- What's going on everybody. So in this video, I'm gonna show you my five-step cold calling methodology you can use to craft the perfect cold calling script. And you wanna make sure you watch this video all the way through, because if you're someone who's ever struggled with cold calling, chances are you probably didn't have the right methodology to increases your chance of success.
So in this methodology that you are about to learn in this video, there's going to be five simple steps. You can follow step-by-step so that you can start getting more results now. What's going on everybody.
My name is Patrick Dang. Before we get there started make sure to give this video a like, subscribing and turn on notifications if you want to see more sales videos like this. And let's go ahead and dive into the five-step cold calling methodology.
Now, before we even get into cold calling, you're gonna want to do your research. And this is step number one. Research is incredibly important because if you're not calling the right person and they actually shouldn't even be a fit for your product and service, well, no matter how many times you cold call him, it's not going to work.
So you can't just, you know, pick up the phone book and start dialing random numbers. You have to figure out ahead of time, who's actually likely to be positively receptive to your cold call. So ask yourself are the decision makers in the industry you are trying to cold call into the type of people that like cold calls and they actually pick up the phone or are they people that don't even, you know, pick up cold calls at all?
And also is the company that you're trying to call, how likely are they to buy your product and service? Do you know their buying window? Do they already have a budget set for buying a product or a service like yours, right?
Are they buying something that's seasonal or it can bought any time? Or how likely are they to be unhappy with their current vendor and they're willing to switch to another vendor and that could be you, right? So these are the questions you have to ask yourself.
And you have to really think, you know, are the companies that you're calling even qualified to buy your product and service, right? Of course, you know, you're not a mind reader. You can only do so much research online, but you have to have some kind of filter, right?
Whether it's, you know, revenue, employee size, maybe you already know what kind of software they're using. And maybe you're selling some of that compliments, those softwares like a consulting service or some kind of add on, right? So all of these questions you have to pre-qualify before you call, and you would only want to call the people that actually have a chance of buying your product and service.
Now, when it comes to the priority people you should be calling, right, here is generally what I would recommend. In the beginning, if you're cold calling and you're working at a company, obviously the easiest people to call are current customers, right, current customers that you can sell more to very easy because you already have a relationship. Now you can also call people who are previous customers and maybe they canceled at some point and maybe you can get them to sign back up again, right?
It's a lot more easier to call people you did business with. The next priority goes to inbound leads, meaning you know companies that are prospects that, you know came from inbound, meaning maybe they saw a blog post or a video, gave up their email and phone number and you can call them 'cause they're a number went into the CRM or even referrals, right? Someone recommended another person and then you can call that person.
So obviously this is not necessarily cold calling, right? It's more warm. They kinda know who you are, but if you have those opportunities at the place you're working, go for the warm ones first because those are much more likely to succeed.
Now, after all the warm priorities, then you have to get into more hold territory where people don't really know who you are and then you haven't signed up for anything. So when it comes to cold calling, right? First, if let's say the company you're working at has some kind of CRM database and maybe they're constantly updating with, you know things like the buying window of a customer or their budget or what software they're using, right?
So a lot of companies they might pay for this information, right? They might pay for information that, you know may have signals of when someone is likely to buy. So if your CRM says, you know these type of companies always buy in January, February and March, in your quarter one, then let's call all of these companies during quarter four of the the year before or in quarter one, to make sure that they know who we are before they make a purchasing decision, right?
So if you can buy this information or ask your company to buy it or maybe they already have it, obviously use that because there's prequalification there. Now, if in the case you do not have that information, right. But those would be more prioritize and you have to call straight up code and you're collecting information, then I would save that towards the low priority, right?
So you do warmer calls first, then kinda warm based on qualification information that you buy, you find a line. And then from there you go from like really cold where they really don't know who you are and you don't know anything about them. And you call them, you ask these questions and you fill out the information in your CRM to see, you know what's their budget?
What's their buying window? When are they available to actually make a purchasing decision? What's the timeline, right?
