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If you’re reading this post, you’re probably looking for a way to increase your sales. If so, then you’re in the right place! Cold calling is an “old school” sales method that aims to increase your visibility and get in touch with new prospects. However, it can also be as challenging as frustrating.
What is cold calling? What are its pros and cons for your business? How to build a great cold calling strategy and get the best out of this method?
In this sales guide, we’ll discuss some tips, tools, and processes for making effective cold calls and generating more B2B leads. We’ll also go through all the benefits of cold calling and explain to you since a detailed tutorial is the best way to get it done.
What is cold calling?
Let’s start easy with a definition.
For salespeople, cold calling is the process of contacting leads who have not expressed interest in your products or services by phone.
The goal of cold calling is to generate new leads and improve your sales performance.
Cold calling is an outbound sales technique. It’s part of many other sales prospecting methods for B2B, such as:
- Cold Email ;
- Sales meetings;
- Prospecting on LinkedIn;
- Etc…
Historically, prospecting by phone used to be one of the best ways to reach out to leads and set appointments.
There are several techniques that exist to help you improve your cold calling performance 👇
Nowadays, with the rise of technology, there are many other ways to reach out to your target market. Actually, the main trend that we’re currently observing is to do multichannel prospecting… and that’s what we’re doing at LaGrowthMachine: whether your leads are more susceptible to receive LinkedIn messages, sales emails, or calls, with our tool, you’ll be able to get them wherever they’re active!
That being said, for some businesses, cold calling is still a valuable tool in your sales strategy, and we’re now going to see why.
Want to boost your prospecting by adding calls to your outreach strategy?
What are the main benefits of cold calling?
Some businesses just don’t fit with that kind of method, but for some others, it’s still working pretty well!
Why is that?
Actually, It is mainly a matter of marketing positioning and communication tone of voice. For example, if you’re working in the tech & saas industry, you don’t necessarily go through the same sales channels as if you’re doing business with grocery stores!
That being said, still, there are some benefits to cold calling:
- It allows you to reach a large number of prospects in a short amount of time
- It’s a good way to get in touch directly with hard-to-reach decision-makers
- Cold calling can be very effective if you’re selling high-ticket items
However, cold calling strategies may also encounter some pain points:
- It requires a big budget
- It requires a lot of time
- It requires a lot of people
- You won’t necessarily achieve your ROI!
In order to get the best results and generate tons of B2B leads with cold calling, we strongly advise that you invest in a sales automation tool that will help you diversify your sales channels as much as possible to improve your client prospecting and to lower your customer cquisition cost.
Careful! Cold calling is different from warm and hot calling!
Related Post 📝
We’ve written a great post about the difference between cold calling and hot calling, in which you’ll find all the information, guidelines and personal tips to improve your skills in B2B sales.
How to build the best cold calling process?
Now that we’ve seen what cold calling is and if its main benefits are matching with your needs, let’s get into some actionable tips to build a process as efficiently as possible!
In this paragraph, we’ll give you access to a free and detailed tutorial to build your process step by step and improve your performance.
Step 1: Check Up Your Resources
The first thing you need to do when starting a cold calling campaign is to check up on your resources.
If you want to invest in this sales channel, you’ll need to have at least:
- A good internet connexion;
- A quiet place to work from;
- A sales team (how many people?);
- A budget defined;
- Some sales tools to help your team.
If you’re not using a sales automation tool yet, we strongly advise that you consider one. It will automate repetitive tasks such as sending follow-up emails and allow you to focus on what’s important, which is selling!
Step 2: Prepare Your Scripts & Your Objectives
The second step is to prepare your scripts and define your objectives. Selling by phone is pretty tough to do, and the best way to overcome this challenge is to be prepared!
Preparing scripts will help your sales reps to stay focused and on track, and therefore, it will help them to sound more natural.
The more they’ll repeat the pitch, the more they’ll learn and the easier it will be to answer sales objections.
Want some more scripts that are used by experts? Ask and you shall receive! Click here 👇
As for objectives, we advise that you start small and gradually increase the number of calls as you get more comfortable with the process. You can choose to track many sales objectives, but we recommend that you take a look at the following KPIs:
- The number of calls made per day/week/month;
- The number of appointments booked;
- The number of sales closed;
- The turnover generated by cold calling;
- The ROI by sales reps.
