When generating leads by making calls, being able to transition from cold to warm calling can have a noticeable impact. Usually, cold calling is defined as calling a prospect who has no idea who you are or what the purpose of your call is. Warm calling is when you make calls with an existing relationship or knowledge.
The challenge here is that when you’re working on lead generation and appointment setting, a high percentage of your calls are more cold than warm. This is simply because the prospects don’t know you, and there’s no existing relationship established. That said, there are very simple, practical steps that can make cold calls feel warm.
1. Name dropping
When a cold call is answered by a gatekeeper or target prospect, they’re typically going to be attempting to decipher if you’re a friend or foe. A friend is someone with an existing or past relationship with the company, whether current work is underway or past work has been completed. When we speak of a foe, we mean someone who lacks existing relationships and is an outsider trying to get their foot in the door.
Name-dropping is a great way to perform warm calling while making the prospect on the phone think we’re more of a friend than a foe. A way to do this is to mention people in the organization we’ve worked with or spoken to.
When cold calling, you probably won’t have any existing relationships or interactions. In this situation, simply name-drop people that you’re planning on meeting with. An example would be name-dropping other people in the prospect’s organization that you plan to talk to.
2. Mentioning an initiative
Similar to name-dropping, a tactic to use when mentioning an initiative that the prospect may already be working on. This gives the impression that there is some existing knowledge and relationships.
You may not know of any initiatives that could pose a challenge. Possibly uncover one by conducting some research on the prospect or gathering information from previous cold calls. There are many generic initiatives that all organizations have, such as projects to reduce costs, increase sales, or decrease risk, and these may work when you are unable to identify an initiative.
3. Asking qualifying questions
Salespeople make many cold calls, during which they provide information while trying to sell and build interest. By shifting from giving to collecting information, you move away from cold calling and toward warm calling.
Incorporate two or three qualifying questions into your cold calling script to help with this concept. It creates a much warmer setting when you go from trying to sell to just collecting information and learning more about the prospect, which helps you to figure out if they’re a good fit for what you are offering, as well as how you help businesses.
SalesScripter provides cold calling coaching helping sales pros to perform warm calling.