So as you're cold calling you have to understand that, you know not everyone's gonna be receptive to the cold call but you have to work a territory. And that's typically how sales work. Like you know, when I was at Oracle, I had the west coast territory of selling to Nevada, Hawaii and California.
So, you know, it's like we work in the companies in our territory and we keep hitting those companies to make sure they know who we are and that when they are ready to buy they're gonna think about us. So when your territory, yeah think like are you working the territory? Do people know who you are?
And you know, if they're not ready to buy now, are you putting that, logging that in somewhere. So that six months from now, or when they're ready to buy you can cold call them again and say like, "Hey look, you know, I talked to somebody six months ago "and they said that, you know, "you didn't have the budget then, "but now they might have it now. "And so I just wanted to see "if that was true and blah, blah, blah, right?
" So that's basically how it works. It's like you get some information, you put it into your CRM and you identified the best times to recall that person. You cold call them over and over and over until they actually are ready to buy.
So it's not like it's gonna be like, oh, someone you cold call, someone they're ready to buy right now. It's like you cold call, you collect information. Maybe later they're ready to buy, put in a CRM, make a reminder and then call them again later, right?
So research is very important to get all these things out because it's not about just dialing random numbers hoping that you close a sale right there. You've got to work a territory. Now the next step of the process when it comes to cold calling is building rapport, right?
You've done your research. You're calling the right person. They're likely to buy, you know their budget, you know the timeline, all these information.
Then you go into building a rapport. So when you cold call someone, the first step of the whole thing is building rapport, right? Before you even get to any selling or asking questions, you've got to get the other person to like you as a human being so that they are willing to listen and talk to you on the phone.
Like what makes cold calling so difficult is because a sales person will call someone out of the blue. They don't expect your call. So why should they be positively perceptive to someone who tries to sell them something right?
They probably won't be. So that's why most people hate cold calling. But if you kinda switch your perspective around instead of saying, I'm going to sell this guy, I'm going to say like I'm going to build a relationship with them.
Now you're building a rapport because people like to buy from other people that they like, and they get you got to get people to like you, right? And the first step of building rapport is your tonality. So it's not about the words you say, it's how you say it, how you sound.
Is your voice pleasant? Do you sound like them? You know, when they hear your voice, are they thinking this guy gets me, this guy is just like me, right?
And these are the emotions and feelings that you want to create within the first five seconds. And you want to do it throughout the entire cold call. So remember, it's not what you say, it's how you say it.
You don't need cheap tricks. You don't need like gimmicks, right? You just need to understand how your voice sounds, record yourself, speaking and see if that's something that you would personally even respond to if you got a cold call that sounded like that.
You could change different parts of how you sound based on the volume, how loud or soft you're speaking. Your inflection, how high or low you're speaking. And also the speed of how fast and slow you're speaking, right?
You can also change the energy level, right? Or do you have high, fast energy that is too much for people or is it too low? Or, you know, how do you make it just right for that person.
And a rule of thumb is that you wanna start off positive and calm. Like, "Hey, it's Patrick from Oracle. "How you doing today?
" And from there, you wanna just mirror the other person meaning whatever their energy level or how fast and slow they're speaking and things like that. Basically, you just wanna mimic it so that they feel like, oh, this person is just like me and people like to buy from people who are just like them, right? It's like their commonality.
So you can do all this subconsciously by controlling your tonality and getting that locked in in the first five seconds of a conversation. So once you start building rapport, the next step is your agenda, right? So you build a rapport with the opening line saying, "Hey Sally, it's Patrick from Oracle.
"How are you doing today? " So he says, "Oh, I'm doing okay. What's up?
" "Ah, Sally, I'm actually a little lost. "Do you mind if I take a second "to tell you why I'm calling? " Sally says, "All right, sure.
" So you go into the agenda. Now the agenda is basically setting the right expectations for the call. It's basically showing why you're calling?
What value you bring? Why they should listen to your call by the end? And what should happen at the end of the call or what can they expect, right?
You're basically going through all of that really quickly in the agenda. And then you wanna make sure they agree to your agenda before you move into the next step of the call, right? So after you build rapport, do the first line, you ask permission to tell your agenda.
