When used strategically alongside other marketing channels, cold calling can be a valuable tool for sales, appointment setting services, and lead generation in general, but it’s important to note that it takes skill, finesse, and perseverance to master the art.
Our sales specialists here at BitWide have been perfecting the art of cold calling for many years, and today, we’re sharing the schematics of our successful cold calling blueprint.
Why Cold Calling Works
Cold calling offers direct contact with prospects that other marketing channels aren’t able to provide. While other channels like email marketing, social media, and online advertising have their merits, cold calling offers unique advantages.
Firstly, cold calling provides real-time interaction with prospects, granting an immediacy that other channels can’t match. You can engage in a two-way conversation, answer questions, and address objections immediately. This leads to faster decision-making, and allows you to build a relationship with a lead in real time.
Speaking with someone over the phone allows you to establish a more personal connection. In an increasingly digital world, the human connection provided by a phone call can set you apart in a big way. It demonstrates that you are willing to invest time and effort in engaging with potential customers personally.
You can build rapport, convey enthusiasm, and create a memorable impression that goes a long way to paving the road for future interactions. When you make follow-up calls, reach out via email, or hit up a lead on social media, the interaction will benefit from the strong foundation laid down with that initial call.
The second major benefit of that direct connection is that it enables your BDR or calling staff to more quickly and efficiently qualify leads.
Through conversation, you can assess whether a prospect is genuinely interested and a good fit for your product or service. This saves time and resources compared to nurturing uninterested leads through other channels.
Particularly for complex or high-value leads, cold calling can be an effective way to guide potential customers through the decision-making process. It allows you to address the specific needs and nuances of the prospect in a way that written content simply cannot achieve.
How to Make Better Cold Calls
Before you even touch the dial pad, you should keep the following key considerations in mind to make better calls more often.
Focus on Learning, Not Selling
Callers should never focus initially on the sales pitch. It will simply put the recipient on the back foot. Even though the ultimate goal is to move the prospect further down the sales funnel, you’ll have more success if you focus on understanding your prospect’s needs.
Try to figure out their acute pain point to better understand how your solution — i.e., what you’re selling — can help them. Learn about the hats they wear, the tasks they juggle, and what they wish they could change about their situation. By asking about the ins and outs of their business and their role within it, you can build a genuine rapport while also developing the strategy for eventually moving them down the funnel.
This is a sincere as well as effective way to build trust with your leads.
Ask Open-Ended Questions
Piggy-backing on the previous suggestion, asking open-ended questions will help you learn even more about your leads. Open-ended questions prompt more detailed responses, opening more doors to eventually closing the deal.
“Are you facing challenges in rollout this quarter?” is a closed question. “Yes” or “No” won’t help you understand the lead’s journey. But, “What are the biggest challenges you’re currently facing?” is a question that will prompt the other person to open up, discuss the deeper nuances of their business obstacles, and ultimately situate you perfectly to offer a solution.
Share Social Proof
Social proof, such as case studies and testimonials go a long way to establishing trust during an initial conversation, and they prove that you’re offering an honest solution to the prospect’s pain points.
Effective case studies include quantifiable results, such as increased revenue, cost savings, improved efficiency, or customer satisfaction scores. These data-driven outcomes provide evidence of the tangible benefits of your offering.
Concrete examples of the success you’ve brought other clients also demonstrate the practical applications of your offering and helps potential customers visualize how it can benefit them. This builds credibility, assuring potential customers that others have benefited from your product or service.
This can be particularly persuasive for prospects who may be wary of marketing claims. A case study is the perfect response to skepticism. When the prospect is in doubt, bust it out.
Consider Outsourcing Your Cold Calling Efforts
You’re busy, and taking the time to plan, develop, launch, and manage a fully-functional cold calling campaign might be too much for you to take on, considering your other responsibilities as a sales exec.
Finding, hiring, training, managing, coaching, and retaining Millennial and Gen-Z writing talent is also increasingly difficult, and you might not have a fully-trained internal team at your disposal.
Outsourced cold calling specialists bring a team of experienced professionals to the table who already excel in the skills necessary to convert leads over the phone.
Hiring, training, and managing an in-house sales team is also expensive, and because outsourced sales teams bring you a dedicated team already fully trained and seasoned, you can hit the ground running, saving valuable time and money.
This also allows your in-house team to concentrate on what they do best. When you hire outsourced call centre specialists, your internal team can focus on core competencies, which creates a win-win.
Lastly, outsourced lead generation services can scale up or down quickly to accommodate your specific needs. This flexibility can be particularly useful in seasonal industries or when launching new products or campaigns.
In a bull market, you can expand your efforts easily, and in a bear market you can simply scale back your package — all without hiring or firing your own staff.
What Makes a Great Cold Calling Script
At BitWide, we’ve constructed thousands of scripts tailored to numerous industries, prospect titles, and markets, but we’ve found that every script has the same three integral facets: an inviting opener, a clean elevator pitch, and a tight closer.
Avoid a Commonplace Opening
Scheduled calls require that you set yourself apart, and oftentimes the opener is the only chance you’ll get.
At BitWide, our cold calling experts insist on standing out and they do that with concision. An opener should be short and punchy. We begin by immediately bringing up the pain point. We ask the prospect what problem they’re currently dealing with, and we hammer home how our clients’ product or service offers an acute solution to their acute problem.
On follow-up calls, we remind them: “When we spoke last you mentioned the challenges of X, Y, Z. We’d love to continue chatting about how we can help.” This makes every call feel like a logical next step along the buyer journey.
Keep Your Pitch Brief
When our outbound sales experts make their elevator pitch, they keep it clean and concise. We find that letting the prospect know how long we need, and then delivering under that time works wonders. It’s hard to say no to “It won’t take longer than 30 seconds.”
Wrapping Up in 4 Simple Steps
The key to a strong closer on any call is simplicity. Our callers are selling one thing: a call with you, the client. Once we’ve delivered the pitch, it’s time to get them on the line with the person who’s actually going to close the call. We do that by:
1. Referring to the calendar
2. Scheduling the meeting immediately
3. Thanking the person
4. Ending the call politely
And that’s how our sales specialists close a call. Simplicity itself.
We love to think about the intricacies of the sales process, and we also love sharing these insights with our clients. If you’d like to channel the power of BitWide’s inside knowledge, consider booking a call with one of our specialists to learn how to build an outbound sales team the right way.
Also, check back with our blog regularly for more useful info.
