How to Crack that Cold Call

"Receiving a call from someone you either do not know or you do not want to hear from can be quite a bother. Well, making such calls is no less a pain, and, in fact, can be much more stressful."

Cold calling is a can’t-do-without-it sort of sales tool used today. Despite more modern ways of selling and unforeseen marketing strategies that emerge every other week, the well from which every businessman draws his water is the ‘contacts database’ which at some point of time was either collated through, or used, for cold calling. And it serves as a starting point to not only establish a business but also to set career paths. Many entrepreneurs and professionals have crossed milestones, starting off with a cold call.

BREAKING THE ICEBERG

The general perception about cold calling, however, does not reflect the enormous potential that it contains. While receivers turn down such calls with the tagline ‘nuisance’ or ‘hard-selling’, callers themselves tend to think about their job as a ‘dry’ one – which is always full of rejection, subject to rudeness and looked down upon.

The basic which is overlooked here is that cold calling is an essential tool for recognition – an ideal way to spread the word about your work. When approached and applied right, it emerges as an aid to brand recognition, in addition to being an attempt to sell/market your product.

To achieve optimum results, the caller’s line of thought needs to be set straight. Every cold caller should remember that his/her job requires more than telephone equipment and a standard call script. Every call made is an initiative to reach out to the market. A professional with a proactive nature and steadfastness has a cutting edge over his/her counterparts to excel. Accomplishment is not only based on the number of calls made but also by the number of conversions born out of every initiation put forth by the caller.

A shift in the thinking or attitude of the cold caller is the first and the most important step in achieving effective results from this tool.

The caller must remember that the job is more or less an art of convincing someone to listen to you – a someone who does not know you, has no more than two seconds for you and is just waiting to cut you off to get back to things that are more important than being held up on phone over a marketing call. And every form of art is intricate, requires focus, an eye for detail, hard work, a well-conceived strategy and a mountain of patience (yes!) before you begin to master it.

The second step to bring out the best from the cold calling activity is to understand what can be expected from the receiver of the calls.

Like it or not, a cold caller is always at the mercy of the receiver‘s time and attention. It makes sense to accept that this time or attention from the receiver may not be granted in most of the cases. It would be prudent to have reasonable expectations in addition to undiluted enthusiasm or determination. Always remain objective and never take rude replies personally. When a receiver sounds irritated, excuse yourself politely and hang up. Do not prolong the conversation in an attempt to defend your stance. A person who is not interested in your product is not going to be interested in your justifications either.

COLD CALLING IS BOLD CALLING

There are no magical hard and fact rules that can be applied to the process of cold calling that may guarantee fruitful results. However, a set of guidelines may be practiced to achieve practical success in daily work. To begin with, the caller should possess these ‘must-haves’:

• Thorough knowledge of the product/service: Know every detail down to the minutest of specification covering usage, billing, delivery, disclaimers, and so on. Remember to emphasise on the pros and prepare effective counters to defend the cons.

• Appropriate script: A clearly drafted call script with timely greetings, sufficient magic words, crisp and concise description works wonders.

• Straight-forward: Let the language used be simple, precise and comprehensible. Many times, callers are hardly understood by receivers because of super-fast delivery of the content matter, which contains terminologies that are either unknown or difficult to comprehend.

• Prioritise: Categorizing callers according to their demographics can be of great help. This will help in determining the right time of the day to make a call. For instance, a senior citizen or home-maker would detest marketing calls in the afternoon, a time of the day that is better suited to reach out to the working class that hates to be disturbed during the first half of the day.

• Play to your strengths: Let there be a stamp of your individuality while talking to a prospect; the script should not be ‘narrated’, but delivered with finesse. Work on voice modulations and, if possible, rehearse once or twice to obtain fluency. And always ensure that you get the name of your prospect pronounced right!

• Keep a record: Take notes religiously; whether it is feedback, or nature of response or a call-back comment so that you may avoid ringing up someone who just declined your offer curtly or miss a call back to a prospective customer.

• Don’t forget your manners: Never ever slip from being polite. An ideal marketing call with the right mixture of words and tones may be forgotten, but a sour one will leave a very bad impression on the brand and before you know it, a blog may begin to do the rounds!

• Knock before you enter: Always ask a caller if he/she has time to hear you out before you begin ranting. Keep a one-liner ready as a subject-line to the call. Also, listen carefully; gauge the mood of the person you are talking to before proceeding to make your proposition.

THE CALLER’S CALL

The remote to control the conversation of a marketing call lies in the hands (words) of the caller. Irrespective of the response, the caller is always capable of leaving a professional mark on his/her job done. Cold calling is the natural hunting ground for business. And the skills of the callers are weapons that the hunters depend and rely upon for their meat. A weapon that must be honed to influence, convince and attract attention. Remember, next time you make that call, try not to sell something; instead, build a conversation with that stranger. And the sales will follow!