An example could be something like, I'm part of the partnerships team at Gusto. And the reason I'm calling is because I noticed a lot of small businesses in the construction space, typically use outdated payroll software that's extremely slow and hard to use. And what I do is I actually help these types of companies modernize and keep all their HR systems up-to-date and in compliant with all the changing laws.
And so I want to take five minutes to learn a little bit more about your business and how you're handling HR to see if there's an opportunity for us to work in any capacity. Now, at the end of the call, if we find that, Hey, maybe there is a fit to work together, great, we can move on to the next step. But if none and we find that it's not a good fit, totally fine.
Is that okay with you? So Gusto is basically a payroll software for small businesses helps you basically pay your employees, make sure that they're paying you like Medicare, social security and all those things right? Now, if I identify that companies in a construction space, they do payroll manually or maybe they are using old software for 10 years ago and they haven't updated it yet because maybe it's difficult for them to upgrade their legacy software into the cloud which a lot of people do have that problem.
Well, maybe I can help them do that. And I saw that in my software. So in that example of agenda, you know, it's not too long.
Obviously I can shorten it if I wanted to. And it basically gets my point across and I tell them the reason I'm calling. I'm from Gusto, I help people update their HR software.
I tell them how long the cold call is gonna be. I say it's gonna be five minutes and I'm gonna tell them what happens at the end of the call, right? Either it's a fit to work together, or it's not a fit.
If it's a fit, great, we'll move within the next step. If it's not a fit, then totally fine. And the call is over right there.
So there's no real, you know, like commitment on their end. They just have to say yes, right. They're not buying anything.
They're not getting pitched anything. I want to learn a little bit more about your business, how you're handling your HR to see if it makes sense for us to work together in any capacity, right. And at the end you say is that okay with you or sound fair to you?
And the other person's going to say yes because logically and emotionally, it makes sense. You know, it's like, it's a quick call. If they have that problem they wanna hear what you have to say 'cause maybe you can solve it, right?
And maybe they never thought about upgrading their HR software. So, they're gonna say yes and you're gonna have that sales conversation. Now, if they say, no, you just ask them why.
So if they say, "Oh, no I'm not really interested in Patrick. " You say, "Oh, that's really interesting. "You know, just curious to know, "are you using an old legacy software "or is that you really updated "and that's why you don't want to continue to do the call.
" They might say something like, "Oh yeah, we actually just updated to this person. "So, you know, we really love them. "It's really great.
"And I don't think we're gonna switch anytime soon. " Right? If that's the case, you know it's actually a very difficult sale to do.
And then, so if you want to like pry more deeper into that you can ask questions like, "Oh, interesting. How long have you been using them? " And then they'll tell you and you say, "Oh, well, if you were to give them a one out "of 10 of how happy you are with their services, "what would that be?
" They might say like, "Oh, you know, a seven. " "Say seven? I thought you said you were happy with them.
"Why is it a seven out of 10? " And so you start getting into maybe some of the problems that their current vendor has. And if it's seven out of 10, maybe there's opportunity for you to replace their current vendor, right?
But if there's not an opportunity and there's completely happy, then you gonna move on to the next person because it's very difficult to sell someone who just bought another competitor. Now, that's just an example but many different scenarios can come up. So, after you do the agenda and let's say they just agree with it.
They're like, "Oh yeah, let's do the meeting. " From there you go into the meat of the meeting that is to uncover pains, right? So the majority of a sales call, if you get to this point is going to be about their pains, right?
Because you want to ask the prospect all these different questions to understand like what exactly is their problem? And how can you potentially solve their problem? And you know, how should you position your product and service as a solution to the problem so that it's very obvious for them that they should buy.
So what I typically like to do is I like to reference some kind of data first, and then I would provide an insight about that data and then I would ask a question, okay. So some kind of research or data, you know, my insight, my opinion about that. And I'll ask them a question.
So I dive into their pains. And the reason I go through this order is because it makes your questions sound a lot smarter. There's more context for someone to work with and that question actually guides the rest of the conversation.
