The Joys of Cold Calling

A large part of my job is Cold Calling. Or as we in the business like to dress it up as; lead generation, outbound marketing, lead creation, B2B, strategic telemarketing or appointment setting. The list goes on and on and for the most part people look at you with a blank face and ask if you make dog leashes.

I say call a spade a spade and someone in a cape a crazy person and not a superhero.

To save the confusion it is essentially the art (at least give me something I can't play the guitar or draw a bowl of fruit) of cold calling people over the telephone to promote your business/offering and attempt to organise a face to face meeting to discuss said offering.

I'm going to give you 3 basic tips that should help you in your pursuit of promoting and developing your business over the telephone.

Make Time: Set aside a block of your day or possibly a whole day and make dials. Stop making excuses. Sit down, remove any distractions and make the calls. The more you do it the better you will get and the more comfortable you will be with making that first dial to a perfect stranger.

Question a Question: Don't be worried if you get asked a question you don't know the answer to. Stay in control of the discussion and ask a question back ie: "why do you ask?" " is this important to your business?" "do you currently use this system". Over time you will work out the best questions and phrases. This will help you understand the motive behind their questioning and help you to be the all seeing eye.

Always ask: Never just leave a conversation with a "thanks for having a chat" or "OK bye". Always offer a definitive course of action or advise the reason for your call. Some of my worst calls have turned into my best meetings just by simply asking if they would be interested in catching up for a chat.

These 3 basic steps are just that simple and you should be able to start using them on the ASAP. If you guys want I can go into a little more depth and tell you about my little friend AIDCA. AIDCA is full of all the dirty secrets of COLD CALLING and full of complex carbohydrates.