Prospects that you reach when cold calling will often be very guarded, and there are some small yet powerful things you can do with your cold call script to decrease and defuse this guardedness.

 

Try not to sound like a salesperson

When you sound like you are a salesperson, you will typically increase a prospect’s guard. They will begin to protect themselves from a scenario where they have to deal with a salesperson trying to sell to them. If you agree with that, then try to design your so that it does not make you sound like a salesperson.

 

Don’t mention your product in your introduction statement

One way to not sound like a salesperson is to avoid all of the product mumbo jumbo at the very beginning of the call. It can be common for someone to say something like:

I am with XYZ Corp and we are the industry leader in calibrated injection systems.

When a prospect hears that, they will become more guarded as they will begin to think:

Oh great, this person is going to try to sell me some calibrated injection systems and I am not looking to buy anything like that right now. This is going be a disruption. Must find a way to get out of this situation.

 

Focus on the value that you offer

Since we are trying to minimize or eliminate the product lingo in our cold call script, what we can do is replace that with a mention of the value that we offer. For example:

Purpose for the call is that we help manufacturers to minimize any disruptions from system failures.

This small change can have a big impact because you shift from triggering guardedness to triggering curiosity.

 

Confirm that they are available for your call

One thing that you can do early in your cold calling script is to check to make sure that the prospect is available for your call. When you do this, you will be moving forward with their permission, and this can buy you a 2 to 5-minute window.

While you operate within the window of time that you have bought, the prospect’s guardedness will be less than it would have been if trying to keep the call going without their permission or checking if they are available.

 

Ask if you have caught them in the middle of anything

A not-so-great way to confirm availability is to ask:

Are you busy right now?

This is not good because it is safe to assume that the prospect is always busy, especially when calling B2B. The most likely answer to this question is the following:

Yes, I am busy right now.

One small change that you can make in your cold call script is to ask this question:

Have I caught you in the middle of anything?

This is powerful for a couple of reasons. It confirms availability and does it by checking the temperature on the level of business. It basically says that you know they are busy, but you are checking to see if they are involved in something where they really can’t break away for a couple of minutes.

When it comes to decreasing guardedness, this is a great question because it sounds very friendly and casual. Meaning it sounds like something that a friend or coworker would ask more so than a salesperson.

 

SalesScripter helps sales pros to build a powerful cold call script.