So let me give you an example. Like I mentioned before, a lot of construction companies in your space are typically using legacy payroll software from 10 years ago. So, which is very hard to use and sometimes doesn't really work right.
And it's very difficult especially when the government update the tax laws and you have to change everything. And it's very difficult I understand that. So I was curious to know what you were using for your payroll and what your experience has been so far.
So, when you ask a question like this, if the person is using let's say a legacy software, and it's very painful for them, maybe they're the director of HR, but the CEO just never upgraded the software for some reason, they might say like, "Oh my God, Patrick, I totally have that problem. "We've been using this outdated software for 10 years. "I'm not even sure why we're using it.
"The product looks outdated. "It doesn't even work right. "And every time the government update the tax laws, "I have to go in and manually do it.
"We have to hire engineers to change the code "to update the laws. "And it takes us weeks to do that, right. " And the man say all these crazy things.
If someone really has that problem they're gonna tell you everything right there. If they kinda slightly have a problem, it gives them more context to start, right? So they might say like, "Yeah, Patrick we actually been using this old software "for like 10 years and it works, but, "and then kinda go into a problem, like, "but we have to hire engineers to change the code "every time the government updates the tax law," something like that.
So from there, if you get any sort of pain, whether if it's a big pain, this is super easy 'cause they're telling you all their problems right off the bat. If it's a small paint, just like, "Oh, you know we have to hire people here and there "to get it done. " You wanna make that little tiny pain into a big problem, right?
You ought to make the person aware of how big that problem is so that they're more persuaded to buy a product and service. So you can say something like "Oh, interesting. " So let me get this right.
When the government updates tax law, you have to hire a freelance engineer to come into your software and go to your company onpremise to change the code so that it's updated. You know, that sounds like a lot of work, you know how long does it actually take to happen? And then they might say, "Oh, well to do that actually takes us about three weeks.
" And I'll say, "Oh, three weeks, "just to change a little bit of code? " Yeah, right. And then you'll say, "Oh, well, how much does that actually cost "to hire someone like that?
" And they might say, "Well, actually if we got "to hire someone for three weeks as a freelancer, "typically it's gonna cost us about $10,000 to do this. " And you say, "$10,000, just to change the law code "every time the government upstate their tax law? " And he's like, "Yeah, yeah.
" Then I would say, "Well, how often do you have to do this? " And they might say, "Ah, well, depends on the year. "And you know what the tax laws are.
"But typically we got to do "at least four times a year, right. "Basically once a quarter. " And I'll be like, "whoa, isn't that kind of interesting?
"That's $40,000 a year, right. "Just to change some code. " They're like, "Yeah, that's right Pat, that's right.
" And so, as you can see, I'm asking more and more questions to dive deeper, to understand their situation. I'm not pitching my product and service yet, right. Let's say I'm selling a payroll software.
I'm not pitching it yet. I'm trying to understand what their pains are so I can pitch it later. So if I find out that let's say they got legacy software.
They have to hire a freelance programmer to come in and fix it every time. They have to spend tens of thousands of dollars every time they do this. Wasting a lot of time wasting a lot of money, right.
So now it's starting to become a bigger problem because for my software, maybe my software costs a thousand bucks a month, right? So over a year, maybe it's 12K. But if what they're doing is 40K and it's a lot of manual labor, well, it's a no brainer to just use my software because it's 25% of the price of what they're already paying and it's way better as a solution.
So now you're starting to see why, or now the prospect is starting to see like, "Hey, I have this really big problem "that I thought it was okay and we're just getting by. "But actually, based on what Patrick saying, "this shouldn't even be a problem. "Why are we still doing it this way?
" Right, and so that's how you want to make the prospect feel during the cold call so that towards the end of the cold call where you can say is something like look, "Seems like you have a lot of challenges "when it comes to your payroll software, "you want me to go ahead and share what I do "and how I might be able to help you out in this situation? " They're gonna say, "Sure, Patrick, tell us what you do? " And then from, at that point once you collected all the pain, you shortly described like how you solve their problem, right?
