Cold Calling Success may seem like an unusual topic to write about today.

There is much chat about how the whole sales process has changed because the buyer is now more  educated & so cold calling tips are outdated & old fashioned. To make a cold call is simply going to irritate or even worse alienate your prospective clients.

Listen to the interview below to change your mind on this…………….!

There is even a product on the market called Never Cold Call Again that consistently babbles about how cold calling success is impossible & if you make a cold call you’re a dinosaur & a freak!

How sales managers that insist you cold call have no idea of what is happening in today’s world. There may be some element of truth in this particularly if they don’t understand digital communications – these are at the extremes of experience though.

My favourite email headline from this product is “cold calling is for morons” surely a moron is someone who discounts any method that can bring you success?

Cold Calling Success

At Sales Drive we focus solely on success – simply defined as increasing revenue & making your revenue more sustainable. We don’t ignore any method that will help you achieve this end. Any method that is legal, you are comfortable to participate in & fits your brand image has to be considered.

So if you personally end up in cold sweats at the thought of cold calling or your

brand feels that cold calling isn’t congruous – don’t do it!

However, don’t use these reasons as excuses not to do it – listen to the interview below to appreciate the level of success & revenue that has been generated by cold calling success.

Cold Calling Success

This is extremely common across most industries because it is direct, straightforward & simple. These 3 precepts are at the heart of any successful business & therefore recognized by any successful business person! Cold calling  therefore is respected particularly if you are targeting the business owner.

The only reason cold calling is discussed negatively is because people personally feel uncomfortable about making these calls, have difficulty with being rejected & are not clearly defined in who they are targeting & why – their success rate is low & therefore demoralizing.

Cold Calling Training

A lack of proper Tips for Successful Cold Calling also gives the practice of cold calling a bad name!

I regularly get cold calls from firms – they do very often annoy me – mainly because they are rude, know nothing about me & so end up asking me irritating or stupid questions.

They are simply playing a numbers game. if they made an effort to build a relationship with me instead of attempting to hit call rate numbers per hour maybe they wouldn’t be so annoying & they’d get a higher rate of successful outcomes!

Particularly with cold calling successful outcomes are guaranteed to fail as any interruption in my day needs to be positive not negative……They even dress up their sales pitch by asking me to take part in a survey which in fact is worse as it steals even more of my time.

They are over complicating a very simple process…….

Cold Calling Success

I have personally cold called many times in life & I was most successful at getting appointments when I was part of a team & we had a laugh doing it – not only amongst ourselves but with the callers as well. In my early sales career without cold calling success I would have starved!

There is a bigger lesson to appreciate here too. If you want to be a professional sales person – understanding every aspect of sales is crucial as part of your education; building skills & learning more & more about people.

Cold Calling Training

Cold calling training is part of your apprenticeship. It builds mental muscle & resilience to the realities of sales – everything does not always go your way. Having the inner strength to continue, remain positive & look forward to your next success is one of the differentiators that will mark you out for sales stardom.

So let me introduce you to Odile Faludi who is going to share with us some cold calling tips, cold calling techniques & how to achieve cold calling success. She is an inspiration to anyone in sales & new business development because she oozes passion, skill & a professionalism second to none.

I’m not going to steal all of Odiles thunder by simply rewriting what she shares in the interview so please listen to it & share your thoughts below.

Cold Calling Tips

The key summary points to achieve your cold calling success are

• Always be in a positive state of mind.
• Always smile when making your call. A smile shines through on the phone.
• Stand up & walk around whilst you are calling – walking & talking – this connects both sides of your brain simultaneously giving you an extra edge to achieve your cold calling success.
• Don’t think cold call – think making new friends, new connections, bringing value & joy to someone new.
• Research who you are calling, the person, the business, news about them. Our favourite subject is our self so being able to refer to someone specifically helps to quickly build rapport.
• Be specific in what you are asking for, an email address to email a report, a meeting in the diary, a special offer.
• A cold call is a mini sale in itself – so be ready & prepared to overcome objections, be practiced at your answers, be bold in probing with questions (without it seeming like an inquisition & rude)
• Write a script & practice saying it – when you make the call throw the script away! Why? Because when you read a script you sound like you are reading a script! This will immediately put your prospect on edge & the barriers will come down & you’ve lost them before you’ve even started.

The benefit of a script is that you will build up natural phrases in your mind (because you’ve practiced them over & over) that will then subconsciously trip off the tongue when needed – sounding natural & real.

You’ll have to listen to the audio to get some even deeper meaningful tips from Odile! Particularly listen out for how Odile quantifies cold calling success.

In Conclusion – cold calling tips

If you are a start up or relatively young business & your prospects are senior people in organisations cold calling techniques could be a great way to success.

Why? Because these people are likely to have been in a similar position to you at some time in their life & so relate to where you are at & what you are doing – a great ice breaker & relationship building start.

As a start up you are looking for people who are early adopters to buy from you because they like new & different & enjoy not being seen as part of the pack – in all markets it is virtually impossible to define who these people are by any reasonable metric so cold calling is a great way to start your client acquisition journey.

Cold Calling Tips – A Final Point

A month or so ago I heard a knock on the door at home – it was 8.45pm ish in the evening. A young woman was standing there asking me if I enjoyed watching movies & had access to the internet.

Yes I replied!

I was being offered a special one time only subscription to try out an on demand movie rental service with unlimited access for 2 months if I’d spend £5 there & then.

This is a successful big brand company with an established online presence known for their service. They were cold calling me, at home, face to face. If I hadn’t experienced the call I would probably have struggled believing it.

To get extra market penetration & find new clients outside of their core market they were connecting with clients in different ways – in a cut throat market – especially online where everyone is using the same tools & strategies they were appealing to new people & demographics by more traditional means.

Brilliant!

If you would like support, guidance or an audit of your new client acquisition then don’t hesitate to get in touch – complete the contact pop up box for a free initial audit & tips on how to increase performance & success.

Ivor Kellock. Never Cold Call Again Plan Your Cold Calling Success With Sales Drive