Despite the drastic changes in the world of marketing in recent years, cold calling is still a viable and effective way to make sales. With that being said, most businesses approach cold calling in the wrong way, and their sales figures suffer as a result. Here are four methods for successful cold calling.
1) Don’t Try to Sell on the First Call
Being too aggressive about making a sale is one of the surest ways to make a potential customer end your call. During your first call with a new lead, your focus should be on keeping the potential customer comfortable, not rushing them into anything and simply gauging their interest in what you have to offer them. Ask them how they feel about receiving some additional free information about how your products and services can help them and your results will be much better than if you used pushy sales tactics. From there, you can follow up after they have received and reviewed your information, and then proceed to the next step in the sales process.
2) Give Them a Time Limit
Because they are decision makers for their businesses and organizations, the people you’ll be calling are likely to be very busy and not have a lot of time, if any, for sales calls. At some point early in your call, tell them exactly how much time you will require of them. Keep this limit short. Many salespeople will say between one and three minutes. This can be especially useful while speaking with people who are clearly reluctant to hear what you have to say, as it lets them know you’re not calling to waste their time and that you respect the fact that they are busy.
3) Stay Consistent
As is true with anything, practice makes perfect. The best cold callers are the ones who do it day in and day out, with as few exceptions as possible. When you look at your calling schedule in this way, you’ll become more comfortable, experienced and natural on your calls, which will translate to exponentially better sales numbers over time. Simple dedication and consistency pay off better in the world of cold calling than virtually any other field in marketing, so apply this knowledge starting today and build on a great future in sales.
4) Learn from Rejection
A rejection can be as valuable as a sale as long as you view it in the right frame of mind. Think about where each failed call went wrong and apply those lessons to future calls. This process of trial and error in order to improve is exactly how you can perfect your pitch over time, and it wouldn’t be possible without the lessons gained from calls that did not go well.
Improving your cold calling can come down to doing a few basic things correctly. By respecting the time of the people you call, being patient during your sales pitch, learning from rejection and staying consistent, your sales numbers will only continue to rise.