by Mopes

Created on: February 04, 2009

"Cold" calling is the act of calling randomly to potential customers that you currently have no business relationship with. Because the telephone is such a powerful tool allowing for instant contact with sales prospects, many companies use it for commercial purposes. This is a proven tactic, and it should even be considered by small business owners.

It's a very simple process. You get a list of phone numbers, usually just from the telephone book. And then you call people. It's not a difficult task to do, but it is definitely difficult to do well. There are a few simple tips to ensure that your time spent will be invested wisely.

When initiating contact, the first thing you should do is ensure you're speaking with the decision maker.

If you're calling residential homes, you want to make sure you have an adult on the phone. Some teenagers can sound deceptively old. Never assume. In the case of businesses, try to get ahold of the key decision-maker for the type of product or service you are offering.

Don't waste time.

As soon as you're speaking with the primary decision maker, tell them exactly why you are calling. Don't be too blunt, though. If you're selling something don't approach them by saying "Hi, I'm calling to sell you xxxx" because that's sure to fail. Try to explain the purpose of your call without losing their interest. At this stage, if they do lose interest, that's fine. You've only spent a couple of seconds on the call, and can move on to better prospects.

Don't be overly conversational.

If you waste too much time with small talk, you are going to sabotage your over-all efforts. This is generally called "rapport-building" which does no harm whatsoever, but when cold-calling you are probably dealing with thousands of prospects. If you spend too much time with chit-chat you will be wasting time. If your product or service is of interest to a potential customer, then they do not need to know what you think of the weather today.

Always be closing

Every single thing you say should be meant to get you closer to making a sale. If you are constantly directing the conversation towards making an agreement, then you will have much better results. This works closely with not wasting time, and not being overly conversational. You want to have one goal in mind at all times. Without this mentality, you will not be successful.

Do not adhere strictly to a script

If you intend on sounding robotic, a script is the way to go. If you want to actually generate an interest for your product you will want to be able to direct the conversation without having to read it off a page. You do want to have a script as a guideline for the call, but it should never be a word for word template.

Always update your script/guideline

As you practice cold calling for your particular service, you will find that there are certain words you have used and ways you have said things that have proven results. If you constantly update your script, you will eventually have a guideline so strong that anybody could follow it and show results.

Practice

Practice, practice, practice. The more you work at it, the more successful you will be. Over time, you will learn who the likely buyers are just from a simple phrase you will hear commonly before a sale is made. If you make enough calls, eventually it all becomes habit, and that's what you need to happen.

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