same school or are both dog owners – the possibilities are endless.

4. Come in “under the radar.” In learning how to cold call, the real secret is to eliminate the “cold” from the call entirely. What you’ll want to do is to connect on a personal level, and you do this by finding those commonalities mentioned in step #3 above and using them to your advantage. Look for opportunities to comment or “like” something on your probable purchaser’s Facebook page, or join in on a LinkedIn discussion where they’re active. Once you’ve made some indirect contact in that way, the path is open for you to connect directly, whether you send a brief intro via social media or you simply pick up the phone and make a cold call.

5. Don’t act like a salesperson. This may seem contradictory, since you are a salesperson after all, but remember that people buy personalities first and foremost. If you call and say something disingenuous like the old trick of, “Would tomorrow at 3 pm or Friday at 1 pm be the better time to meet?” then you come across as a typical sleazy salesperson. Instead, engage your prospect in conversation and really think of the person as a friend. When you do that, you come across as a friend, and your chances of getting the appointment – and ultimately the sale – go up exponentially.

6. Maintain your “non-sales” persona for the long haul. Don’t fall into the trap of starting to act like a typical sales rep later on down the road when you’re making a presentation, or a follow-up call, or whatever the case may be. Keep your friendly face on. Act like a human being, not a sales machine.

7. Be available without looking desperate. You’ll want to make yourself available so your prospect can reach you, whether it’s because they have questions, or to let you know they’re ready to buy! On the other hand, if you hand over your home number and cell number and personal email and what have you on that first appointment, you’re going to come across as way too desperate. Give out that information if you’re asked for it, but for now, stick to your business card and remember that if you’ve followed this process on how to cold call, your prospective customer already has direct access to you via LinkedIn, Facebook, or your social media avenue of choice.

Most salespeople may hate cold calling, and even though it’s not the best way to prospect for sales anymore, if you follow these simple steps, you’ll learn how to cold call in a way that works, and you’ll come to love it!