How do you reach busy prospects by cold calling?

Before you get to this step you need to firstly identify your ideal customer profile and top 3-5 contacts. What industry do you have the most success in? What sectors deliver the best AOV? Best way to do this is to review your live and lapsed customer data, you’ll be able to quickly spot trends.

It's great to have a god-tier goal when reaching out, like getting a demo booked. Having several smaller ones beyond this however frees you from the deflation of not winning first time round as it rarely takes just one contact point. Okay so you can't get the demo booked today, but what smaller goals are achievable still?

Before you set goals you need to be prepared. Things you want to get sorted first: - Top industries - Who's your ICP - The top 5 title/roles - Get 2/3 scripts ready and A/B test them when live - What problems do they face which your product/service solves Only when you have this data can you start efficiently prospecting!

A salesperson is only as good as their data! But not personalisation, who cares if you know which team they support, that's not gonna' help What will help is relevance - here's an example: You sell a CRM. From experience when a VP Sales or CRO steps into a new role they like to change up stacks. You have connected with some of the sales team and reached out to ask them discovery questions. You're surprised by how helpful they are. They don't like their current CRM. You check Sales Nav and notice a new VP of sales started 2 months ago. You cold call VP Sales and say you've spoke with his team and discovered XYZ. You can solve this by ABC which you've done for (relevant clients) the VP is amazed by your approach and books a meeting.

Take time to become a master of your ideal customers pain points. List them out. Understand their challenges and how your product or service can eradicate these. If you aren’t sure, call clients that you’ve got good relationships with an ask them: What are your main challenges right now? How did my product or service solve those? Why did you buy from us? Why didn’t you go to a competitor?

Permission seeking is not something I’d recommend when cold calling because it can start the conversation on a passive or submissive note. Cold calling requires a proactive and confident approach to capture the prospect's attention and establish credibility. Seeking permission upfront might give the impression that the caller is unsure or hesitant about the value they offer. It's more effective to lead with a concise and engaging introduction that highlights the potential benefits for the prospect, demonstrating confidence and expertise.

Sales and buying behaviours are constantly changing. Some say to not ask for permission and assume the sale, some might say that's a very pushy sales technique that no longer works in 23/24. A friendly permission based opener is a great way to get the conversation started. People always ask me what's the best one? There isn't, it's all in the tone and delivery. I've heard top SDR's use "How are you" and book 40 meetings in a month. I've heard top SDR's use "This is a cold call if you hate them as much as me you can throw your phone out the window but if not I was wondering if you had 58 seconds for me to explain why I specifically called you today" and also book 40 meetings a month. Don't assume. Assumptions are the mother of all.....

Targeted discovery questions are crucial for identifying specific client pain points. You'll get a deeper understanding of client needs, leading to tailored solutions focused on solving their biggest challenges.

Open questions are great. So are ‘Probing’ questions, in my opinion they are essential in cold calling because they help uncover valuable information about the prospect's needs, pain points, and objectives. By asking thoughtful and engaging questions, you demonstrate genuine interest, establish rapport, and gather insights that enable you to tailor your pitch effectively. Probing questions transform a cold call into a meaningful conversation, creating a connection based on understanding and trust, which increases the likelihood of a successful outcome. “We find that [Industry] typically experience [pinpoint], tell me about how you currently overcome this?”

Really, in todays sales landscape, does anybody have the time to come up for air and have time to speak with a cold call? NO, NO, NO. It has to be a mix of content, relevance, authority and networking. Make sure you use social media, email marketing, paid marketing and remarketing. Once your target audience gain confidence in your consistent, relevant and timely marketing, the one time you are ready to call them is because they have been engaging with your content and it is no longer a cold call.

Simply put. Don’t. It’s 2024. No one wants to be cold called for anything. Yesterdays door-to-door double glazing sales person is todays door-to-door solar panel sales person. Yes you might get a sale, but it will be distressed. The approach is also hard to scale and doesn’t work with today’s buyers buying needs which are built on; reputation, trust and authority. And in today’s world of privacy and ‘on-my-terms-communication’ cold calling has no place for a sophisticated sales approach.

Well, some objections are definitely rejection! However they'll be few common objections you're likely to face regularly. It makes sense to prepare for these beforehand so when you're hit with the objection you can answer quickly with confidence.

As with all these things, it’s a matter of balance. We see far too often, people preaching one way or another to deliver the best methods for NBD but it’s always a mix. I have to deploy every trick on the book to even get hold of people because we’re all so busy. I think it’s more about the messaging. I’m not here to bombard people or chase people. I want to do business with people who want to do business with me. Focus on your ideal customers with targeting messaging that’s relevant to them. Whether that’s email, cold call or courier pigeon. I get to many “rubbish” sales pitches via phone, email, letter, Watsap, LinkedIn, and most of them have made no effort whatsoever. Target your audience Refine your messaging Provide value

Listening is key when handling objections as there are three different types in my experience. 1. The ones that you can handle and overcome (5 P’s, prior preparation prevents poor performance). 2. The ones that you can’t overcome (there is no shame in these ones). 3. The ones that are just a barrier because they’re too busy to speak or they don’t see the value in a conversation (if you get this one. You need to work on your call guide).

None of the 7 sub topic answers will help you to reach someone by cold calling: they relate to what happens IF/AFTER you get a prospect on a live call... The major challenge: actually getting a targeted prospect to pick up the phone! My team use our own service to achieve this. We average 6-10 live conversations / rep / hour with so called impossible to reach named decision makers and average only 4.5 mins to get into a live conversation. A user presses 1 button: parallel dials are made to numbers with high pickup prioritisation everything between the dial and the named target picking up is managed on behalf of my sellers by virtual assistants. So no wasting seller time on phone trees, IVR, dial by name directories, gatekeepers