In this video, we provide a real cold calling example of a salesperson cold calling to sell accounting services. After the video, we provide an analysis of what went well and what could have been better. After the analysis, is a recommended cold call script that we put together that we believe would improve this salesperson’s cold calling efforts.
Purpose for the Call
Here is what the salesperson says as the purpose of the call:
Just wanted to introduce our company give you an opportunity to see what we have to offer.
The problem with that is that this is all about the salesperson’s interests. If we keep in mind that we all care about our own stuff the most, we can apply that to our cold call to make the purpose of the call more about the prospect.
Value Proposition
Here is what the salesperson in this cold calling example said as her value proposition.
Offer you a no cost no obligation second opinion.
This is only of value to someone who is looking to make a change or is in “buying mode”. Most of the prospects that you reach while doing outbound cold calling are not likely to be in buying mode for what you sell. With that, it can be better to use a value proposition that might be attractive to buyers who are not actively shopping for what you sell.
Example of Product Selling
This cold calling example is a demonstration of product selling. Product selling is when a salesperson primarily sells by talking about their company and what their company sells. And in every conversation with a prospect, they are trying to get the prospect to move forward with becoming a customer.
While this is an understandable approach for a salesperson to take, we feel like this is a less optimum approach and we recommend using a more consultative approach and we show what that would look like being applied to this cold call example.
Just send me your information.
We recommend that you reflect back after every cold call and try to think about what objections came up. In this cold calling example, the only objection was the request for her to send her information.
Notice how effective this objection was at ending this call. Not only does it make getting rid of salespeople easier, but you can do it without being rude to the salesperson. It is for that reason that this is one of the most common objections for both prospects and gatekeepers.
While sometimes you do have to send over your information, the worst way to respond is to get the email address and end the call. Since we can assume that this is a blow-off most of the time, try to keep the call going by asking questions with something like:
Sure, I can certainly do that. So that I know what to send you, let me ask you real quick – [pain or current state question].
The prospect is most likely to answer the question in one way or another, and you can then follow up with another question or go for the close if the prospect gives a really good answer in terms of fit with what you sell.
We hope this cold calling example gives you some ideas for how you can improve your cold call efforts!