Cold Calling For Beginners: A Step-by-Step Guide To Book Sales Meetings

Cold calling is probably the hardest part of sales. It's the reason most people will never even consider starting a sales career. It's scary, it's uncomfortable, it's hard to master, and sometimes it can feel totally ineffective.

So how do you cold cool effectively? Well, keep watching. I define a cold call as any call to a potential customer who isn't expecting your call and isn't currently in any conversation with your business.

While some industries and types of companies are making cold calls to try and make a sale over the phone, the purpose of a cold call in business to business sales is to generate enough interest from the prospect that they're willing to book a more in depth conversation with either you or someone else from your company. The best way to get that interest is uncovering a problem that they need to solve and alluding to the fact that you have a way, a method, a product that's going to make that better. Basically, before you even pick up the phone, you've got to have a good idea of what's in it for them.

So how do you do that? Step one, smile. No, seriously, you're going to want to have a big old smile on your face while you're dialing.

Because that is the first thing the prospect will hear when they pick up the phone and you begin talking. Step two, dial. Now we're not covering how to generate numbers or find leads in this video.

I'm just going to assume that you have someone that you already want to call. Hello, Jeff speaking. Okay, now that Jeff's picked up the phone, he's going to be thinking three things.

One, Who is this? What do you want? And why are you calling me?

A strong opener will help answer all three of these. Step three, open strong. It means that you need to focus on a few specific things.

Number one, the most important, how you say it. You need to sound calm. This is one of the biggest hurls for new reps.

If you sound surprised or nervous when they pick up the phone, The call was over before it even started. Don't worry though, this will improve with practice. To get over phone fear, it really comes down to doing repetitions and realizing that the worst thing that can ever happen is someone might say they're not interested or chew you out a little bit.

Do it a lot and it'll become less scary. Whilst sounding calm, you're also going to want to sound slightly assertive. You're the quarterback.

You're leading this process. You're the one reaching out to them. and you want to sound intentional in doing so.

You are just as important as the person you're calling and you're calling them with a good reason and ideally a good product that can help a lot of people. You're also going to want to sound positive like a slightly upbeat tone to your voice. Really ask yourself when you're talking am I sounding like the kind of person that I would like to have a conversation with?

Once you've nailed down your tone it's about figuring out what you're going to say. Hey, hi, sup, g'day. Jeff, my name is Rep calling from company.

Or you could skip all of that all together and just go straight into your opener. Now what you say next is pretty heavily debated in sales, but there's a couple of techniques that I prefer to recommend. My personal preference, a permission based opener.

This is when you ask permission to tell the prospect the reason why you're calling. That could sound like this. Hi Will, thanks for taking my call.

Hey look, I know I'm calling out the blue here. However, do you have a few moments to chat? Hello so and so.

This is Kyle Coleman calling from Clary. This is a cold call. Do you want to roll the dice with me?

Look, look, look, you're gonna hate me. This is actually a prospecting call. So, do you want to hang up now or let me have 30 seconds and then decide?

Your call. Will, this is B Dad. You're not expecting my call.

Do you have a moment? I promise to be brief The reason why you might want to use a permission based opener is going to be a lot less tension between you and them They're going to be much less likely to hang up on you And it can be a massive pattern interrupt because most prospects are used to being called and pitched immediately However, some people don't like that approach because it can open you up for a no very early in the conversation in that case The other option is more of an open ended opener, where you go straight into the reason for your call and ask a question. That might sound a little bit like this.

Hey Will, it's Blake Hudson. I'm giving you a call from a company called Tapcart. Checking out your brand, noticed that you guys have a really great sale on basketball shoes.

I'm a hooper myself, was just wondering, what have you guys done to increase the conversion on your website? Hey Will, it's Gabrielle, saw on your profile. You're involved in X, Y, and Z.

We have a solution that makes it way easier and faster. Just curious though, how are you going about that today? The reason why you might want to use this one is it gets to the point.

It doesn't start with a yes or no question. However, I have found that a lot of reps do this wrong. They rush through it way too quickly and it can result in a lot of hang ups from the prospect.