Of course, these objectives will need to be adapted according to your specificities.
Step 3: Train Your Team & Get Feedback Regularly
The third step is to train your team and get feedback after each call. This step is crucial if you want to improve your performance over time.
Make sure that everyone on your team is familiar with the process and the scripts, and provide them with regular feedback so they know what they’re doing well and where they need to improve.
Quick Tip 💡
To do so, a nice tactic is for your manager to listen to random interviews so he/she can take notes and give great feedback on the pros and the cons.
This way, the sales rep is learning how to get better and better with time!
Bonus Step: Choose Your Sales Tools
Let’s be transparent: you don’t necessarily have to invest in sales tools to build up a cold calling process.
But it’s a strong help for your sales organization to go faster and better.
Nowadays, a very large proportion of sales teams are working with sales tools such as:
- CRM;
- Predictive dialer;
- Local presence;
- Click-to-call;
- Email finder;
- Sales intelligence;
- Etc…
According to our clients, the best combo to boost your sales performance in B2B is to invest in a sales automation tool along with a CRM.
With a solution like LaGrowthMachine, you will be able to:
- Find new leads from scratch;
- Find data about your leads (including their phone number for cold calling purposes);
- Set up a sales automation sequence to contact them through many channels including calling them!
In addition, you can track your results directly in LaGrowthMachine or plug them into any CRM to include the solution in your existing process!
5 Tips To Drive Successful Cold calls!
This is the last part of this post.
How to cold call someone?
Sometimes, a bad conversion rate for a sales rep doesn’t come from the process but can be explained by some little mistakes they’re making during their call interview.
These few cold calling tips might help you realize what you’re doing wrong and if so, how to fix it!
Tip 1: Control The Time & Be Concise
When you’re cold calling, time is not on your side. Remember that you’re bothering people!
You only have a few minutes to introduce yourself and try to interest your lead in what you’re offering.
Therefore, you must be concise and take control of the conversation from the beginning to the end. This means that you should avoid small talk and focus on the purpose of your call!
Tip 2: Use A Positive & Enthusiastic Tone
Even if you already heard this one, your tone of voice is very important when you’re cold calling.
People can feel if you’re really interested in what you’re talking about or not, so make sure that you sound positive and enthusiastic about your product/service!
A good way to do so is to force you to smile when talking. I assure you, smiles can be heard even when talking by phone.
Tip 3: Find a Great Ice Breaker
This is one of the more successful sales techniques for cold calling.
If you’re not used to making cold calls, it can be very difficult to start a conversation.
One of your first and main goals is to find what we call an icebreaker that will help you transition into the sales pitch.
Quick Tip 💡
Here are some examples you can use:
- “I was just thinking about your company and wondering…”
- “I saw that you recently published a blog post about…”
- “I was just speaking with one of your colleagues and they suggested I give you a call.”
- “Am I talking to {{first name}}? Cause I was talking to one of your colleagues who gave me your name…”
Tip 4: Be creative with your scripts
As we’ve seen, a cold call script can be very helpful to structure your thoughts and keep you focused during the conversation.
However, scripts shouldn’t always be used word for word, as there’s a risk of sounding too “robotic”.
Put simply, people can feel it when you’re reading a script, so make sure that you use it more as a guideline than anything else!
This doesn’t mean you should get rid of scripts, but perhaps adapt them to each call and be creative with your prospect!
Tip 5: Mention That You Were Introduced!
If you were introduced by someone to your lead, make sure to mention it!
If you weren’t, try to make it look as if you were, with a catchphrase like:
“Hey, I called yesterday and was given your name by someone in your marketing service. This person told me that you’ll probably be interested in what we’re offering.”
This will also tease your lead and make them know more about what you’re offering.
New Feature ! 💡
You’ve been waiting for it, well here it is: you can now add calls to your prospecting campaigns! And it couldn’t be simpler:
1️⃣ I build my sequence or use a sequence template that includes a Call block.
2️⃣ I launch my campaign.
3️⃣ When my Call task arrives, the sequence stops to give me time to make the call. I can see all my pending calls in the Tasks interface.
4️⃣ Once the call has been made, the sequence resumes.
A little plus ✚: an email summarising the pending call tasks is sent to me every morning.
Want some more scripts that are used by experts? Ask and you shall receive! Click here 👇
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