Are you making cold calls right now as we speak?
Do you ever get the feeling like it's just
the equivalent of you taking a giant brick
and just banging it against your head
day after day after day?
This is the experience that most cold callers go through.
Cold calling can be very difficult.
Yet, there are a number of strategies that you can use
to make your dial so much more effective
than just using the traditional cold calling approach.
Most salespeople make their lives so much harder
than they have to have it.
If you are making cold calls,
then you must watch this training.
In this video, I'm going to show you
exactly what you must know
in order to be effective at cold calling.
So don't make another dial until you see this.
Check it out.
(light inspirational music)
Number one, stop cold calling.
You may say, "But Mark, you just said,
if I'm making cold calls, then I need to watch this video.
So why would I stop making cold calls?"
Because cold calls are a really antiquated and old approach
that simply is much harder than it has to be.
Now, I'm not saying that you should stop
making prospecting calls,
but you should stop making the traditional cold dial.
You should always be warming up your calls
through other mediums.
You've got so many ways
to get in touch with the prospect nowadays,
it's not just about cold calls.
You can be using email.
You can be using LinkedIn or Facebook,
or you could be sending them a letter or a package.
There are so many ways that you can be connecting
with your prospect before you get them on the phone.
So that way, when they actually answer the phone,
they're like, "Oh yeah, I remember you,"
and suddenly the call is so much less cold
because now they have an idea of who you are.
Maybe they've gotten some value from what you've sent,
and so you are so much more likely to be effective
and successful on that call.
Number two, master your IPP or your Ideal Prospect Profile.
This is one of my biggest passions recently
as I see so many salespeople making dials to prospects
who aren't even necessarily a good fit for what they offer.
Making dials is painful. It's hard work.
So do the effort upfront
to make sure that the people that you're actually calling on
are going to be a good fit.
That means making sure that they have the right title,
that they have the right challenges,
that they're in the right geographies,
that they're likely to be good buyers
for whatever it is that you sell.
Number three, know your blueprint.
Now, this goes back to my earlier idea
of stop making cold calls.
What we believe is that you need to be using
your prospecting blueprint
to make sure that when you're making dials,
by the time you actually get that person on the phone,
they're like, "Oh yeah, I know who you are."
And so we use a strategy called the prospecting blueprint
and the prospecting blueprint is simply
that you're going to use a completely mapped out approach,
taking advantage of a number of mediums
to contact the person,
again using email, LinkedIn, maybe Facebook,
maybe sending a traditional snail mail letter.
I mean, there's so many ways
that you can be getting in touch with someone
and mapping out that whole process
and then mixing in your dials
in between each of these steps.
Let's say you're sending six emails
over the course of a month.
If you're making dials in between each of those emails,
now you're so much more likely
to combine those two approaches
to both get the person on the phone
and when you actually get them on the phone,
they're going to be like, "I know who you are.
And yeah, I saw that email
and I got some value out of it, so thanks.
So what's up?"
Now you're at such a better place than you were
if you were just making a purely cold dial.
Number four, have a kick-ass CTA or Call to Action.
When most people make cold calls,
they think that the only logical call to action
is trying to schedule a meeting or make a sale.
But the reality is is that there are a lot of next steps
as a result of a cold call
that are going to bring the prospect in
because let's face it,
if your prospect is a high-level buyer,
the last thing they want to do is just schedule a meeting
with some salesperson that they've never talked to,
who just called them out of the blue.
So by using a kick-ass call to action,
something like a complimentary piece of content
or something kind of insight
that's more interesting than just hopping on a call with you
or hopping on a call with your boss or whomever it is.
So by using a call to action
that's really going to suck them in,
that they're going to be like,
"Yeah, actually, that sounds good,"
now they're going to be so much more likely
to want to have that meeting because of course,
in order for them to get whatever that call to action is,
they're going to ultimately have to schedule
a next step with you.
That's the power of a kick-ass CTA.
Number five, script out your call.
This is so basic, but we cannot be making calls to prospects
with no script.
It's genuinely insane to me
to envision all the hoards of salespeople
who are out there right now
who are making cold calls to prospects
and don't have any script.
