Cold calling is usually the first step in closing sales. You would have to call someone who you have never meet or spoken to before and start selling over the phone. Most of the time, the salesperson gets rejected within seconds of making the call. It’s challenging but there are some techniques that can improve your cold calling skills overnight.
So here are 6 easy tips that you can use instantly to close sales over the phone:
1.Know your customer’s pain
Your prospect will want to hear more when you understand their problem and you are able to provide a solution. For example, if you are calling a pharmaceutical company, spend a few minutes to research and understand the sort of problems they might be going through before calling.
2. Prepare case studies
Sharing case studies is one of the best ways to convince a prospect. Better still, share case studies from similar industries. If you are cold calling an automotive company and trying to pitch your products, use successful case studies of other automotive companies that your company has sold to before.
3. Have a script
Plan out your conversation using a script. A script is a basic tool for each salesperson and it’s useful in case you get stuck during a conversation or you are looking for data/ information to share with your customers. Also, a script allows you to plan your conversation and lead your prospect throughout the call.
One important thing about a script, don’t read it like a robot. You have to role-play a few times to familiarise yourself with the script until it comes out naturally.
4. Talk to the person in charge
The goal of a cold call is to close a sale. Hence, it is important to talk to the decision-maker. After training many salespeople, we realize that most salespeople will rather talk to the executives who can’t make decisions instead of the head of departments (HOD) or even CEO who can and the reason among all of them is very similar – they’re afraid.
While the title CEOs and HODs sound threatening at first, they are also leaders who need their business problem solved. If you can do that, they will be eager to find out more. Talking to non-decision-makers would make the sales process extremely long and, in the end, the sale might not even materialize. So, it’s important to talk to the right people.
5. Be Energetic and use names
When you call a prospect, sound energetic and address your prospect by name like “Hi, Lim!”. This gives the prospect the feeling like you are a friend because that’s how their friend would call them too. This subconsciously distracts them from treating you like a salesperson.
6. Activity
All these tips won’t work if you don’t actually make the calls. Also at the same time, challenge yourself to call more. If the company target is to make 30 calls, why not do more. Make 40 calls instead. Do this consistently and high chances are you will be the top salesperson in your company.
Do your salespeople have challenges in cold calling and you want them to start closing more sales over the phone? By attending our cold calling training, your salespeople will learn how to cold call more effectively, have more sales, and be confident in tackling any rejections that your prospect gives. We have trained thousands of salespeople and have received many testimonials from clients who have increased sales after our training. We want you to experience that too. Find out more here.
