The perfect cold call in 9 steps

As I was responsible for setting up a Sales Development department, I wanted my team to become the best cold callers. Unfortunately, 80% of the trainings I found are more or less similar and every time there was one element missing. And maybe even the most important element: the art of listening and demonstrating to the prospect that you have been listening. This creates trust.

As I had to jump in the cold-water bath myself after 17 years, (yes, my first job ever was acquisition executive!), I decided to create a cold call training myself.

Preparation is key!

However, if you know that chances are higher you won’t be able to reach that person over the phone, it’s a thin balance in investing just enough time in finding the right angle but not too much as you also want to be able to do more than 4 calls per hour.

In addition to that you need to build this in in your PLAN A and also have a PLAN B ready. Plan A is most likely scheduling a meeting for yourself or your colleague. Plan B is then, the next best thing you should get out of this call.

Make sure you do not leave the call without knowing who a better person can be to contact, find out other qualitative information about the company, who else is involved in the decision-making person or when is a better moment to talk with that person.

If you haven’t thought about your plan B, it’s very likely you waisted a lot of time preparing and dialing into the call.

The effectivity lies within how you structure your approach.

Content wise this is how I believe the most effective cold call should be structured:

1. Greeting:

Say good morning or good afternoon to anticipate a bad connection and mention the name of the person twice.

Don’t ask how they are doing. They know you don’t care.

Mention your company’s name and what you do in no more than 6 simple words.

This creates the context of the call and they can start thinking, no more, no less.

2. Start with a compelling opening statement:

In order to create curiosity, you need to describe the pain/gain you are solving/creating and have this followed up by an open question to check if the person recognizes himself in the pain or gain.

3. Explain the pain:

Describe the pain you are referring to more in detail without suggesting he/she has that pain. You do not want to offend the person.

4. Do a timing check

After you have created interest, it’s the right moment to check if the timing of the call is right. As you are a polite person, you do want to show respect to your respondent.

Formulate your question to get a positive answer: “Is this an appropriate time to…?”

5. Build in trust whilst qualifying the prospect

Explain why you are asking questions and tell them you don’t want to waste their time, nor yours (because that’s honest).

Check your assumptions with open questions to show you have prepared and write down the exact words of the prospect. This enables you later in the conversation to show, you have been listening well.

6. Explain your value proposition

Don’t tell them what your company does but demonstrate what’s the benefit for them based upon the information that was given to you.

If you can do so by using the exact words used by the prospect, you make them feel more valued as well. So, win-win!

7. Blend in your Unique Selling Proposition

Before you suggest scheduling a meeting, you point out what makes your company so unique and that’s why a meeting could be interesting for them.

8. Give 2 options for scheduling the call

Instead of complicating the scheduling, only give them two options in the next coming 2 weeks maximum. You want to strike the iron when it’s hot. In 2 weeks, your prospects will be all forgotten about your call and it increases the probability of your meeting getting cancelled.

9. Close the call by saying you’ll confirm it all in writing and send them a meeting request.

Independently of how the call went, always confirm what you have been discussing in writing. This gives you the possibility to refer to that email later if you couldn’t schedule the meeting.

To Script or not to script?

For your first calls, write it down in a script. This avoids you are going to start freewheeling.

Based upon your experience, you will be able to drop the script as you have taken up that structure in a natural way.

In order to make sure you fall back on your plan B, you need to make sure you incorporate this as well in your script.

One of the pitfalls of scripting is that you start to read and talk faster and faster.

Never forget: your prospect is not waiting on your call so for sure you are disturbing him. So never ask him that. The faster you talk and the more words you use, the more difficult it will be for him to understand the essence of what you are talking about. So, my last advice would be, keep it simple and stupid.

If you got something out of this blog post or you think something is missing or you don’t agree. Please share with my your remarks.

If you want to avoid cold calling as much as possible, check out my blog post or ask me my training on social selling.