Sales Communication Skills: How to Cold Call

(This is the first in a series of posts about sales calls. For our take on Leading a Sales Conversation, check out our post here. For our approach to Closing Sales, check out our post here.)

SagePresence helps professionals face their make-or-break moments — those moments where it feels like success or failure is entirely contingent on your performance in the moment — and cold calling seems to be one of the most commonly reported moments where our clients ask for help.

Cold calling can stop a grown professional in their tracks

Classically, cold calling is reaching out to someone you’ve never spoken to before with the intent of selling something to them. Just the idea of this freaks people out, for many reasons:

• It can be hard enough to start a little conversation with a stranger, let alone start one so you can sell to them. So just having the agenda can create a mountain in our way.
• We’re nervous we’re going to ruin a perfectly fine (but nonexistent) relationship by being perceived as a pushy salesperson.
• We’re afraid of failure.
• We’re worried we’re going to get rejected.
• We simply don’t know what to say, particularly in this challenge where it seems like we’ve got seconds to make the right impression.

The good news is that the solution here is the same as the solution to everything we talk about. Let’s take these challenges one at a time:

Getting Over Your Agenda — Yes, you have an agenda. You have something to talk about with someone. This is actually good news — If you think about it, it’s actually easier to start a conversation with somebody if you have something to talk about, isn’t it?

But it’s not just having something to talk about that’s the problem, it’s knowing that you want them to do something that’s the problem, right? The beginning of the solution is to just get very, very clear on what you’re asking for in this single conversation. Don’t expect to ask for a sale from word one, just look to ask for a next, non-cold conversation. (More on this later.)

Getting Over Your Worry About How They Will Judge You — When it comes down to it, it’s not so much the problem that you want them to do something, it’s that you know you will benefit from them doing something. You’re worried that they will think you’re only talking to them to get something from them.

So you have to be perfectly clear with yourself before you pick up that phone: This phone conversation is not about you, it’s about them. It’s not about what you will get, it’s what you can give. It’s not about selling, it’s about helping.

Getting Over Your Worry About Failure – Fear and anxiety is only a problem when it’s in your way. When it’s not in your way, it can be used as fuel. We learned this from actors who told us that the day they stopped having stage fright was the day that they were going to retire. They said it’s the fear of failure that keeps them focused and on their toes. So for those of us who have fear in our way, it’s because we’ve decided that fear is bad, and we want it to go away. Which only strengthens its effect on us. For those who don’t have fear in their way, it’s not because they don’t feel anything, it’s because they’ve decided it’s good, and they want to benefit from it. Which transforms it from fear into excitement.

Getting Over Your Worry About Getting Rejected — When we’re worried about anything, our attention is on ourselves. And when our attention is on ourselves, we judge ourselves and find ourselves lacking, because we are our own worst critic. We need to have our attention on the people that we’re calling.

How do you get your attention off of yourself and on them? You ask yourself a simple question before you pick up the phone: “What can I appreciate about this person?” Even though it’s a cold call and you don’t know much about him, you can know something. If they pick up, you can appreciate that they’re there. Or, if you get their voice-mail, you can appreciate that they’re not there. (More on voice messages later.) You can appreciate their situation, or their position. You can appreciate their name, or their company name. It doesn’t matter what it is,  just appreciate it and feel the appreciation. You’ll be focused on the other person which will make sure you’re listening to them, and which they will detect and appreciate right back.

Getting Over Not Knowing What To Say — This can be particularly challenging because it feels like we only have moments to convince them to keep listening to us, so it feels like every word counts. This is true in that we want to be efficient and time-conscious, because everyone is busy these days. But if we truly have something that will help this person, it’s worth their time for us to talk with them about it.

So introduce yourself. Say your name and your company name, then tell them who you help and how you help them. Make sure the who that you name is someone they can identify with. So, for example, if I as a representative of SagePresence am talking with a business development leader at a company, I would say, “We help companies grow business by helping their people get better at building professional relationships and presenting the core value of the company.”

Then, ask for the next step.

You might be leaving a voice message. In this case, the next step is to ask them to call you back. Or better yet, let them know when you’ll be calling back so that all they have to do is pick up.

In case you get a live person picking up their phone, the next step you’re asking for is a brief conversation to see if there’s a fit. If they say no, ask to schedule a time for another call. But more likely they’ll say yes now because they’re already on the phone with you.

And this is the extent of the cold call. Because anything past this is warmer. Once they say yes, you’ve won your opportunity to take the conversation to the next step, which we’ll get into next time.

What do you think of all this? What questions do you have? What experiences have you had with cold calling? Share your thoughts with us and let us know how we can help!