In this video, we discuss how to create the best cold call scripts. As part of this, I will make three promises to you:

  1. This will differ from what you are currently doing and what you have been taught.
  2. This will not only be easy to implement but will also make selling easier.
  3. This will immediately improve your sales efforts and results.

 

Cold Calling is the Most Difficult Task

Before we go through how to create the best cold call scripts, let’s discuss how cold calling is actually the most difficult thing a salesperson will have to do.

  • You have a lot to talk about
  • Only a small window of time
  • Calls can move quickly
  • You never know what direction the call will go
  • A hostile environment
  • Face objections, rejection, and resistance

What I am going to show you here will solve all those challenges, reduce that complexity, and make cold calling feel easy. You might feel stress and anxiety when cold calling today. If you implement this approach, that will go away, and your biggest challenge will become getting connected with enough prospects.

 

This is Different From What Most Salespeople Do

I mentioned to you that this is different from what you are doing today. I can say that with confidence because I get a lot of cold calls and cold emails every day, and what I will show you here is different from what all of those salespeople do.

The most common approach salespeople use when cold calling is to talk about the product they sell and the company they work for. I refer to this as a product-focused approach, and it is where salespeople communicate along these main talking points:

  • This is who I am.
  • This is the company I am with.
  • This is the product I sell.
  • Do you need what I sell?
  • Can we meet to discuss what I sell?

Just about every cold call and cold email I receive follows this structure almost exactly. And while this might sound like a logical approach for a salesperson, there are some reasons this is counterproductive and will make selling more difficult.

  • This approach is all about me: my product, my company, my sales quota
  • This will immediately flag you as a salesperson trying to sell something
  • That will trigger the prospect’s guardedness
  • Which will lead to more objections, rejection, and resistance
  • The prospect is likely not in buying mode at the time they answer the call
  • This creates a mismatch with what the salesperson is trying to talk about
  • This only fits with prospects who know they need to purchase
  • All of this leads to missed opportunities

 

The Best Cold Call Scripts Focus More on the Prospect

We can eliminate all those challenges by flipping our approach: instead of being all about our product, we are going to make the cold call all about the prospect. To make this flip, all you have to do is replace talking about your stuff with asking questions to get the prospect talking about their stuff.

This is not easy, as it is hard to know what questions to ask. But we have a solution: a 7-step sales message brainstorming process that will create an optimal set of talking points and questions to ask about your product or service. These are the steps we will take you through:

  1. Product: Key product details
  2. Target: Audience we are communicating with and selling to
  3. Value: Benefits the product delivers to the target audience
  4. Pain Points: Problems, challenges, or concerns the product solves
  5. Pain Questions: Questions to identify if the prospect has the pain points
  6. Current State Questions: Questions to learn what the prospect is doing
  7. Customer Example: Short story of a customer

Going through those steps will create your sales message, and each step creates what we refer to as building blocks. You can then use those building blocks to create a cold call script.

 

The Best Cold Call Scripts Use an Outline Structure

The great thing about this process is that we can very easily take the building blocks from our sales message and use them to create an outline for our cold call script. Here is one way to structure that outline, and I have filled it in with our sales message so you can see what this would look like filled in:

 

Cold Call Intro

Hi Tom, this is Michael Halper calling from Web Pros.
Did I catch you in the middle of anything?

Value Proposition

The reason for the call is that we help businesses to:

  • Increase sales results by optimizing how their sales teams communicate
  • Increase leads generated and sales results
  • Decrease ramp-up and training time
  • Decrease sales staff turnover
  • Fix underperforming reps

I don’t know if you are a fit with what we do or not.

Pain Questions

If I could ask you real quick:

  • How do you feel about how your reps are doing with knowing what to say and ask?
  • How do you feel about the time it takes to get sales reps ramped up and producing?
  • Do you feel like you are getting the most out of your reps?
  • How much of a priority is it to fix underperforming reps?
  • How important is it to find ways to decrease sales staff turnover?

Current State Questions

  • Do you provide sales training to your sales staff?
  • Do you use any type of sales methodology?
  • Do you provide any type of sales script or sales playbook to your reps?
  • Do you have a new hire onboarding training program?
  • How many sales reps do you have?
  • How long does it take to get reps ramped up and performing?
  • Are you doing any type of cold outreach?
  • What is your sales staff turnover rate?
  • When was the last time you looked at improving your sales training?

Pain Points

A lot of businesses we work with have challenges with:

  • Sales reps are not generating enough leads
  • Getting reps saying the right things
  • Takes time to get reps trained and performing
  • Too many underperforming reps
  • Sales staff turnover is expensive

Are you concerned about any of those areas?

Product and Company Introduction

We have a solution called the SMART Sales System that makes selling easy. It includes:

  • Sales training
  • Sales coaching
  • Sales consulting
  • Web-based sales playbook
  • AI sales role-play software

Some ways we differ:

  • Only training that focuses on what to say
  • Provides clear and practical tips
  • Software platform

Customer Example

  • We worked with Phones Plus.
  • Their reps weren’t getting enough leads.
  • We helped to solve that with our training tools.
  • This helped to increase their leads generated by 40%.
  • This ultimately led to an increase in revenue by 15%.

Cold Call Close

But I have called you out of the blue, and I don’t know if this is the best time to discuss this.

What I would like to do is schedule a call to learn a little more about you and share some examples of how we have helped businesses to get more out of their reps.

Are you available for a brief call next week to discuss this more?

 

We hope this helps you to create the best cold call scripts!