Sean Huckstep Nobody likes cold calls, but they’re even worse when they’re not effective. But did you know 30-50% of sales goes to the vendor that responds to customer interest first—so even though cold calls might not be your favorite thing to do, they make a difference. Here’s our guide to understanding the point to cold calls and making them work to your advantage.
What is Cold Calling?
Cold calling is when sales reps reach out to potential customers who haven’t expressed any interest in the offered products or services. Cold calling technique refers to solicitation of a prospect through different channels — telephone or person—without having any prior contact with the salesperson.
The Facts of Cold Calls
The data experts over at Gong.io analyzed more than 100,000 connected outreach calls and analyzed them using AI. They found a few things to be true:
- Once connected, you have five seconds to earn five minutes of your prospect’s time.
- Successful calls are almost twice as long as unsuccessful calls, clocking in at 5:50 and 3:14 minutes respectively.
- Successful calls are about educating your prospect and selling a meeting. Therefore, successful salespeople spend 54% of the call talking, while unsuccessful salespeople spent only 42% of their time speaking.
- 80% of sales require 5 follow-up calls after the meeting. 44% of sales reps give up after 1 follow-up.
- Using “Did I catch you at a bad time” makes you 40% less likely to book a meeting.
- Asking “How are you?” correlates with a 3.4X higher likelihood of booking a meeting.
- Beginning your call with “The reason I’m calling is …” increases your success rate by 2.1X.
- Asking “How have you been?” increases success rates by 6.6X.
- Using “We” instead of “I” increased success rates by 35%.
The Best Time to Make Cold Calls
Knowing the best time of day to call a customer helps you catch them at a better time and leads to an easier cold call. The best times of day to call leads are between 4:00 and 5:00PM and between 8:00 and 10:00 AM in their local time zone. Just as important, the worst time of day to call leads is between 11:00 AM and 2:30 PM in the leads local time zone.
10 Cold Call Tips
- Make multiple follow-up calls
- Learn to leave a strong voicemail
- Use a script but don’t sound robotic!
- Find a calling schedule
- Use active and engaging language
- Ask customers for leads and referrals to follow up on
- Embrace the rejection
- Keep a balance between quality & quantity
- Don’t waste anyone’s time including your own
- Connect with your prospect in a unique way
Pick up the Phone!
As much as you may dread making those cold calls, this guide shows ways that you can make it beneficial for everyone involved and less of a chore. If you’re still nervous to make your calls, try out scripts like: The Best Cold Call Script Ever or Cold Calling Scripts: 25 Sample Sales Templates & Tips but remember to keep your personality in the conversation. For more help and guidance chat with us.
