There are clear dos and don’ts when writing a cold call script and they’re outlined below.

 

Introduction

  • Is your introduction as brief as possible? When you’re cold calling, you’re calling prospects out of the blue. Technically, your call is uninvited or unwanted which means you need to be respectful of the prospect’s time. With that being the case, keep your introductions as short as possible so that you get right to the point at the beginning of your call.
  • Avoid asking how they’re doing. This may feel natural to do initially on a cold call, but if the individual you’re calling is busy, then giving details on how they’re doing to you, someone they don’t know, could be taken as you wasting their time.
  • Make sure to introduce yourself as well as the company you’re representing.
  • Do not give a prospect full details about who you’re with and the role you play in the organization. Keep in mind that a prospect will not be very interested in knowing you’re the regional applications sales manager for XYZ Corp.
  • Name drop during your introduction when it is possible. Name-drop people in the organization that you’ve already spoken with or name-drop individuals that you plan on meeting with.

 

Confirming Availability

  • Confirm the prospect is available to speak with you on a cold call. You can accomplish this by asking if you’ve caught them in the middle of anything or if they simply have a moment to speak with you.
  • If the prospect isn’t available, do not continue with the cold call script. You won’t get their interest or build rapport if your prospect isn’t completely available.

 

Value Statement

  • Be sure to provide a value statement on how companies benefit from doing business with you as well as your company in terms of business value.
  • Do not provide the prospect with your company or product description. At this time in the call, the prospect will typically have no interest in your company and what you do. How they can make and save money is their concern and going on about your company and products does not deliver that right away.
  • Make your value statement in your cold call script as quantifiable as possible. For example, “We help companies decrease turnover by 18%.”
  • Name-drop other companies in your value statement if and when possible.

 

Qualifying Questions

  • Tell the prospect that you’re not sure if you can help them with the cold call script. This will decrease their guard as well as build rapport.
  • Ask a series of questions in order to qualify the prospect as well as gather information.
  • Do not ask too many questions or turn the cold call script into an interview process.

 

Building Interest

  • Share a few points in order to build interest once you’ve qualified the prospect. The points can be a few statements that expand on the value statement as well as draw in pain obtained from the qualifying questions.
  • Do not go into a full solution overview at this point. The goal of your cold call script is to build enough interest in order to schedule a first conversation with the prospect.

 

First Conversation

  • Operate with the goal of the cold call being to get their agreement to discuss the subject in more detail with you. This can be seen as a first conversation.
  • Do not turn away from an opportunity to start the first conversation during your cold call.

 

SalesScripter provides sales training to help you with creating your cold call script.