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KEY MOMENTS:
0:42 1. Clarify your overall prospecting strategy.
1:47 2. Warm up the call with other outreach.
2:53 3. Know your prospect.
3:27 4. Personalize your script.
4:01 5. Follow a script.
5:14 6. Have contingencies.
6:11 7. Dig, then recommend.
6:50 8. Get them to accept the calendar invite on the phone.
7:41 9. Power through.
1. Clarify your overall prospecting strategy.
If you're solely making cold calls, with no other prospecting outreach, then chances are you're going to have a tough time building a book of business. Using only cold calls to prospect is really difficult. If none of your prospects ever have the slightest idea of who you are, then trying to get them to talk to you is like pushing a rock up a hill every single day…only to have it roll right back down. That’s why the first step to learning how to make a cold call that actually works is to clarify your overall prospecting strategy.
2. Warm up the call with other outreach.
If you really want to master how to make a cold call, try to warm up each call with other forms of outreach before you ever make that first dial. This will slowly build a little bit of a relationship between you and the prospect, even though you haven’t spoken yet.
3. Know your prospect.
The more research you can do ahead of time, the better. And don’t scramble to do your research between each call. Do your research before you make calls altogether. That way you can just briefly review your notes on each prospect, make the call, and be able to demonstrate that you know who they are, time and time again. Knowing your prospect is crucial to understanding how to make a cold call that actually works-and it’s all about preparation.
4. Personalize your script.
This builds on the last idea of knowing your prospect. Now that we know the prospect, we want to incorporate some of that research and insight into our script. What's their title? What company are they at? What are some of the things that might be going on in their world right now? Incorporating these personal data points into your script will make the prospect feel a lot more open to starting a conversation with you.
5. Follow a script.
Follow a script. Get it really tight, including exactly what you’ll say with those personalization details built in. That way, you’re following the absolute best process and you can continue to improve and refine that script over time.
6. Have contingencies.
By being prepared for likely outcomes, you can have contingencies in place to help you keep them on the phone just a little bit longer. So when you initially make that call and they're like, "Yeah, actually, this isn't a good time," what do you say? You've got to have that contingency laid out. Make your plan ahead of time so you can push through to get the next 30 seconds on the call. Having those contingencies in place is one of the key pillars of how to make a cold call.
7. Dig, then recommend.
Once you've gotten the prospect talking, you want to dig, dig, dig to find out what their key challenges are at the moment. Ask them the right questions to get them talking-and then make a recommendation. After you've determined that they're at least qualified for the next conversation, say something along the lines of, "Can I make a recommendation?" And of course, if you've had a decent enough conversation, they'll say yes.
8. Get them to accept the calendar invite on the phone.
This is really tactical, but so powerful. And it’s only possible now because we've got such amazing technology that allows us to send a calendar invite right away, while we’re still on the phone with the prospect. When you’re establishing the next step, don't just say, "Okay, I'll send you the calendar invite after we get off the phone." Instead, say something like, "Would you mind just doing me a quick favor? Check your email right now, see if that invite I just sent you came through." When they say, "Yeah, I see it," then you say, "Okay, great. Would you mind just accepting that now so we're on the same page and we have it locked in?" If they're unwilling to do that, then you don't have anything real in the first place. Better that you know now.
9. Power through.
One of the biggest mistakes I see salespeople make when learning how to make cold calls is simply that they waste time. They make a cold call, it goes well or it goes poorly, then they either pat themselves on the back or they pout for a few minutes, they go drink some water, they go to the bathroom, they take a quick walk, and then they come back and make the next dial. In other words, salespeople can really take their sweet time in between cold dials.