Hello ladies, gents, cartoon animals, and others.
Something we are yet to cover on our Substack. Cold calling and how most suck at it. One that is good at cold calling takes the home big check - easy equation. SDRs and WiFi money-making warriors should already understand cold calling is another tool in your toolbox. What’s the problem with cold calling in 2023?
Everywhere you look when it comes to it:
“Cold calling doesn’t work” or “Not worth it, send more cold emails”. Truth is far from those. Cold calling is not being talked about enough in 2023 when you put all the pros and cons on the paper. Not even taking into consideration competition.
Pros:
No technical setup (like with LinkedIn outreach)
Building up the confidence
Becoming desensitized and emotionless to hearing “No”
Cons:
Not for the faint of heart
Pros outweigh the Cons. No doubt here. Making it a clear choice for further use in your outreach game. Still not convinced by cold calling? Being honest with yourself, you are not brave enough to do it? NGMI.
Feel free to stop reading right here. Got a different option and yet to start with the cold calling or want to get better? Hang on and deep diver into the material below.
Keep in mind with cold calling:
“The more you do it, the easier it gets”
Why Do Most Suck At Cold Calling?
The biggest reason why most suck at cold calling is that a typical cold call sounds something like this:
Cold caller: “Hey *umm* is this Greg from *ummm* AlphaCompany?”
Greg: “Yes this is Greg. Who I am speaking with?”
Cold caller: *mhm*
Cold caller: “Glad we manage to catch up Greg this is Cold Caller from NothittingQuotaTM”
Greg: “ I am kinda busy now can we talk later?”
Cold caller: “Sure, when is the best time to call back”
Greg: “Friday”
Cold caller: “Perfect talk to you on Friday”
Greg: *Hangs up*
Guess what? Greg never answers your phone number again.
Separating yourself from being labeled as another sales rep trying to sell you something should be one of your goals. While at the same time balancing straightforwardness and getting things your way. The thing you should pay attention to is getting your prospect to feel emotions. Diving deeper to find out if that prospect has an underlying problem that needs to be taken care of.
Cold calling is NOT going through the call to check it off your checklist. Instead it should be treated more like a tool. Effective one to be used in the prospecting game. Combine prospect’s problems while showing yourself as a “Trusted individual that understands” and you are in for the ride. Better said you will be killing with cold calls.
Bad cold calls come down to:
Not clear structure
Not sounding confident enough
Using “low value” fillers such as “umm”, “mhm” and “uhm”
Sounding too salesy
Pushing your product/service too much
Most cold calls are a combination of all of the above. Take notes and run transcription if possible. Making it the easiest to analyze and learn from your mistakes. Making you a better cold caller in the long run.
How To Get Better At Cold Calling?
Understanding that you should lead with problems your prospects are having.
Completely the opposite of what most Grant C. and Jordan B. fans are preaching. Save yourself and don’t waste energy on the BS “Bro sales culture”. Where volume is everything and you are looking for a signal. Volume > quality advice can work but it’s not optimal.
You need both to make it work.
No company benefits and features - cut that out from your call structure. No one cares. Complete waste of time. Your goal on call should be to build rapport, lead, and showcase yourself in a light that the other side can and will trust you. Once you successfully played with their emotions - picture yourself as a trusted associate in their eyes. Then it’s time for a real discovery call.
Where you will dive deeper into specifics.
Depending on the time and interest level you will either do the discovery part of the call right during the cold call or book an appointment. Questions that work the best and bring the most pain are usually related to processes that an individual is handling at the end of the day.
Don’t bother trying to sell if you are not identifying problems your company can fix.
Look for a clear confirmation prospect is ready to move forward and pay to solve their pain. The detection part is not the easiest but it comes with putting more reps in. Like with most cases:
Big enough pain = money
To finish how to get better: right tonality, subtle confidence, and being comfortable with silence put you in the top 20% of cold callers - straightaway.
Tips anyone could apply right now:
Start speaking slower
Become comfortable with silence
Pay attention to your tonality
Showoff your confidence in a subtle way
Speak clearly
Pace yourself → don’t let caffeine and nervousness mess you up
Lead with problems
Showoff your knowledge
How do you know the cold call went well?
There are two options:
You and the prospect are not fit to work together. Since the prospect’s problems don’t fit your criteria.
You and the prospect are fit. Prospect problems fit your criteria and your solution can fix their problem. Here we are also taking into consideration additional “discovery” meetings. One that might happen in case you want to dive deeper into the Q&A part related to processes, pain, and problems.
Can’t break it down to simpler terms than this.
Other variations and options mean that your cold call was not good enough. You are better off understanding both of you are not fit for each other. Much better than being on hold for a week or two when you were told to come back to check up on the current situation.
In the end?
It comes down to putting more quality reps in than others. Understanding the big picture and logic behind cold calling. Another part of the story is timing. Timing in sales is generally important. But when it comes to cold calling things get even more serious. Think for a moment you catch someone who is about to head into a big board meeting.
Do you think that was the right time for them?
Was not.
Extra tip you could immediately put into practice:
When cold calling your prospects never call them at a full hour or half-hour mark. So for example instead of calling at 10:00 - 10:30 call at 10:12 - 10.47
What logic is behind it? Less chance they are meeting or starting a new one.
WiFi Money And Cold Calling
Funny how no one is talking about it.
You may have already seen a cold-calling tweet with a few tools and databases you can use. Something to enhance your WiFi money set up with cold calling tech stack. No reason to overcomplicate it.
If you are running any sort of lead generation and not using cold calling as one of the outreach methods you are leaving money on the table. Saying this exact statement for months at this point.
The setup part with the cold calling tech stack is straightforward → no overthinking.
Hard part?
Picking up the courage and starting the cold calling outreach.
Running side WiFi money operation focused on local business? The only way you will make it is with cold calling. There is no place for cold emails and LinkedIn when it comes to Local business. Not saying they don't work.
But your time will be better spent calling and getting reps in.
Article Summary:
Cold calling is not dead
Lead with problems and pain (instead of selling right away)
Build rapport and trust in your prospect's eyes
Look for a clear “Yes” → problems + ready to invest = clear yes
Use cold calling into your side business ASAP
Profit
It’s not hard to be better than pretty much everyone else in a cold-calling game. Most advice out there is bad + mix that with the nonconfident individuals who are not sure of their solutions.
You got yourself the perfect recipe for success.
One that requires low-effort structure and implementation + a few easy tweaks to make it work. The next article when it comes to cold calling will be all about the structure and framework.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
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