You overwhelm them with information and talk way too much at the start of the call, they're more likely to hang up on you. Now what I don't recommend is saying something like How are you? Or how are you doing?

Or how have you been? As someone who gets a lot of cold calls, these openers frustrate me the most because in my mind all I want to know is, yeah, I'm fine, what the f is it about? Regardless of what you decide to say at the top end of your sales calls, just make sure it's something that you're very comfortable with.

Because if you're not comfortable with it, it's going to be very uncomfortable for the prospect to hear. Step four, the reason for my call. This is either going to be part of your opener, like Blake and Gabrielle demonstrated just a moment ago, or it's going to come immediately after the prospect has given you permission to tell them why you're calling.

This is your opportunity to be relevant and get the prospect's attention. You want to make sure that the reason you're reaching out is all about them, not you. For example, you don't want to say, I'm reaching out because I want to sell you something.

Or the reason I'm reaching out is to tell you to subscribe to SalesFeed. So instead, what I recommend doing is starting with an observation. I noticed, I spotted, I observed.

You're heading up the marketing team at Acne. You're currently hiring. Your team just grew.

Your company recently had some leadership changes. Your company is a user of HubSpot. You recently had a lot of turnover.

Or even, you're based in Alaska. And then transition into why that is of note. A lot of leaders of marketing teams, growing teams, new teams, HubSpot shops, with high churn rates.

Or who are based in Alaska and then go on to a challenge that those group of people are having. Are having challenges with Bot Clicks. Finding the right talent for their team.

Onboarding new staff at a reasonable rate. Are having a lot of employees quitting and not being able to replace them. Having challenges integrating new tools with HubSpot.

Or even staying warm in the winter time. And then you want to ask a question and that's going to springboard the conversation. So I wanted to ask, how are Acme Corp doing that today?

Or you can jump straight into an assumption. This led me to assume you might be looking for new ways to drive real qualified leads who actually have intention of buying your product. New ways to attract qualified candidates to your pipeline.

Scale your sales training. Get your team realigned. Make the most of integrations or even switch CRM.

Or even prepare for the long, dark, cold winter. Would I be totally off the mark in assuming that? And then that can be your springboard into a conversation as well.

Or the last thing you can try is giving them a menu. Hey, I'm reaching out because I saw you're a marketing leader at Growing Company. A lot of VP of marketing are facing one of several challenges that they come to us to help them with.

Number one, they're facing a lot of bot clicks. Number two, they're Sales aren't qualifying the leads they're sending through. Or number three, they're seeing huge bounce rates on their websites and no one is converting to a lead.

I don't suppose any of those are problems for you right now. Again, that's just a third way to transition from an observation into a problem conversation. By making an observation, tying it to a challenge and then asking an open ended question, you can ideally get the customer to identify if any of those things are challenges for them.

Now at this point, it's a good stage to start asking some really good questions that can help uncover further challenges and problems that you might be able to help them solve. Most people who you're cold calling probably feel like they have everything in order. After all, if they didn't, they might already be shopping for a solution.

So the questions you ask should highlight a potential problem or challenge if there is one for that buyer. Questions like, how are you doing that today? How well is that going?

How long have you been doing it that way? Could you walk me through how you do this? What are you currently doing to prevent, challenge, problem, risk?

When was the last time this thing didn't work? Okay, can you give me an example? The purpose of these open ended questions is to really get them talking and ideally you're going to hear something that suggests that they're not doing things as well as they could be.

At that point you want to just dive deeper, dig in a little bit, get very specific and see if that is a real challenge for them and their business. Now once you've uncovered a challenge, or a problem, or they sound interested, you might be able to hear that in their voice, or they might even ask you what you do, then that is your opportunity to transition into trying to book a meeting. Don't miss out on the opportunity to book that meeting if you think you can help them or they sound interested.

So often have I heard reps talk themselves out of a meeting by just going on for too long. We're not trying to get them to buy the solution, remember. All we need is interest and that's enough to book a meeting where you can have a really controlled sales process, do your research, make sure you come well equipped, and ideally ask even more probing questions.

