Think About the Times When You Have the Most Social Energy For one of our clients, it’s when he’s at the Crossfit gym with his friends. Channel that feeling before your next cold call. This technique is called Imagery Training, it works really well if you practice. Bring It Back to Your Why Every prospect you interact with (including assistants) could be the ticket to your next big deal. Show up. Be present. Make a great first impression. Put Your Favorite Music On This is my go-to. For me, it’s 80s rock and 90s hip-hop. Morgan Ingram put together a Keep Dialing playlist you can check out as well. It’s a good idea to put your favorite pump-up jams in a playlist to get your mind right. Sit Up Straight Research has indicated that physicality drives tonality. Cold calling company for windows and doors replacement Put simply, your physical state affects your mental state. Simply sitting with good posture can put you in a better mood and can mentally give you a positive image. And prospects will hear that on the other end of the phone. Try these tips: Stand up or sit straight up on the edge of your chair when you’re making calls. Go for a quick 5-minute walk before your call blitzes to get your blood flowing. Smile when you talk. Keep a small mirror at your desk you can look at. Grab a coffee in the morning before you start working. Your goal is to be social. Challenge yourself to make the barista and one person standing in line smile by saying hi and asking how their morning is going. Use the Right Cold Calling Script A quality cold calling script is one of the best ways to take the guesswork out of what to say when you get your prospects on the line. You’re not wasting valuable time making small talk, adding useless filler, or trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t. PRACTICE, practice, practice Role play your sales pitch with your manager or other sales reps, where you are cold calling them and working through your script. Record your sales pitch calls so you and your sales team can review things like your tone, pace, word choice, and call strategy, which can then be shared with other sales reps. You’ll never get better at B2B cold calling without understanding what you need to improve upon, and that takes active practice. Document the Call Immediately after hanging up, it’s a good idea to document call details while they’re still fresh in your mind. Don’t leave out anything, even if you think it’s not significant. When you review the call later, those details can really stick out and may create talking points for future conversations. Follow Up Regardless of how the call went, send the prospect a quick follow-up email immediately after hanging up to thank them for their time and outline next steps, if there are any. This extra touchpoint gives them a way to easily contact you, and leaves them with a positive impression of you and your company. Don’t Take It Personally ? B2B cold calling is a tough job. You’re going to get a lot of Nos. So think about it like this: The people who give you a well-deserved Yes are one step ahead of their competition (who may have already given you a No). You are making a difference to their business. Well done. Step 3: Validate It Next, you need to get the prospect to tell you they want to solve this problem. THEY must say it, or it’s worthless. Not saying it is a strong signal they aren’t committed enough to find a solution. And you have to do this quickly. Continuing to talk about something your prospect doesn’t consider a priority is dying a slow death .Best lead generation company for Air Duct cleaning Get their commitment with a simple question: “Do you want to fix that?” Here are some good ideas for doing this naturally: “I saw X, which led me to believe you’re trying to (whatever problem you solve). Are you?” “I saw that you were running Google ads for laser tattoo removal. That led me to believe you might be looking to bring in more patients. Is that a priority for you right now?” If you CAN’T figure this out before you get them on the phone, you need to uncover it right away. “Most (roles) that I talk to tell me that they’re trying to do one of three things: (problem 1), (problem 2), or (problem 3). Does that sound like you at all?” “Most of the doctors I talk to tell me they are looking to either bring in a higher volume of patients, bring in patients for specific services, or just see more patients who pay out of pocket. Which of those is most important to you?” “Most VPs of Sales tell me they either have trouble generating enough pipeline or aren’t sure the quality of it. Does that sound like your world at all?? A word of caution, here. “Problem” and “feature” are not the same thing. 99.99% uptime? That’s a feature. Losing sales because your hosting isn’t reliable — that’s a problem. Better online reputation? Feature. Paying too much for a PR service that doesn’t seem to move the needle — problem. Faster, bigger, prettier? Features. Not having time (or skill) to create landing pages that convert — problem. What do your features DO for the prospect? Translate them into more income, more savings, less worry. Question Stacking Of course, in order to get the information you need, first you need your prospect to actually answer your questions. A super useful technique here is question stacking. Here’s why you should give it a go. In Chorus.ai’s study of 5 million+ sales calls, they found that the most successful reps talk 40–50% of the time in their cold calls. They also ask four questions, including 2–3 engaging questions that solicit responses of 30 seconds or more. Now if you look at Gong.io’s data, it conflicts slightly with those numbers. Their studies show that successful reps talk 54% of the time. And there was no difference in the number of questions successful vs. unsuccessful reps asked. Here’s what you can take away from this: You and the prospect should roughly split the talk time. It won’t be perfect, but avoid dominating the entire conversation. You only have time to ask a few well-thought-out questions. Make it count. We teach our clients a method called question stacking. Let’s look at an example. Your company has a product that automates bookkeeping. Manually doing their own bookkeeping and account reconciliation through spreadsheets and multiple platforms are the biggest frustrations for most of your users. In a cold call, you want to know if they’re using multiple tools for their bookkeeping because that’s where you can potentially help. “Many small business owners spend a few hours every week using tools like PayPal, Stripe, and spreadsheets to manually do their bookkeeping. I’m curious. How are you handling bookkeeping at ABC Company?” The first sentence provides context to the question in the second sentence. If you asked the second question without providing context, you’re much more likely to get a generic response that doesn’t give you the answer you need to set an appointment. Here’s how to come up with your own questions: Figure out what you need from the prospect. What requirements need to be met in order to have a quality sales conversation? It could be tech stack requirements or the number of employees they have in a particular department. Examples: “Many sales teams are using Salesforce these days. What tools do you guys use?” “Many of the small business owners I talk to are using Quickbooks for their bookkeeping. What are you guys using?” “Many of the sales teams I talk to are using sales engagement tools like Mailshake or Outreach.io to run their outbound cadences. What are you guys using?” Look at your notes from previous sales calls. Take a look at the notes or listen to the recordings from your past cold calls and discovery calls. What pain points did prospects share with you? If you don’t have anything good here, pay closer attention during the calls you make moving forward. Write down, word for word, exactly what your prospects say when they’re sharing their pain points. Examples: “One thing I hear from delivery teams is that they’re short on staff when it comes to MIM, Active Directory, or Office 365 expertise. How do you guys staff for these types of skill sets?” “Personalization at scale is what many sales teams are trying to do in their cold outreach right now, but many sales directors are worried about how long it takes. Best lead generation company for home improvement company How do you guys approach personalization?” “Getting in touch with decision-makers at companies your nonprofit doesn’t have a personal relationship with can be challenging. I’m curious, how do you guys approach companies you want to partner with?” Examine existing customers. What are the top three areas where your product/service helps your customers the most? Take note of the value you provide them. This is a good opportunity to collaborate with your product or delivery team. Examples: “One thing business owners tell me they really want is to spend less time working with spreadsheets and multiple software platforms when they’re doing their bookkeeping. I’m curious about how you guys handle your bookkeeping?” “A trend that’s big with prospecting right now is using tools like video and LinkedIn to set more appointments. I’m curious about how you guys are using those tools to fill your pipeline?” “Many HR teams are looking for ways to spend less time manually tracking their performance management. I’m curious about how you guys are using automation to better track and save time with your employee check-ins?”