Cold Calls

“Nobody picks up the phone anymore”, “You can’t reach clients on the phone”, “The phone call is dead”. Psht…give me a break. People say this because they don’t want to pick up the phone. They are scared. I’m not saying that as a put down, I am scared too. I have been in sales for 20 years and I am still scared of picking up the phone. I can do it 50 times a day, and that 50th call is scary. Rejection is a scary thing. This is bread into us evolutionarily, because historically, rejection from the tribe or group meant almost certain death. Rejection, and the possibility of rejection is one of the scariest things we encounter in our lives, and worst of all, we can’t talk about it or act like it’s a problem because it is emotionally scary, but not intellectually scary, so it seems socially unreasonable to complain about.

For this reason, many people look for and find justification for not making calls. Calls are live and real time. It is a lot easier to brush off a rejection in an email than to hear someone directly tell you that you are an idiot, or annoying, or to never call them again.

But the reality is that phone calls work better than they used to, provided that you do good research. Every phone call used to involve reaching a machine, an answering service, or a gatekeeper of some sort. But now, many buyers don’t even have land lines and they just use a mobile phone as a work phone. Not only that, but many sellers have abandoned calls, so buyers, while getting many more emails than they used to, are getting far fewer calls. Well crafted voicemails, and calm, simple, and direct phone conversations are a very powerful tool and should be used often in the early stages of the sales process.

Phone calls won’t work every time, nothing does. And, they won’t be the most effective strategy for all clients, nothing is. But, they are very effective for many clients out there, especially for the ones who are least likely to respond to email and messages. Phone calls should be built into every cadence so that prospects receive email, other messages, and phone calls (including VMs). These actions drive familiarity because when a client hears a name and a company from multiple forms of communication it tends to speed up the recognition and association process.

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So let’s talk about the cold call itself. When you get a potential buyer on the phone, you have very little time to engage them to the point where they will not flag you as a waste of time and refrain from truly engaging with you; usually about 15 seconds.

Calls are different than emails because the goal with an email is simply to resonate and prepare for later engagement. The call, like a meeting, or an elevator pitch is a two-sided social interaction focused on conversation, and is similar to a presentation. In other words, in the first 15 seconds of a call, the goal is to engage the buyer enough to get to the next part of the call. In order to do this, you have to be engaging, clear, and get directly to the point. The only difference between a cold call, and a meeting or a presentation is that you have a fraction of the amount of time available to make your point. Even on a cold call you are still telling a story, and having a social interaction. Here is how to construct a story for the first 15 seconds of a cold call.

1. Introduction / Credibility: In about 3–5 seconds, state your full name, your company name, and reference something that you sent them in email that helps with credibility. If you don’t state your full name or your company name, they will ask, and that will put you on the defensive, and hand over some control to the buyer. Referencing a piece of relevant research or an insight or information you have sent helps to accentuate any familiarity you have built up with the buyer and gives you a bit of credibility as someone who has permission to have a point of view within your industry. It is a good idea to call the buyer by their first name unless asked to do otherwise. This insinuates familiarity and pier status. However, the converse does not hold. The reason that you should use your full name in the introduction is because that insinuates a level of importance and respect that you are due as the leader of the call. Not knowing the buyer well will mean that it won’t seem weird at all, but what you have just done is told the buyer that you are a pier, and that you deserve respect simply by saying, “Hi Chris, this is Dan Greenberg from DG Consulting”.

   
   

2. Problem: This part, as all other parts of your story, should be rehearsed. State the client’s problem succinctly, better, and more clearly than they can, and use social proof to back up your understanding. Reference clients in the “X Industry” or specific client names if appropriate and applicable, and tell your prospect that you work with clients like these on the following problem. This should take about 3–5 seconds.

   
   

3. Outcome: This part of your story should also take about 3–5 seconds and it is supported by the problem statement you just made. Tell your prospect that you work with companies like this and help them get to a better desired outcome, which you can describe.

   
   

4. Next Steps: Lastly, sell the meeting assumptively. You are not selling your product, you are just selling them on the idea of spending a bit more time with you, or someone on your team. This should take just about a second. All you have to say is something like, “I’d be happy to discuss in more detail with you”.

   
   

Here is how it looks altogether, feel free to substitute your wording for mine, and try to do it slowly, calmly, and with command, but in about 15–20 seconds:

“Hi Chris, this is Dan Greenberg from DG Consulting; we published the study that I sent you on sales training inefficiencies and their causes. Many FinServ small business leaders that I speak with express significant difficulty finding and ramping good sellers. We help with both. I’d be happy to discuss in more detail with you”.

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At this point the client will object, and that is a good thing. In fact, the more foundational and to the point the objection is, the better. If they say things like, “I’m worried about the value trade off because we have internal systems designed to do this work”, or “We have struggled with implementations of tools like this in the past due to our regulatory system”, those objections are great. They open the door for further conversation and send you off in the right direction on your discovery journey. They also mean that the buyer is engaged, and thinking about the problem and solution rather than on autopilot.

Most likely, however, you will get objections like this, “I don’t have time to discuss this now”, or, “Can you call me back next quarter to discuss? that will work better.”, or, “I’m not interested”, or, “send me an email about this and I’ll get back to you”. These aren’t as good, but they are OK as well. The point is that when you get an objection, it is an opening for you to launch into discovery, and if the questions are asked correctly, that will open up more opportunities for sharing insights and research, and learning more about how your prospect thinks about their problems.

The other option, of course, is that they ask you a question, or simply agree to discuss in more detail or set up a meeting. If they agree to set up a meeting, you should nail down the time right away by offering up multiple options and making it easy for them to pick one. You can even offer, again, to continue the conversation right now, but give other times as the secondary options. If your client really doesn’t want to talk right now, this will make the secondary option sound very appealing. If the prospect asks you a question, or agrees to speak in more detail, you should immediately, assumptively take that as an invitation to start your first meeting with the prospect.

Here are the basic takeaways that should be top of mind every time you think about an early stage pitch and every time you construct a cold call pitch, script, or plan.

1. Rehearse: The words should be second nature to you. It’s only 15 seconds of words. You should know them so well that you can say them without thinking about them, so that you can be listening to and observing exactly how the prospect is responding, verbally and non-verbally.

   
   

2. Research / Credibility: Know exactly what your prospect cares about, and what 3rd party source you will reference for credibility. Make sure to share or reference an insight.

   
   

3. Social Proof / Credibility: Know exactly how you want to leverage social proof for credibility, whether it be direct references to past clients, offering up referrals, or 3rd party supported references to industry expertise.

   
   

4. Problem Statement: The problem statement should be the most airtight part of your pitch and should state the prospects problems in their most often used terms succinctly and clearly.

   
   

5. Outcome: Describe what the desired outcome looks like. Don’t sell your product, just paint a picture of where happy clients end up. Then offer to fill in details if they talk to you more.

   
   

6. Confidence and Assumptiveness: If you are perceived as lacking in confidence or in assuming that the prospect does not want to continue the conversation, you will compel the prospect to believe that you are not worth their time.

   
   

7. Don’t Pitch Slap: Don’t sell your product. You can’t make a sale on a cold call, so don’t try. Earn credibility, then state the problem, then paint a picture of the ideal outcome, and then sell the next deeper conversation.

   
   

8. Don’t let objections deter you: 95% of the objections you get will be the same 4 or 5 things. Have a clear, calm, and constructive response to each of those lined up; if the prospect wants to reject you, they will have to say so explicitly, otherwise, keep moving forward. Often, objections come from rote reactiveness, not material push back.

   
   

   

   Calm, Confident, Commanding