Nobody likes to receive a cold call but when your starting out in business development, or entering a new market as a consultant, trying to find business by cold calling is necessary tool that can be daunting. The business you want isn’t going to cold call you so you have to get out there an start marketing and selling.
The catch is that no one wants to be sold, especially from a cold call. So the moment you begin cold calling a new prospect they begin to build resistance immediately and then the objections start to emerge.
There’s no time, no need, no money, but what they are really saying is that there is no trust.
They don’t know you and so they don’t trust you, and why should they, you cold called them!
So here are some Cold Calling Tips for Beginners.
Build a Relationship and to Start Building Trust
The first thing to do in cold calling is to stop selling. Instead of focusing on the sale focus on building trust, the they way to build trust is by building a relationship. Jay Conrad Levinson suggests that it takes nine points of contact with a prospect to build a trusting relationship. Only then will you have a client. However, its not never that simple as Jay Conrad Levinson goes on to suggest that for every three points of contact you have with a prospect, only one is remembered while the other two are either forgotten, dismissed or ignored. This means that in order to build a trusting relationship through 9 points of contact you must have 27 contact efforts. I call Jay Conrad Levinson’s 27 contact theory ‘9R’s to Trust’, but that in itself is a whole other post.
Prepare for all Objections
So, keeping this in mind, you are looking at a lot of cold calling and contact efforts to develop a paying client which means your going to face a lot of objections. Lets look at how to overcome objections from two different perspectives;
- The Diffuser method by Ari Galper, and
- The Reverse method by Alan Weiss
Diffuse the Resistance
This approach is an easy method to integrate into a cold call but it does take practice. The diffuser method does not require you to have expert product or industry knowledge so there is no pressure on you to have a list of responses. They hard part is letting go of the traditional sales scripts and developing a mindset of building trust. You are not calling to promote and sell, you are calling to start a conversation so you can start building trust. The goal is to see if the person on the other end of the phone is open to a conversation about different ways to approach a problem that you can help solve. When facing an objection you start with the phrase ‘That’s not a problem….’
Cold calling tips example:
Objection: We already have a company that does that
Response: That’s not a problem…I’m not calling to replace the services you already use, I’m just calling to see if you would be open to some different ideas on how to (their problem) attract more prospects.
You can find more on Ari’s Blog
Reverse the Objection
To pull this off you need to be very confident and have to ability to push back and lean into the objection. This needs practice so dont expect to to master it overnight. The reverse method requires to you to be prepared for every objection. Alan suggests writing a list of objections you expect to hear and then writing out ten responses to each all starting with the phrase ‘That’s exactly why you need me…..’
Cold calling tips example:
Objection: You don’t know our industry
Response: That’s exactly why you need me….. I bring the best practices from across the board.
You can find more on Alan’s Blog
Free PDF Training Guide: ‘Cold Calling Tips for Beginners Action Card’
If you would like a tutorial on cold calling tips, how to overcome cold call objections simply subscribe to my email newsletter and I will send you the ‘Richer Thinking Objections Action Card’ with a tutorial and more examples.
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