So when you do hear that someone's interested or you've found a problem, say something like this. Hey, it sounds, seems, like you might be facing at least some of the challenges that we help our customers solve. Would you be totally against finding some time to have a bit more of a formal conversation to see if this could work for you too?

And then one of two things is going to happen. They're going to say yes, or they're going to give you an objection. If they say yes, Then book the meeting get their email or confirm the email while you're on the phone with them and send them a calendar invite And make sure it comes through you've come so far You don't want to lose them because you had the email address wrong And then send them an email to confirm what the meeting is going to be about And what you heard on the cold call you just booked a meeting on a cold call high five Congratulations.

Now you might be thinking to yourself will why was there no step for pitching do not be tempted to ever start pitching your product. The moment you start rattling off features and benefits, the customer will lose interest. At the stage of a cold call, they have no reason to care what you do until you ask questions and find a reason for them to care.

If you were talking about yourself, you're probably losing them. Now, if they do ask you what you do, you might now be tempted to go to a pitch. Still don't.

Frame it up in the context of the problems that you solve. What do we do? Well, we help companies solve challenge one, Challenge two and challenge three.

Which of those are most relevant to you right now? The customer might even double down and say, well, how do you do that? You still don't want to dive into your features.

Getting into the weeds on a cold call is a massive trap and your people will lose interest the moment you start talking about yourself and your company. So if someone's really pressing on you to understand your product, then use that as an opportunity to book a meeting. Hey, it sounds like you're really interested to hear more about what we do, Why don't we book in a time to more formally discuss this?

At this stage you really need to make it all about them and uncovering problems because if there aren't any problems then there is no opportunity. Now on a cold call you are probably going to get some objections along the way. It might be when you ask the meeting after you tell them the reason why you're calling.

Heck it might even be directly after your cold call opener. They might just hang up the moment you tell them where you're calling from. The key to handling objections is asking questions, understanding them, making sure the customer feels heard.

So first of all acknowledge the objection. That's fair. Thank you.

I appreciate that. And then ask a question. What makes you say that?

Is this something that you've tried to solve in the past? What did you try? Did that work?

Never argue or try and convince a prospect that they are wrong. It's gonna end badly. Do some more digging.

Always be asking open ended questions. To get to the real core reasons behind any objections. Now you might find that there really are no problems.

How they're doing things today is really working well. That means they're not a fit. Then you don't want to book a meeting with them because it won't become a qualified pipeline and they'll never buy from you.

Call the next prospect who you actually might be able to help. And that's why it's really important to ask questions. To figure out if it's a real objection, it's a genuine concern of theirs, or it's just a brush off.

They're just trying to get rid of you, get you off the phone. So always stay curious. Now, if you do get a ton of those brush off objections, I'm not interested, I'm going to a meeting, I'm busy, I'll call you back, send me an email, then that's often a symptom that your opener or your reason for calling them isn't resonating.

So break it down, listen to your tonality, and then tweak it. You can also always try something like, Hey, I understand that you're busy. You're going into a meeting that you would like me to send you an email.

Would it be fair for us to take 20 seconds right now just to see if this is relevant? And if it's not, then I can skip any follow up. Doing that can often buy you an extra 30 to 60 seconds on the phone with them and figure out if there's still a prospect worth pursuing.

We also just released a video on how to handle every objection just here. It's on the card and I'll leave it in the description. Ultimately, even with All of this information, cold calling is still going to be difficult.

And if you're just starting, you are going to suck at it. Everybody does. It's such an unnatural process.

It breaks so many social norms. Calling strangers in the middle of the day, interrupting them and asking for their time so you can have a conversation. It's like something a crazy person would do.

And to be honest, it's probably quite fair because You work in sales, so you are probably a little bit ooo. But the only way you're gonna get comfortable with it is by doing it. A lot.

Consistently. Every single day. For a really long period of time.

And even then, when you take a week off and come back to the phone, you're gonna be rusty. So sure, consume content like this. Read books.

Listen to podcasts. But most importantly, pick up the phone. Apply that knowledge.

Put your learnings into practice. Experiment often. Find exactly what works for you.

And then, keep doing it. Happy Darlingsellers!