Optimizing for the best cold calling hours will have an immediate impact on your results. Let’s talk a little about the hours that aren’t ideal for cold calling before looking at which ones are optimal.
Bad Cold Calling Hours
Initially, it is important to recognize that it is the worst time to call prospects when they are away from their desks. It is understood that it can be difficult to know when prospects you can’t see are away from their desks, but there are some realistic assumptions that can be factored in to improve our ability to understand the prospect’s behavior.
Prospects and decision-makers we call on commonly hold and attend meetings throughout the day and the week when performing B2B selling. In addition, there are primetime business meeting hours during the 8-to-5 business day, similar to primetime TV hours when most people are watching.
Meetings are commonly scheduled to begin at 10:00 am and 2:00 pm. Often, these are the initial time slots people grab. Are you able to relate to that? When scheduling a meeting with prospects, aren’t those often times that you initially suggest?
We might ask, what can be done with this assumption? In conclusion, 10:00 am and 2:00 pm could be the absolute worst cold calling hours. The probability of our prospect being away from their desk or completely unavailable is most likely during those two hours of the day.
This does not mean we should stop all cold calling at those times of day. But if we’re only going to spend an hour or two cold calling, we should schedule that activity outside those two time slots to improve our connect rate.
Good Cold Calling Hours
Let’s talk about the optimal hours to call the prospect.
Avoiding the Gatekeeper
We can often improve our ability to connect with prospects by avoiding their gatekeepers. Calling when the gatekeeper is away from their desk is a good way, as the prospect may answer their own phone during this time.
Time slots when the gatekeeper might be away are:
- Early morning, before 8:00 am or 8:30 am
- During the lunch hour, between 12:00 pm and 1:00 pm
- After 5:00 pm
Avoid Primetime Meeting Hours
It is important to avoid primetime meeting hours and focus our cold calling hours on either early morning, trying to catch the prospect before the gatekeeper gets in, first thing in the morning, prior to 10:00 am, the lunch hour, or mid to late afternoon.
SalesScripter provides sales coaching, helping sales pros to find the best cold calling hours.
