7 Ways To Make Cold Calling Easy

•  
  ultro09/23/08 Report as spam
  1

  RE: 7 Ways To Make Cold Calling Easy

  I find the best way to make cold calling work well is to sit before each call and imagine that the last call has gone really well. It's tough to do at first, but as time goes on, you really start to believe it. Otherwise, it's really easy for one bad call to stop you making any more calls or just negatively impact the following calls.
  The other element is to really focus on listening to what the other person is saying, and repeating back to them what they have just said to show you have been listening. Everyone loves to talk, especially about themselves. You can use that to get lots of information from them. You can also use questions to respond to deal with problems they bring up, to try to get to the bottom of the issue. When you have a detailed list of where they are, you can start to show how your product can deal with their problems.
  James Pitt
  James-pitt.com

•  
  ccarson200509/23/08 Report as spam
  2

  RE: 7 Ways To Make Cold Calling Easy

  I have to disagree with not cold calling on Mondays. If you assume the person you are calling is busy then you will most likely defeat yourself before you make the call. You have to convince yourself that every call is going to be a success. That you are the expert with valuable information that this person NEEDS. That you would not be making this call if this person did not NEED this information.
  
  
  If you start validating reasons why it wont be a success and making excuses before you even make the call you may as well not make it. I have uncovered GOLDEN leads everyday of the week cold calling and Monday, with some audiences, yields the highest connect rate.

•  
  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine09/23/08 Report as spam
  3

  RE: 7 Ways To Make Cold Calling Easy

  I know that, from my experience, the best time to cold call is Friday afternoons, because then people are usually looking for something to occupy their minds rather than their regular work. But maybe ccarson2005 has a point. It's probably one of those things that if you do it well, you can do it anytime.

•  
  Sebrobin09/24/08 Report as spam
  4

  RE: 7 Ways To Make Cold Calling Easy

  Regardless of what technique you apply to prepare your pitch, cold calling is an attitude to have. Nothing personal. You take every refusal in the chin and you move on to the next target. You continue calling them until you get a yes. One day you'll catch them on a good day or when they actually need to listen. Perseverence is key in sales. If you can't do that, you're in the wrong job!
  
  Anyway, I am one of those guys who actually hate cold calling, but because it is not something I can't avoid, I get organised to make the experience more productive and enjoyable. I don't believe in volume for the sake of it so I research and target before I call. Who am I calling (Company and Person)? Any news about them that's worth exploiting? Do I know anyone that is connected to the person I need to call? Have I sold to their competitors? If so, why did they buy? I use this info in my pitch.
  
  Someone is more likely to take the time if you're connected to someone they know. Call these guys first.
  
  When you have no connection, your intro only gives you a few seconds to make a difference. Again researching the callee can give you an opening, something to talk about to warm the situation up. That's why researching news about your target can be useful. Adapt your intro to what you know of each target. Repeating the same pitch everytime doesn't teach you anything about whether it is good or not. As you take refusal after refusal, you'll start doubting your pitch, and its a snowball effect: you loose motivation, you start finding excuses not to continue calling, you start thinking you don't want to do this again tomorrow, etc.
  
  I find it that there isn't any day that's better for cold calling than any other day. You can spend 2 or 3 hours everyday cold-calling if you are an office-based sales person. Otherwise, if you're on the road, you might be able find 1 hour everyday. If you dedicate only 1 day (Mondays for example) your window is to short and you're losing opportunities to catch people when they are available.

•  
  pepmanrajasekar09/24/08 Report as spam
  5

  RE: 7 Ways To Make Cold Calling Easy

  Never to go with a mind set & project oneself as a salesperson on a cold call. In the sales process a cold call is a preliminary step, which needs to carry an objective of gathering information only, which possibly may lead to closing of a sale on the later stages in the sales process. - Pepman Rajasekar

•  
  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine09/24/08 Report as spam
  6

  RE: 7 Ways To Make Cold Calling Easy

  Wow, there is really some good advice in the above posts. Thanks, guys!

•  
  rrgray09/24/08 Report as spam
  7

  RE: 7 Ways To Make Cold Calling Easy

  Jerry Hocutt's "Cold Calling for Cowards" is the best thing I've read on this topic. Once you realize your goal isn't to "close the deal" today, but to be #2 until you become #1 cold calling becomes much easier.