5 Cold Calling Secrets You’ll Wish You Knew Sooner

When you ask ChatGPT what salespeople wish they knew sooner when it comes to cold calling, these are the top results:

How do you start the conversation without sounding like a script?
What to say in the first 10 seconds.
How do you engage the prospect quickly without them hanging up on you?

Although these are very relevant questions, ironically, fixating on finding answers will not get you anywhere. Who has heard of the following Chinese proverb? :

“You can’t dig a new well by making the old one deeper.”

In other words, improving your prospecting skills requires an approach from a different perspective. Here are my top five:

One: Learn how to make Connect Calls

Like the evolution of selling, the first connection with a prospect is also changing. You need to tidy up your scripts, shape up your message and start connecting with the buyer’s perspective. How does that work? Simple: Be aware that when making a call without an appointment, you interrupt your prospect with your phone call. What goes through their mind? Three things: If this is a short call, I take it. I will listen if I hear something insightful and relevant to my challenges. And, I don’t want to speak to someone wasting my time. Connect Calling takes care of this:

Say who you are: “Hi Mary, I am ……….from ……….“.
Connect: “Thank you for downloading the research about X on my Linkedin post“.
Their most likely challenge: “I noticed your company is A or has B or focuses on C”.
Your promise that you can help: “I have helped similar businesses do Y”
Ask: “Would you be open to a quick chat?”
Stop talking: “I promise not to waste your time”.

This is what top salespeople do. Read more about Connect Calling here.

Two: Use ChatGPT to save time and improve the quality of situational knowledge

To anticipate any reaction from your prospect (they may ask you questions, help!), you need to know a lot about their business, their challenges, who they are competing with, their strategy, and the challenges they face in their industry. This “situational knowledge” takes much of your time to prepare. And honestly, is Google really giving you the right answers? Try these ChatGPT prompts I wrote recently in a blog post. They work, save you time and give you the quality information you need to answer questions, ask further relevant questions or/and provide insightful information.

Three: Focus on how you can help grow their business

Salespeople often hear: “I am not interested’ or “We’re already working with someone” and don’t know how to respond. Instead of reacting with “Yes, but…”. (which never works well), acknowledge the objection and then divert to what your prospect doesn’t expect:

“Fair enough. I am not calling you to take their business or offer a better price for a similar service. I am calling you because I want to share with you how I have helped similar businesses like yours with X”.

Then, stop talking and listen. Selling is helping. You will see how well this works.

Four: Use 3rd Party Insights to be Super Relevant

In traditional sales methods, the salesperson asks ” discovery questions” to develop a deep understanding of the customer’s needs, dissatisfaction or gaps. Often, the conversation is about where a customer’s state is, where they want to be and how the salesperson’s solution is filling that gap. This doesn’t work that well any longer. Prospects switch off when hearing these questions because they hear them all the time. They sound too sales-y. What is a different approach? Instead of you doing the discovery, flip it around: Let the prospect make the discovery about:

Something they have missed
Initiatives other similar customers are taking
Who is shaking and stirring their industry
Different growth strategies to explore

The best way of doing that is by referring to research results from credible 3rd party suppliers. In other words, the underlying message of your insight is: “Don’t believe me (I am a salesperson); instead, trust the data from this credible research company.” Feel the difference between the examples below:

“Mary, I recommend adding more language options on your website so that you reach more customers from different countries.”

“Mary, I have here an article from McKinsey that recommends businesses like yours to reach more customers from different countries by adding more language options on your website – let me share it with you now”

Be an educator. Not a salesperson.

Five: Make the Gatekeeper the Superhero

Also making it in the top five is how to bypass the gatekeeper. And rightfully so. How frustrating is it when you have ideas on how to help your prospect grow their business– but you cannot get past the Gatekeeper? Whatever excuses you hear, this person stands between you and the person you think is the right one to share your ideas with. You have tried every trick out of the book, and still, you are getting nowhere.

The fundamental key to getting past gatekeepers is acknowledging their reasons for protecting their bosses. Whatever these reasons are, true or false (my manager is busy, have no time, is out of the office, difficult to reach, other priorities) – the only way to get their attention is to make them the hero and give them a reason to take action. Here are the three steps: AVOID – RESPECT – ENABLE

AVOID conflict. The gatekeeper’s direct line manager trusts this person to keep them from any distraction. By the nature of their role, they must help their manager focus on what is important. This includes not having to deal with salespeople of suppliers their company is not working with. That’s you. Acknowledging this and respecting the gatekeeper’s role will set you on the right track. The way you talk, your attitude, and the way you ask questions are all very important here because you will need the gatekeeper to get to your stakeholder.

RESPECT their protection of time commitment. What you are asking the gatekeeper is their commitment to spend five minutes in exchange for the value you offer. This is not about selling your company’s value, not at all. This is about value for them. The biggest value you can trade here is to make them feel important. You make them part of something bigger than being the gatekeeper and the protector of time. What worked well for me was introducing myself, then who I was representing and saying:

“I know you use company X as your main supplier, and one day I would like to have conversations with you and your managers about considering a change; however, I am not there yet. I need to do a lot more homework. Can I ask you a few questions? It will only take a few minutes.” – You include the gatekeeper with your challenge. Remember, friendliness is responded with friendliness. Unless they are very busy or their house is on fire, most likely they will grant you a few minutes.

ENABLE them to open the gate This step is crucial. Like any employee, the gatekeeper is also part of the company’s success. Of all the phone calls they receive, they also consider what they believe deserves their boss’s attention. Your questions have to be about their business, not yours. During the preparation of your call, you must have created a theory of how you think you can help the prospect with the challenges they are facing. Click here to hear an example you may like to use.

Key message

Do you want to get better at prospecting?

Stop digging into the old well and start a new one with these five secrets you wish you had known sooner.

#prospecting #salesimprovement #coldcalling #sales

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Cold calling