Cold Calling

Books on Cold Calling. One author that stood out on the Amazon page was Art Sobczak. The titles for many of the cold-calling books turn on fear, “Eliminate Fear, Failure, and Rejection,” and others. But what I’d be interested are the techniques and certain phrases. To that end, these books might be useful. I haven’t read them, but here they are:

The Cold Calling Secret: Discover the Cold Calling Techniques Used by the World’s Top Salespeople, Mark Boardman, 2012.

Cold Calling Techniques (That Really Work!), Stephan Schiffman, 2013.

Power Phone Scripts: 500 Word-for-Word Questions, Phrases, and Conversations to Open and Close More Sales, Mike Brooks and Stephan McLaughlin, 2017 (Audio).

Lessons from 100,000 Cold Calls: Selling Techniques That Work No Matter How Many Calls You Make, Stewart L. Rogers, 2008.

Cold Calls, Charles Benoit, 2014.

Sales Development: Cracking the Code of Outbound Sales, Cory Bray, Hilmon Sorey, Ryan Reisert, and Chris Beall, 2018.

Hot for Cold Calling in 45 Minutes: How to Boost Your Success Rate on the Phone, Tim Taxis and Christiane Gierke, 2015.

Sales folks start by identifying “the objective in cold calling.” You already know your objective: it’s the same objective at each stage of a sales funnel: you want to get your clients closer to buying and being a customer for life. That’s the goal. To get the goal, you’ll need to know the context before you call. One of the worst things that cold callers can do is to make presumptions or assumptions about the prospect–whether its presumptions on your time, on your wallet, or where the customer is at in his buying decision or its time frame. No one likes being sprung upon by strangers. No one likes having someone impose expectations on you while you’re in the middle of managing life and relationships elsewhere in your life–with family, friends, or workmates. How to convert an interruption of your day from a stranger to a conversation? Not easy. Actually, the goal is to go from an interruption to a scheduled meet. The customer has to be interested. How do you find folks who are interested in your product or service? Are there aggregate sites or external interests in the customer’s profile that you can tap into?

Also want to make the process as predictable as possible. Let the client align his expectations with yours. The process should be smooth.