How To Become An Expert At Cold Calling

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Updated: September 12th, 2024

What Is Cold Calling?

Cold calling is a technique salespeople use to contact prospects who have not expressed interest in your products. Sometimes referred to as telemarketing, cold calling typically involves in-person visits or door-to-door marketing.

Salespeople have used cold calling to generate qualified leads and achieve their sales targets. The target-driven sales communication tool is one of the important skills you can develop as a salesperson.

So, in this post, I am going to share important cold-calling tips, and explain how the sales technique works.

Cold Calling Key Takeaways

The goal of your first call is to set the meeting, and not a sales pitch
Before the call, write down what you intend to say
Ask a question to engage them within the first 2-3 sentences of talking
Expect to get objections on every first cold call
Before calling, identify the prospects pain points and judge if your solution can fix it

How Cold Calling Works

Cold calling targets potential prospects who have not yet shown interest in purchasing your products or services. Therefore, the salesperson quickly finds a way to connect and interact with the target customers, trying to initiate the sale.

Cold calling occurs exclusively via phone or video conferencing. Under the model, the salesperson plans on making more sales.

Unlike warm calling, the salesperson knows nothing about the person they are contacting.

Therefore, the initial call is not about presenting a sales pitch. It's about securing that important appointment where you can pitch the customer to subscribe or even try your offering.

Do's and Dont's of Cold Calling

You have a targeted list of prospects and now it is time to begin cold calling. Now what? Cold calling will only become effective if cold calling etiquette is observed. Here are essential dos and don ts when cold calling:

Don’t center the conversation on you
Do focus on your prospects
Don’t assume your offering is the perfect solution
Do allow the prospect to evaluate your solution
Avoid focusing on pushing for a sale right away
Focus on relationship building and gain trust than pushing prospects to purchase
Don’t try to overcome all concerns on your first call

Real-World Examples of Successful Cold Calling

Here are some inspiring cold-calling stories for you.

1. How Wilbur You Built a Successful Business By Cold Calling 100 Prospects A Day

Wilbur You, the CEO, and founder of Youtech & Associates, had started two businesses that failed to pick up well. However, his third attempt turned out to be an inspiring success story, thanks to his realization that cold calling could generate leads.

Wilbur started cold calling 100 companies per day. According to him, the rejection rate was high, but he never gave up.

He held to his goal of calling up to 100 companies, and after two weeks he had two orders valued at $500 each.

In three weeks' time, he stopped making calls so that he would concentrate on clients' work. Soon after, referrals started rolling in and he never looked back ever since.

What started as a website building company, is today a successful marketing agency

2. Travis Richardson Built An All-Inclusive Marketing agency Through Cold Calling

Travis Richardson started Impressions Agency in 2013. Started from a humble background, the online digital marketing agency has grown to an all-inclusive digital marketing agency.

According to Travis, Cold Calling was their main tactic to get in front of a ton of customers.

On one of our first days back from Costa Rica. He started cold calling in the company of his brother-in-law and his first call was to a plumbing company.

Travis dialed the plumbing company and the first thing was an objection followed by a hung up. He called a couple of times and finally, the tables now turned.

The owner of the plumbing company wanted to meet with him. According to Travis, pushing through is the difference-maker. In the early stages of the game, this is what made the business so successful.

Here's a picture of the two brothers cold calling in their basement:

Tips To Start Cold Calling

Steps to cold call like a champion:

Identify a prospects and call them
Introduce yourself and get straight to the point
Make a bold claim to get their attention
Qualify the prospect
Address any doubts the prospect has
Request to speak to decision-makers
Lockdown an appointment
Confirm the appointment, and then make more cold calls!

With modern technology, cold calling is not expensive. you can make hundreds of phone calls via platforms like:

Call Recorder for Skype

Automatically record and save call audio and video on your Mac.

Pricing: Freemium
Website: ecamm.com/mac/callrecorder/

Businesses using Call Recorder for Skype:

7 successful businesses are using Call Recorder for Skype ➜

Get Call Recorder for Skype ➜

Google Hangout

A unified communications service that allows members to initiate and participate in text, voice or video chats, either one-on-one or in a group.

Pricing: Freemium
Twitter: @hangouts.google.com
Website: hangouts.google.com

Businesses using Google Hangout:

63 successful businesses are using Google Hangout ➜

Get Google Hangout ➜

Facebook Chat App

Live chat with your customers using Facebook Messenger.

Pricing: Freemium
Twitter: @beeketing
Website: https://apps.shopify.com/facebook-live-chat?ref=starter-story

Businesses using Facebook Chat App:

133 successful businesses are using Facebook Chat App ➜

Get Facebook Chat App ➜

Case Study

Travis Richardson started Impressions Agency in 2013--an online digital marketing agency.

Cold Calling was their main tactic to get in front of a ton of customers.

He provides us with all his tips and strategies for cold calling:

"On one of our first days back from Costa Rica. I was cold calling with my brother-in-law (family is always easy to pull in). My mentality was “watch and learn as I call this plumbing company”. I dialed a plumbing company and the first thing the guy did was call me a solicitor and hung up. I looked at Caleb and said: “what do you do when someone hangs up on you?” He says “You call the next person”. Nope. You call again.

And this is your one-liner: “I’m sorry sir. My phone must have gotten disconnected. When would be a good time to talk to you about your company?:” He, of course, replied with “No, we did not get disconnected. I hung up on you. (click)”. He hung up again.

I looked at my brother-in-law and said now what do you do? He says: “call the next person”. Nope. We call again.

On the third and final time we called him back you can imagine his fury. You could feel it through the phone. He proceeds to hang up again. This time we moved on. Low and behold 5 minutes later this angry plumber called the company line to complain. What he didn’t know was that the business line transferred to my cell phone 😀.

He proceeded to complain about these awful sales guys and then began to recognize my voice. I told him that I’m the owner of the company and the reason I was calling him is that I believe he was an industry leader (another one-liner) in Denver and I only work with industry leaders.

The tables now turned. He suddenly wanted to meet with us. At that time I told him because of his attitude from the previous calls that we would not like to meet."

The point is, you’ll get 10 no’s before you get to that one yes. Pushing through is the difference-maker. In the early stages of the game, this is what made the business so successful.

Here's a picture of the two brothers cold calling in their basement:

Travis Richardson, on starting Impressions Agency ($100,000/month) full story ➜

meet the author

Pat Walls

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.

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