Cold Calling

Cold calling is tough and not for the weak-hearted. When you cold call, you are often confronted with the “gatekeeper.” One of the gatekeeper’s jobs is to keep salespeople like you away from the decision-maker. They are not willing to share information with you, or they may send you into an endless loop just to avoid you communicating with the decision-maker. What should a salesperson do in this situation? Here Are 2 Tips That Will Get You Past the Gatekeeper.   1. “Send Me Your Information & I Will Call You When There is a Need.” Being a persistent salesperson, you call them to follow up for weeks. After weeks of calling, you are still not able to get anywhere. You likely become discouraged and move on. There is a better way. When the gatekeeper says “Send Me Your Information & I Will Get Back to You” your response should be something along the lines of “Okay, great! I want to give specific information to you. What is going to be important to you? Because I don’t want to dump unnecessary information on you, I just want to give what is important.” This will help you uncover the needs of the business and possibly start a conversation that could lead to eventually closing a sale. Many times they will start to engage in needs development conversation. They will tell you about themselves, their business, their priorities, and their needs. Now, you are in the sales process. Even if people still don’t want to communicate and just want you to send something then you should say, “Okay, I will send you something. What is the best time to follow up when you will have a few minutes to discuss further?” That’s your best shot. They still may dump your emails or not answer any of your phone calls, but you have at least taken it to the next level. 2. “I don’t make the decisions here. I just purchase what they tell me to buy. But go ahead, send me your information and I will forward it to them.” Once again you’ve hit a brick wall… potentially. You are going to send the information, but you are never going to hear from them. Even if they do forward the information to the decision-makers; without you to explain it and without you to go through the needs development process, it will be a waste of time. Your response: “Awesome. But please let me know what is important to them?” Then ask technical questions that the gatekeeper probably doesn’t know. This will force the gatekeeper’s hand in setting up an appointment or at least contact the decision-maker. This is exactly what you want. You will likely still get stone walled, but this will give you better results than just accepting the first answer. Notice that in both scenarios you redirected the gatekeeper’s response to get more information or some type of a commitment from them. All sales people face rejection, but the best salespeople have learned to refocus, redirect and move past rejection. Spending weeks of time trying to get an appointment with the decision maker can be time consuming and discouraging, so do your best to master the art of refocus and redirection. Learn to be pleasantly persistent while doing your best to get more information about the business’ needs. Once you do manage to get past a gatekeeper, it is a great feeling both emotionally and financially.

There is an incredible amount of information on how to do cold calls. There are 3, 4, 7 and 8 step processes out there. While there are similarities, each expert’s process is different. Based on my training and experience, we have boiled it all down into a straight-forward process for small business owners. The basics include preparation, action and analysis. Preparation: Success in all kinds of marketing, including sales, is contingent on selecting the right target market. Once you have selected a clearly defined, viable target market (read our last article about how to define your target market), then you are able to identify the leads you want to call on. Targeting your leads makes it much easier for you to make a connection with your words, warming up the call. After creating your list of leads, divide the list into “A” and “B” lists. Most professional salespeople use scripts when they cold call. You should write a basic script for when the prospect actually answers the phone and create other scripts for other possibilities. List all the possible ways the phone will be answered and write scripts for each one. Before writing your script, make sure you understand what your target market needs and what their problems are. You will need to communicate why the prospect would want to meet with you. Also, consider the reasons why they might say no to the appointment and preempt them in your script whenever possible. The outcome you will almost always aim for with the script is to set an appointment for a sales meeting. Be very aware of your choice of words, and resist the urge to try to sell your product right then and there. Avoid conversations about price and other features of your product. Just focus on making sure the person is right for you and getting them to meet with you. The sales meeting is where you will do your pitch and sell the product. It’s a good idea to call your “B” list first, to try out your script and make sure it works without worry. Action: Once you have completed your script, you are ready to get started. It is much easier to make a lot of calls at once compared to making a couple of calls every day. After you get started, you will gain momentum and it will get easier and easier. It might even be fun! Put a smile on your face and be interested in the person on the phone with you. Listen carefully to the answers your prospects give to your questions. They will give you great information you can use to guide them toward a sale, if your product is a good fit. Ask for the appointment. The “assumptive close” works well here and makes it very easy for the prospect. You assume that they will want to meet with you. You might say, “Would Tuesday or Wednesday work better for you? Morning or afternoon? 10:00 or 11:00?” If the prospect needs more information or is just not interested, they will tell you at this point. Do not be concerned when you get a “no” answer, even if it happens often. Learn from this and continue. Don’t allow yourself to take it personally and become emotionally upset. The person on the phone with you doesn’t even know you, so they are not saying no to you, only to the appointment. Besides, as the true professional knows, the more “no” answers you get, the closer you get to “yes”! Analysis: Keep track of your progress with each call so you can judge your success. Analyze what words, phrases or sentences evoke a positive reaction or dialogue that lead to a “yes” when you ask for the appointment. If possible, keep track of the reasons people do not want to meet with you. Adjust the script and make more calls!