Every bit of marketing effort is essential, especially to businesses that are just starting out. That’s not to say that marketing isn’t necessary for bigger companies.
Most companies have a marketing department because they strategically allow you to share your products and services with a specific audience.
It’s just that smaller businesses have it a bit more difficult considering they’re starting from scratch with a relatively low budget compared to big corporations.
According to the Small Business Administration, they advise companies with less than $5 million in annual revenue to allocate around seven to eight percent of the budget to marketing.
Unfortunately, it’s so easy for the company budget to deplete or be stretched too thin, which dampens the potential to expand marketing efforts. It’s essential to put your money into channels and measures to drive conversions.
One common way of marketing is through cold calling, and even though it’s been used relentlessly as the first attempt to make a sale, it still proves to be helpful. In fact, according to Rain Sales Training, about 82% of buyers accept meetings when salespeople reach out to them.
These meetings are the building blocks of every close and sale. However, you need to improve your cold calling strategy to turn these meetings into revenue.
We’ve created a list of techniques, methods, and tips on business cold calling to help you improve.
6 Tried & Tested Cold Calling Techniques to Use for Your Business
- Do ample research
Like all marketing strategies, the first step is to do your research first. Prospects appreciate that you took the time to gather information about them before calling.
Researching helps you start a better conversation and build stronger bonds with your prospects. Remember that a prepared call is a step closer to your sale.
To help you get started, try checking through their website and social media. You can also try looking for them on professional networking sites like LinkedIn. See what you can find about their company, get to know what they offer, and how you’re hoping to help them with what you’re offering.
- Try a script, but don’t read off it
Cold calling can be an anxiety-filled task, even for the seasoned professional. A great way to minimize the jitters is to have a script you can use to keep you on track with your pitch.
Sometimes, a nervous salesperson can end up speaking too fast, losing the essence and value of the spiel. So try to pace yourself and use the script only as a guide.
However, be cautious about your delivery. Scripts are good to have, but it won’t work if it will make you sound too uptight and robotic.
You still want your prospects to feel like they’re talking to a human and not an automated machine. Try using your script but learn how to improvise on it. Be alert and prepare yourself to answer common questions and keep the emotions alive.
- Accept rejection
Salespeople are no stranger to rejections—this is part of their job. Don’t get discouraged if you experience rejection, and don’t take it personally. Instead, try asking them the reason for the rejection so that you know where you went wrong. Understand the pattern, tweak your spiel accordingly, and don’t let rejection block your path.
- Review where you went wrong
As mentioned, there will always be the possibility of rejection in cold calling. However, you must learn to look back and review where you can improve to get better at rejection and reduce your chances of it.
A great way to enhance your overall pattern is to integrate call center tools that would help boost your customer service performance.
Different call center tools can help you enhance your craft. Some examples of call center tools are
- Caller ID
- CRM integration
- Outbound calls
- Call recording
All of these add up to improving the sales journey for both you and your prospect. With these, you can review what went wrong in a rejected phone call, identification, what kind of help they needed, and more. These call center tools are insightful and can help direct your next cold call and drive it to a close.
- Schedule the next call with your prospect
If you called at an inconvenient time, try to ask when’s the best time to call them, then try again. Once you’ve successfully convinced your prospect to set another meeting, make sure that both of you agree to the new call and that you list down all relevant information such as date, time, participants, etc. All the successful cold calls put in more time discussing the next step.
- Learn to take care of objections
Overcoming rejections is one of the essential techniques to cold calling. Some prospects automatically ask you to send your proposal to their email; however, you can learn to overcome their objection by saying, “Surely! I can send you a proposal, but to tailor it to your need, can I ask you….” Doing so will keep the conversation moving forward.
Start Cold Calling Today
Cold calling may be an oldie, but it still proves to be an effective way to convert prospects into leads, and eventually into customers.
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It might get tedious and nerve-wracking initially, but as soon as you start, you’re going to appreciate the insightful information about your prospect that you can use in the other cold calling opportunities.