Are you a small business entrepreneur and need to jumpstart your business with some leads?
Are you looking for an effective lead generation strategy to fill your sales funnel quickly?
If you answered yes to both, cold calling is your best telemarketing strategy.
Cold calling is a telemarketing process where you create calls to prospective customers to create interest in your product and services.
There is no denying that this process is one of the most difficult lead generation strategies since the salesperson doing the calls is subjected to constant rejections.
This blog is all about cold calling and what you can do to use this to jumpstart or boost your business.
Cold Calling in 2023
If you consider the process, cold calling is a numbers game. A lot of calls are needed if you want to achieve your quota.
However, if you want to boost your productivity, it is important to improve the quality of each call by streamlining your telesales process.
Here are some cold-calling tips and techniques to help you have a better chance of getting to numbers up!
Know and Prepare Your Product/Service
Before you start, you need to be familiar with the product or service. That means knowing what it does, what's it capable of, who uses it, where it fits into the business model, and so on. If you are unfamiliar with products and services, you will have difficulty with your sales.
Do you need a team of experts to help you in generating leads?
Identify Your Target Market
Establish a target market. This is important to narrow down the type of individuals you will talk to and focus your attention on.
Target the Right Person
Targeting the right person has the best chance of turning a cold lead into a closed deal instantly. However, the difficulty level will also be raised, so make sure you delegate your best agents to these types of calls.
Persevere and Get Used to Rejection
Don't give up after the first call. Keep calling until you find a customer from the list of candidates who are interested in your product or service.
Asking your ideal customer about calling if it's a bad time provides a reason for them to end the call or reject what you might have to say. Resulting in reduced sales rates.
You should not consider "No" as a rejection
Instead, use this as an opportunity to ask more questions and learn more about your potential client. Open your mind to constructive criticism and consider your setbacks as opportunities for growth.
Plan Your Call Wisely
Based on sales support experience. The people you want to reach out to are the company's top dogs who can influence and make choices – usually among the company's busiest people – so you'll want to consider when the best time is to contact them.
They have too much on their plates working during the day to answer calls from unfamiliar numbers, and assistants and team members surround them.
They have a busy schedule and will almost always never take unfamiliar calls. Hence, it is important to plan your call wisely to ensure they pick up the phone – usually early morning or late at night.
Setting a Schedule
Set a weekly schedule based on the time your calls are blocked. This will assist you in the long run by reducing waste calls.
Follow-Up Calls
Persistence pays off. Most sales don't happen after your first, second, or even third call. Follow up on client referrals. It'll soon pay off, and you will gain rewards in successful cold calls, leads, and sales appointments.
Do Not Sound Like a Robot when You're Reading Your Script
Learn your script by heart. Practice your pitch with your colleagues to help you learn how to speak naturally. Writing the script down may also help with the familiarization.
Want to see real results in your lead generation? Get in touch with us now and let's make it happen!
Make use of your Script
Scripts are important to guide your agents, build their confidence, and reduce errors during calls. Before writing the script, make sure you do extensive research about the product or service.
It also helps to be proactive and research the common objections that the clients might say to give you a heads up.
Become an Active Listener
Active listening is a skill. An agent who is good at listening makes customers feel respected and will be encouraged to continue the conversation. As a result, they will easily share important information with you and listen to your offers and propositions.
Effective Voicemails
Voicemail management is crucial. Your calls will usually end in voicemail. Therefore, it is important to leave a call to get their attention about your product or service enough for potential clients to call you back.
Plan on what technique or strategy you will use to capture their attention in the voicemail to receive callbacks and set an appointment.
Learn
Regularly reviewing your calls will give you important insights to clearly see your target customers' needs and desires. Realizing and working on your mistakes is the best way to improve your telesales team.
How to Create your A-Team?
The most effective way to make an outbound telemarketing team is to outsource! Outsourcing is the literal cheat code if you want to quickly and efficiently create a telesales team or supplement an existing one.
Why Is it Called the Ultimate Telemarketing Strategy?
Even though telesales is a traditional form of marketing, it is still the best lead-generation strategy. The development of modern software tools and techniques further increases the relevance of the cold-calling industry.
Makes You Learn
Understanding the market gives you an idea of what people want. It helps you adapt to better meet your customer needs and services. Also, it will help you track and understand your competitors.
Measurable
Compiling the exact amount of calls and prospects your sales team makes gives you valuable data for future training and quality check to help improve your telemarketing performance in the years to come.
Cost-effective
Outsourcing your telesales operation is more affordable than hiring an in-house staff. Avoid additional costs in training, wages, and equipment.
What is the National Do-Not-Call Registry
The National Do-Not-Call Registry, established by the FTC and FCC in 2003, allows consumers to register their phone numbers so that telemarketers won't contact them.
It allows consumers to reject telemarketers or cold callers. However, this registry has exceptions to personal calls, so sales professionals can still call businesses.
These are the rules that you must follow from the "National Do-Not-Call Registry":
- You must check the National Do-Not-Call Registry every 31 days to avoid calling numbers that are on the Registry;
- You may call the candidates between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m.;
- You must state your name and the purpose of your call;
- Put their name in the “Do Not Call” list if they ask to stop calls from you;
- Treat your customers with respect;
- Get their written approval before withdrawing money directly from their bank accounts; and
- Tell them the truth.
Get Started with Us!
OBI Services offers B2B outbound lead generation services like cold calling and appointment setting. If you want to learn more about our cold callers and sales reps, email us at inquiry@obi.services.