They're just saying whatever comes to their mind.
That's like watching a really,
really, really terrible movie.
A great movie has a great script.
That's the basis of a great movie.
A great prospecting call is going to have a great script.
Now, it doesn't mean that you have to sound scripted.
Whenever I use a script,
and we still use scripts in our organization
for every call we make
and we're really good at using the script
so we don't sound scripted.
In fact, having the script keeps the call on track
and it makes sure that what we say
is actually what we want to say.
Because let's face it, you make 50 dials.
You finally get someone on the phone and you're like,
you wake up out of your stupor and they're like, "Hello?"
And you're like, "Oh, hi, hi,"
and you're already just off script.
Have a script to make sure
that you both follow a good process
and make sure that you stay on track.
Number six, know your contingencies.
This is a big one.
Prospecting calls have a number of areas in the call
where the prospect is likely to push back.
They're likely to try to get off the call
and you want to have contingencies in place
in order to meet those moments.
It's kind of like mini objections, but it's really,
I consider it just more pushback
because it's not really an objection to buying your service.
It's more just like an objection to continuing the call
or something like, "Hey, I got to go.
Can you call me back later?"
Most salespeople are like, "Oh, okay, sure.
What would be a good time to call you back?"
That person doesn't really want you to call back.
They just want to get off the damn phone.
So you want to have contingencies in place
that are going to allow you to push back
and stay on the phone rather than having them
get you off the phone and then blocking your number
and never hearing from you again.
Know your contingencies.
Number seven, live by next steps.
The only thing that matters in prospecting is next steps.
In today's world of selling,
there are no cold dials or prospecting calls
that typically end in a sale.
I don't see a lot out of that anymore.
If you were selling something that is big or to businesses,
your goal is not to make a sale in that call.
It is simply to schedule a meeting.
So live by next steps.
You want to make sure that you're never in the world
of following up with a prospect.
You want to have a scheduled next step.
That means a calendar invite goes out from your calendar
into their calendar and you have a scheduled next step.
That is the only good outcome
that comes out of a prospecting call.
Number eight, be very firm.
This may go against
what a lot of modern-day sales techniques suggest,
which is to avoid all that high-pressure stuff,
but the reality is that
when you're making a prospecting call,
you're dealing with a very cagey animal.
You're dealing with a wild animal
and the way you tame a wild animal is not to be really nice
and just do whatever the wild animal wants,
but instead to provide guide rails,
to be very firm and very strong and assertive,
and that's exactly what we need to be doing
on our prospecting calls.
When your prospects are trying to get off the phone,
trying to say, "Hey, you know what,
why don't you just try me back next week?"
The average salesperson is like, "Oh, okay, great,"
and they think that actually have something, but they don't,
because all that prospect wanted to do
was end the damn call.
You need to be very firm.
You need to be very assertive
and to the point where you're really willing
to frustrate the prospect because you're so firm.
The only outcome is either
that they basically hang up on you
or you schedule the next step,
or you determine, of course, that it's just not a fit,
which is fine, but anything in between that,
the kind of wishy-washy,
hey, why don't you try me back stuff is off the table.
Number nine, nobody can hurt you.
This is really one of the most critical keys
to prospecting calls.
So many people are so terrified
of making a prospecting call.
It's almost like doing standup comedy or giving a speech.
A cold call I would put in the same bucket as those.
But the reality is is that no one can hurt you.
They can't physically harm you.
They can't bring violence to you.
There's simply a person on the other end of the phone.
And so the only harm that they can do
is whatever you're willing to allow them to do you.
Nothing that bad can happen.
The worst thing that happens is they get a little cranky
and they hang up on you or they tell you to go away
or that they can't talk right now.
Most prospects are actually pretty nice about it.
They're like, "Ah, you know, this just isn't a good time.
Can you try me later?"
And the conversation just kind of falls apart. That's okay.
But just remember we can't be living in fear
every time we're making a dial.
They cannot hurt you.
So there are my ideas on cold calling.
And you must now implement these ideas
and don't make another dial until you do.
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