Enter your email below to get a free cold call template you can copy and fill in with your product or service. The template is part of a complete sales script and template kit that includes a cold call script, a cold email message, a voicemail message, an appointment outline, and a sales objection rebuttal list.
Example Scenario
To help you with using this sales script kit, we created an example sales message and sales script for a software product. This is a cold-call template structured as an outline with 8 steps. You can easily fill in each step with details from your product or service. The 8 steps are:
- Cold Call Introduction
- Share Your Value Proposition
- Use a Sales Takeaway
- Ask Targeted Probing Questions
- Share Common Problems and Pain Points
- Introduce Your Product and Company
- Share a Customer Story and Example
- Close for the Next Step in the Sales Process
Step 1: Cold Call Introduction
The first step in this cold call template is the introduction. The only main difference with this from the traditional approach is that we recommend replacing the typical question asking how the prospect is doing with a question to ask if they are available by saying something like:
Hi Tom, this is Michael Halper calling from Slide Deck Pros.
Did I catch you in the middle of anything?
Step 2: Share Your Value Proposition
The second step in this cold call script is to share your value proposition by saying something like:
The reason for the call is that we help marketing departments to:
- Decrease time spent creating presentations
- Ensure the latest and most up-to-date information is being used
- Manage and maintain corporate branding guidelines
Step 3: Use a Sales Takeaway
After you share your value proposition, an optional step is to use a sales takeaway by saying something like:
I don’t know if you are a fit with what we do or not.
This is a fairly advanced sales tactic as it slightly takes away the improvements you just shared in your value proposition, creating a nice “push/pull” effect. Not only will this help decrease the prospect’s guardedness, but it can also create curiosity and interest.
Step 4: Ask Targeted Probing Questions
The next step in the cold call template is to ask some very targeted questions to learn what is going on with the prospect. We break your questions into two categories: 1) pain questions and 2) current state questions.
Pain Questions
These questions check whether the prospect has any challenges, problems, or pain points your product or service helps with.
- How concerned are you about the time spent creating presentations?
- How concerned are you about people using old and outdated slides?
- How important is it to ensure corporate branding guidelines are being followed?
Current State Questions
These questions help you understand what the prospect is doing in the area where your product or service fits.
- Are you using any type of system for storing and sharing PowerPoint slides?
- Does your organization use PowerPoint slides?
- How does your organization use PowerPoint?
- How much time do you think is being spent on building PowerPoint slides?
- Have you ever had issues with old slides being used?
- Have you ever had issues with slides not following corporate branding guidelines?
Step 5: Share Common Problems and Pain Points
If your questions don’t identify any areas where there is room for improvement, you can transition to sharing the pain points you help with by saying something like:
Well, it sounds like you all are doing pretty good. Before I let you go, a lot of marketing departments we work with have challenges with:
- Easy to spend too much time creating presentations
- Difficult to make sure everybody is using the latest slides
- Difficult to manage corporate branding guidelines
Are you concerned about any of those areas?
Step 6: Introduce Your Product and Company
If you are able to uncover areas where there are needs or challenges, you can then introduce your product and company as a solution to the prospect’s needs by saying something like:
Well, based on what you shared, it might make sense to talk more because we provide:
- Web-based PowerPoint content management system
- PowerPoint slide decks stored in a central database
- File sharing across the organization
- Access management and version control
- Content update notifications
Some ways we differ:
- Files stored centrally
- Data security
- Backup protection
Step 7: Share a Customer Story and Example
A really nice touch to the cold call template is to share a story of a current or past customer you helped with the product you just introduced by saying something like:
- We worked with the owner of Table Tech.
- They were having version control issues.
- We helped to solve that with our PPT Management System.
- This helped to decrease the time spent building slides.
- This ultimately improved the version control and branding standards.
Step 8: Close for the Next Step in the Sales Process
After all of that, it is time to close the prospect. And the close is not for the purchase; it is simply to close the prospect on talking more in the form of an appointment, meeting, or call by saying something like:
But I have called you out of the blue, and I don’t know if this is the best time to discuss this.
Are you available for a brief call to learn more about you and discuss how we are helping marketing depts improve how they manage their PowerPoint content?
We hope this cold call template provides new ideas for your cold calling efforts!
