7 tips to increase your effectiveness at cold calling

Cold calling, a topic that is always under discussion. Most salespeople don’t enjoy doing it, but the greats know it is still one of the best tools to get in contact with a lot of prospects in the shortest amount of time.
Think about it, what other tools do you have to get in touch with your (potential) customers?
You can try social media, but that’s still just hoping they will take the time and reach out back to you.
You can go to the customer and have a meeting. But... how do you set that meeting?
Maybe you think sending emails will be the best way to trigger a response, but looking at all the emails you receive yourself, surely the person you want to reach (often a busy CEO or decision maker) already receives tens or even hundreds of emails a day.

Cold calling is effective and, if used the right way, not all that bad. Every time I started out at a different company, or for that matter at my own company, the first thing I had to do was cold call a bunch of people to set things in motion and fill my pipeline. Whether it was for direct sales, setting meetings or just finding out who the decision maker was that I needed to reach, cold calling was the most effective tool for the job.
Here are a couple of tips I use every day to get the most out of the calls, although I have worked mostly in B2B sales, they also apply to calling consumers (honestly the terms B2B and B2C are outdated in my book, I’d rather name it P2P – person 2 person..)

1: Set up a list with prospects that you are going to call

To be as effective as possible be sure to have your list of clients to call beforehand. You will never get in the zone – and sometimes even lose your mojo – when you just call 1 client and then have to search for the next one. After a call, hang up but call your next client immediately, really try to squeeze as much as you can out of your calling time.

2: Schedule time in your agenda

Personally I prefer to schedule 1,5 to 2 hour sessions for cold calling prospects. Once or twice a day. In this timeframe I can reach enough customers and won’t get too worn out. I understand that some salespeople in, for example, tele-sales don’t have this option. But when I mean non-stop calling I mean non-stop-calling! You can make notes on a notepad, but leave the filling of the CRM, sending out information/follow-up mails, drinking coffee, replying to emails and talking to colleagues for later.
Pro-tip: The best moments to actually get someone on the phone are in the (early) morning and in the (late) afternoon. Personally I always see Friday afternoon as my best closing moment since everybody is happy it’s almost weekend, but opinions differ for that same reason: it’s almost weekend..(but hey if other salespeople think this, then I’m one of the few calling right?).

3: Know the goal of your call

It is vital that you know why you are calling. There is a huge difference between calling to set an appointment, getting contact information to follow up with information, trying to make a direct sale or just finding out who you need to reach (more on this in another blogpost, LinkedIn thank you so so much!)
Keep remembering that your prospect time is valuable, have a clear goal in mind and stop trying to accomplish to many things in the first point of contact with your future client, but not achieving any of them.

4: Use a standard intro

Personally I don’t like scripts, they make you sound like an automated machine and whenever you get a question you didn’t expect you’ll start sweating it. However, a standard intro gives you more confidence and your prospect will hear it, giving you more chance to get their attention and time. Remember that you can only use your words and tone of voice using the telephone!
For salespeople just starting out it might come in handy to have a sheet of paper with the whole call written out. Although I prefer getting some training and roleplay time with your manager or colleagues to get rid of most of the rough edges.
So talking about a standard intro…

5: Your client doesn’t know you so don’t flood them with useless information

Scenario 1: Hello, my name is Mr. Such and Such and I am a sales consultant for company ABC, thank you for taking the time to take my call. I know we haven’t had the pleasure to talk to each other before but I found your companies name online and I think we may have an interesting product to show you …zzz….snore….zzz

Scenario 2: Hy my name is Jamie from Company ABC. The reason im calling is to… (make a big claim / set an appointment/ find out who is responsible for)

Your prospect did not expect your call and is often busy doing something completely different. Whenever you make the first contact make it fast and easy for them to understand why you are calling.
In scenario 1 you lost them when you said your last name and/or at your job description. They don’t know you and, honestly, they don’t care yet. Be crystal clear about your intention. They immediately understand why you called and you can proceed with the reason (so so so very important) you are calling.

Even when ýou catch them at the wrong moment you have a big chance of them telling you it’s not the best time right now but give you another timeframe to call.
Your prospects time is valuable Do Not Waste It! They will be thankful you respect it.
Oh and by the way never ever talk about the weather, the football game, the news etc. during the first call. You are a professional. They are not (yet) your friends.

6: Write down the name of your prospect the moment you hear it

To be fair occasionally (but really almost never now!) I forget to do this myself and I always cringe whenever I have to ask them their name at the end of the call, of even worse, when I forget it all together.
Imagine the second call: oh god I don’t remember who I spoke to.. uhm yeah hi gatekeeper it’s Jamie from campany ABC again, I talked to someone before about product x but im not sure who it is, I think it start with a S or maybe it was a T… you big amateur!
Try to implement your prospects name during the call a couple of times, it makes the call a bit more personal. Don’t overdo it.
Protip: Write down other bits of information that can be important in your next call. This can range from personal information (did they mention going on vacation? Did they mention a big event coming in the next days etc? Start building rapport immediately and refer to it in later calls, it shows you paid attention and were interested), to practical information (if they mention they don’t work on wednesday afternoons, save yourself the time and trouble of trying to reach them at that time later on)

7: Follow up after the call the same day

The easiest way to do this is to send them an email after your calling session. The email can include some more information about the product or service you talked about, the time and date of the appointment you set or even just a quick summary of what you discussed during the call.
Make sure you always include your phone number so the prospect can call you back when they have more questions themselves.
Lately I also love to send them a quick thank you text whenever I get their mobile number.

So there u have it, 7 tips to increase your effectiviness during your cold calling sessions. Implement these and I am certain you get more results, and you might lose your call reluctance in the process!
Just remember that you won’t be able to make a success out of every call. Some days you just wont reach anyone, or you might get a couple of moody people on the phone. However doing this thing consistently and with persistence will increase your pipeline and increase your sales.

I hope this post was valuable to you! If you tried out some of these tips I would love to hear how they worked out for you, and if you have some tips yourself be sure to leave them in the comments so other readers can learn from them as well.

Have a great day!