So if I'm selling Gusto, the payroll software I'll say, well, typically what we can do is we will help you automate all this by doing XYZ. So you just go into your pitch of what your prodding service does? Who is it for?
What value it brings? How much time and money they're gonna save? And this and that, right?
You don't want your pitch to be too long, just enough for them to be like, "Yup, that's exactly what I need. "I have a problem, you can solve it. " So, once you go to your pitch, what typically is gonna happen next is they're not gonna buy on the first call.
If you're selling a payroll software they are going to need to have a presentation and demonstration to make sure it's the right fit for them, right. 'Cause they're not gonna buy an expensive software and commit to completely replacing their old thing with a new thing 'cause it does take a lot of technical work to do. So you're gonna set up for the next step.
So if your next step is to do a presentation or demonstration, that would be your next step. And you would guide the prospect towards that, right? If your next step is to close them, maybe you're selling something more transactional where it can actually be closed right there and right then, then you will close them, right.
But for next steps, typically most people are gonna do next step. So typically what you would do is after you do your pitch you'll say like, "Hey, look, you know based on everything "we're talking about so far is this something "that you actually be interested in? " They might say, "Yeah, I think this is what we need.
" And you would say, "Okay, well, do you mind if I go ahead "and share with the next steps typically would be "if you were actually to learn more "about our product and see if it's really a fit for you? " They're gonna say, "Sure, Patrick, tell us. " And you say, "Well, typically what's gonna happen is, "we've done, this is basically a qualification call, right?
"For me to learn a little bit more about you "to see if you're the right fit for us, right? " And then from there, what we would do is based on what you told us and the challenges you had, we will put together presentation, you know showing exactly how we're going to solve your problems. You know, if you wanna bring anyone technical on the call you also can do that to make sure it integrates with everything else in your system.
And we're gonna have a, you know an hour presentation where we're gonna go a presentation, Q and A, and at the end of that presentation, we're gonna see, you know whether or not it's a good fit for us to work together. Now, after that presentation, you know if it still makes sense, we can move on to the next step of whatever that may be. But for now, I think we should get that presentation done to see if this is something you really want to do before we even talk about what those next steps are.
How's that sound to you? They're gonna say, "Yeah, that sounds fine. "Let's go ahead and do a presentation.
" Then you say, "Okay great. How about, you know, "I got a spot open up my calendar for next week, "Tuesday at 2:00 PM. How does that sound for you?
" They'll say, "Ahhh, that sounds pretty good. " And you basically schedule it on their calendar after the call. So the important part here is that you're not pushing too hard.
You're not selling too hard. You obviously pitching, but you're only kinda telling them enough from a high level perspective of what they need to know to agree to that next meeting, right? Because it's like your sales process is, you know step by step by step.
If you try to do everything on one call, it's too much, right? Because you gotta remember when you're doing cold calling, right. You know, this kinda sales prospecting.
The call might be five minutes. So you can't get through everything in five minutes that will persuade someone to spend $10,000 a year on your software and replace their old thing. You've got to move them to the next step which is the presentation where you can actually really do the selling.
So for the cold call portion of your sales cycle, all you're doing is calling them, building a relationship, identifying the pains, explaining how you might be able to solve those pains and get them interested enough to move to the next step which is some type of demonstration, some type of meeting, where you talk more about how you solve their problems. And so if you keep those five steps in mind your cold calls are going to be much better because you have a clear structure of how you actually do your cold calls. And you know exactly what to do from start to finish from the research all the way to the next steps to book more meetings or more presentations so that somebody can close more deals.
So, with that said, that's pretty much my five tips when it comes to cold calling. If you enjoyed this video make sure to give it a like, subscribe, and turn on notifications. Now, if you want to take your sales skills to the next level make sure to check out my sales course, "Sales Legacy" where are you gonna learn everything you need when it comes to starting and accelerating your sales career.
So you wanna check out my sales course, make sure to check out the link in the description for free training to learn more. Well, that said my name's Patrick Dang and I'll see you guys in the next one.
