Cold Call Introductions

Cold Call Introductions

How to Create and Deliver a Successful Cold Call Introduction

If you were to line up the 10 most successful cold calling salespeople in the world and ask them one simple question:

What’s the secret to your selling success?”

After a lot of persuasion and several coffees they’d probably tell you they have developed a formula. Most will have arrived at this formula over many years of testing and refining, and getting the presentation just right out in the sales field or when they’re working on the phone.

They now know what works most of the time and, the better their odds, the more times they’ll be successful. You can’t rig the odds.

What you’re looking to do, is create and craft an opening statement that gets the attention of all the GOOD prospects in your long list of cold leads.

The first thing to consider is that nothing, no technique, no formula, works on every prospect, every time you pick up the phone. Remember that not every prospect you call is a good one.

Also, not every prospect deserves your time and energy. You’re only looking for the right kind of prospect when cold calling. These are the prospects that show interest early on in the call and when you find those, well, then they deserve your time and all the skills it takes to deliver the rest of your presentation.

What I’d like to share with you is a formula that works really well for opening a cold call. You can use this as an introduction on so many different types of calls – appointment setting, on-call sales, products or services. This winning cold call formula works for most industries.


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I’ve developed this particular introduction by learning
 from such masters as Allan Pease and building on my own
 experience as a successful cold caller. I pass this formula
 on to many other callers and teams I work with today.
 These callers are blitzing previous cold call targets and still
 surprise themselves how much new business is waiting for them out there. They just had to pick up the phone!

It takes a little practice to get the flow right and the timing working but remember to keep to the formula. The whole idea of this call is to find the good prospect quickly, right?
 And here it is:

1. Who you are


2. Where you’re from


3. The reason for the call


4. Then…hit a “HOT BUTTON” question

Let’s deal with item one. On a cold B2B call, don’t ask people how they are or if  they have a few minutes. They’ve heard it all before, just get to the point!

Number two, tell them the name of your company.

Number three; well, the reason for the call can be varied, there are loads of reasons to call but in the example below I’ve just said we know they, as a customer, have a service option from our competitors.

Number four is critical. Allan Pease once described a “HOT BUTTON” as something that, when pushed, should warm your prospect’s interest. It should get their attention and create a positive or at the very least a neutral response from the better cold prospects in our list.

By the way, research shows that you have between 15-30 seconds to create either interest or disinterest on a cold call presentation. No grey areas here!

The “HOT BUTTON” question can also act as a sieve. It can help you “weed-out” indifferent prospects from the good ones early in the call and save you hours of time presenting to the wrong kind of prospect. Save energy, I say, save energy for the right prospects.

Here’s an example of an opening statement for a cold calling team that I created for a large Telco campaigning to increase market share in mobile phones.

Caller:

Hello Peter, it’s Matthew calling … and I’m part of the customer care team at     Phones-R-Us.

The reason I rang you today John is … we appreciate you have a choice with mobile phone services but … we wondered …

When you open your mobile phone account every month … do you ever feel like you’re paying too much? Do you ever feel that way, John?

Many, many cold call prospects respond with:

  • What can you do for me then?
  • Yes … way too much!
  • Ummm … what do you mean?
  • I suppose you can do better, can you?

And many more variations on the above. The point is these types of responses allow the caller to “get in the door”. The prospect has shown a level of interest and you now have a chance to present.


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Some of the callers using the above opening statement even get the best response of all.

No … I’m not happy about my mobile charges and I was thinking of changing before you rang!

BOOM! Got that one!

When you ask the “Hot button” question you also weed out the time wasters and the not interested. They respond with:

Yes, I’m happy with what I’m paying.


It’s hard work to turn this type around on a cold call. Move on to the next.

I’m not interested.

Fine, found out early, moving on.

So, what are yours and your company’s “Hot Buttons”? We all have them, we just have to find them and incorporate them into our formula and practise, practise, practise.

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