Guide To Managing Your Cold Calls

Cold calls are the most everyday sales call. Here, the salesperson and buyer don't know each other and will be coming into contact for the first time. The first step that a sales rep takes to approach the customer is known as cold. Most industries utilize this type of sales call to throw out a wide net, gain new clients, and potentially increase sales. Making a cold call means you have no idea if your customers need or want your products or services.

As illustrated by Rain Sales Training, a cold call is comprised of the following:

1. Introduction: Make a quick introduction and share a brief overview of your company.

2. What’s in it for me?: Immediately move to the “What’s in it for me?” and pitch a value-based offer for an introductory meeting.

3. Call to action: You’re not going to make a sale on the first call, but you might schedule a 10-, 20-, or 30-minute introductory video conference or phone call to share your valuable insights and expertise.

4. Propose a time to meet: You close the cold call by asking the buyer to look at a specific time on their calendar.

5. Answer questions/respond to objections: Some common cold-calling objections can threaten to end a relationship before it begins. However, you can overcome these objections and make saves. This involves engaging with buyers and asking them to elaborate on their answers, delving into what might be happening at their company, and offering insights into their problems.

Many cold calls lead to a meeting with the potential client. Of people contacted with a cold call, 75% end up scheduling a meeting or attending an event because of the unsolicited call.

Tips and techniques to help you win with cold calls

1. Conduct research

You can only understand the people you are speaking with and their pain points accurately after extensive research. Track your leads for analytics purposes by using Google Analytics. It helps you receive information about their activity on your site, like:

• the pages they prefer to view;

• demographics;

• interests and preferences;

• information about devices.

Social media is another tool to help you collect data or social analysis sites to gather more demographic and psychographic information on your prospects. You can also look through your potential customers' business websites to understand their goals, values, and products and gather contact information.

2. Learn to handle rejection

Rejection is bound to happen sometimes. There are uncertainties, including denial and maybe a bit of loss of business. Therefore, you must learn to stay calm and focused on staying determined and making crucial informed decisions. It’s especially worthwhile to know how to answer the most common sales objections, such as:

• “it’s too expensive.”

• “I don’t need this product right now.”

• “I’m already using something similar.”

3. Ensure to have your offer on ready

A pitch involves telling recipients what you want from them or your expectations. If you are to pitch your prospects by the products and the services you offer, ensure that you have spiced-up benefits so that a customer gets a clear idea of what they will gain from your business.

A catchy pitch intends to sell, but you start it to begin a unique business relationship with a customer. This approach seems to be a little more personal when you are writing a pitching email to a customer endeavor to prove that they will benefit. Because that’s what customers want to see and hear.

Put your prospects at the center of your pitch and provide them with much value; for instance, you can discuss ways to address some of their challenges. Briefly discuss how the prospect will gain from your business and avoid discussing what your business can offer. Don't sound like you are convincing and coercing them to buy your products or services, but rather show them the benefits. Let the conversation in the message be natural and continue the first interaction.

4. Listen keenly

The cold calls are a conversation between two parties and not a monologue. While providing ideas and your thoughts to customers is good, listening to their beliefs would do wonders. Purchasers prefer to deal with collaborative buyers, the ones who know and can understand their needs and the ones who are ready to listen. Such providers can convince buyers about the relevance of their products and services to their problems, and they will be confident to buy more sales.

5. Adopt sales automation

Sales automation refers to using tools and software to replace manual work, using artificial intelligence tools and other digital tools to manage and execute business activities effectively.

Following up on so many customers, spending a lot of time on leads, issues arising during the sales process, calling leads, prospecting leads, checking heavy and many files to find customers’ documents, and all other administrative tasks is something of the past. You can also automate the sales pipeline and spare time for other developmental activities. Sales automation covers all those activities at once under one central management system.

Sales automation is essential for any sales business because it streamlines the whole sales process making it easy for everyone else to understand and also helps business managers to find out some lagging gaps that can be fixed there and then to increase productivity and also boost sales, increases customer retention through further nurturing, following up and fostering.

6. Adopt a personalized approach

First of all, sales is not a one-size-fits-all game. Being personal in your messages gives the message a tone of friendliness. Messages that appear personal seem to invite customers to take action. This makes them think you are interested in their likes and preferences, making them feel special. Don't make your email messages look corporate, write your messages like you are talking to your customers in person. This will become easy for you to connect with them.

7. Always Follow Up

Following up means keeping the customer informed with relevant data at every sales process step. It cultivates a relationship between the seller and prospect and builds trust between them. It’s vital to keep your prospects updated by sending follow-up emails, making as many phone calls as necessary, and relaying required information.

8. Avoid Pitching – One Of the most Commonest Sales Mistakes

This is up there with widely practiced sales mistakes. Whenever a salesperson is asked for a pitch, they go into overdrive about their product.

The prospect has heard the lines before and could smell them off her breath from a million countries away. That’s why pitching is one of the worst sales mistakes you can make today. Instead of pitching, take your time to engage prospects in a real conversation to understand what’s happening in their world. After that engagement is when you will determine if the prospect will be a perfect fit for your product