Ice Breakers to Improve Cold Calling Success

If you REALLY enjoy cold calling and never have any problems picking up the phone or getting through to the right person every time, then this one isn’t for you.

However, if you want a couple of pointers to improve your success / call ratios, you might find it rather useful.

There was a time, in the early years of Varda Kreuz Sales Training, when Closing and Price Objections seemed to be every sales person’s Kryptonite.

However, these days, with the advent of other forms of communication, Cold Calling is mentioned almost as often.

My first – and best – bit of advice is this;

Always know why you’re calling (what it is you’re trying to achieve) and make sure you feel Evangelical about how you help before you pick up the phone.

But that doesn’t always necessarily get you through the door.

More than a decade ago Faith Popcorn wrote a book called The Popcorn Report.

She said the trend in the 1990′s was ‘Cocooning’- which boiled down to the fact that people don’t like to be bothered anymore!

And in the last 20 years it’s got worse.

Think about it, none of us like receiving junk mail, we certainly don’t want a stranger calling us on the telephone and we don’t know what to do if – god forbid – there’s a knock on the door after dark.

I want to share something with you that if used properly will;

• Take away your excuses for procrastination with regards to calling up prospects
• Help clear up your database, and fill it with the people you really need to talk to
• Improve your chances of actually getting through to your prospect when you call
• Get a better reception from that person when you do get through.

To achieve this you will need a database which includes both telephone numbers and email addresses.

Here’s what to do;

Every day from now on, choose twenty people from your list and send them an email to introduce yourself as their new contact.

Important – DO NOT try and sell them anything with this communication.

Let them know that you will be calling them next week and ask which day and time would be most suitable.

Give them an opportunity to email you back with their answer.

Ask – if they are not the appropriate person to talk to – then who is?

Include a link to something of value or interest;

e.g. “Our brand new brochure / white paper / case study / free seminar dates / special offers” – and then give this an eye-catching and interesting title

Finally, give the email a title which ties in with your value link (e.g. “Your copy of our next FREE seminar dates”)

This will have a dramatic effect on you because;

• If you send an email saying you are calling next week you can’t procrastinate out of it – you have a 100 people pipeline every week, which you have diarised to call
• When you ring and the receptionist asks if the prospect will know what the call is about, you can say “it’s regarding the email.”
• If they really don’t want to speak to you, they’ll email you to say so. Therefore everyone who doesn’t get back to you has the possibility of potential

This will have a dramatic effect on your prospect, because;

• You aren’t cold calling, they’ve now heard of you (even if they don’t remember where)
• If they haven’t read it yet, the fact it has been received may gain you some valuable introduction time.
• If they are not the decision maker they will probably let you know who is.

I have created a template for you (at this link), so you can just copy and paste it with the minimum amount of editing – but please;

• Do not blanket email people just because you’ve got a big list. Here’s the rule – if they don’t have a genuine use for your FREE value offer, they won’t need the bit that costs.
• Make sure you change the bits that need changing like “Dear (customers name)”
• If you can’t be bothered to personalise every single email, don’t bother sending them, your success rate will be none existent – zilch. And anyway, you can easily automate that part of the process.
• Don’t rush – treat each one individually – no one likes an email with someone else’s name on it
• Make sure the format is compatible with your system; sometimes if you copy and paste onto email the fonts go a bit crazy – send a test externally

And finally, this is one of my templates which I give to you in good faith, I never want to see it used as spam – please use it professionally and ethically

Hope you find it useful.

Best regards

Chris

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