How to make the best cold call script?

Cold calls scare even the best sales people away. With the Covid, you might have to go through the exercise yourself. How can you maximise the chances of closing a deal on a phone call? Here is a survival guide by Quentin Varaldi (I am French, bear with me for the coming mistakes). 

Cold call: generalities

Before getting in the script details, here is what you need to know:

The attitude:

• Be enthusiast and smile. It will be perceived through the call. It will make your interlocutor happier, more open and with lower barriers.
• Be sharp. Using accurate technical terms will give you more credibility and enhance trust.
• Be an authority figure. Being decisive and confident will be perceived as leadership attributes. And guess what we do with leaders? We follow them.
• Be prepared. Sales are 90% of preparation and 10% of “artistic improvisation”. A good preparation will beat a good “inborn potential” each time.

 The method:

• The script must be prepared in advance and permanently updated.
• Every objection must have a prepared answer. When a new objection comes up, it needs to be added in the script, with a prepared answer.
• The script must be practiced. It must feel natural when talking, with various rhythm and tonalities. If your interlocutor feels you are reading a script, it will be counter-productive.
• The script can be personalized. If you feel a modification might be better, modify it, test it and if it is actually better than the previous version, update the script accordingly.
• The script is a contributive one-best-way tool. Each user should share with the group when one of his modifications proved its success. This allows the group to keep building the best possible script. 

Cold call: the script

The script is composed of 6 main points:

1.      Opening:

Depending on your type of activity, your type of interlocutor (B2C/B2B), the anteriority of relation (how well you know him, etc), you may have various openings:

Hi, is John there?

• This question should be asked with a descending tone. It shows you know the interlocutor. It can help to bypass a secretary barriage (especially if said with an upset/hurry tone). Possible answers to prepare counters/answers to: Yes, it’s him. Yes, it’s not him. Yes, he is busy. Yes, he is not interested. Who are you? No. I don’t have time. I am not interested. Send me your document by email. Call next week…

Hi John, this is Quentin, calling from IALVA, in Guangzhou, how are you doing today?

• This question should be asked with a descending tone at the end of John (shows confidence), then uprising tone at the end of Quentin, Ialva and Guangzhou, as if you were asking a question (this will unconsciously make John says “yes, yes, yes” in his mind as if he agreed with your questions/statements and make him most likely to say yes to your future questions later, it’s the cumulative yes strategy). For "today", you can choose: uprising tone if you want to show your interest in him or descending if you want to show you have more important/urgent topics to discuss.

2.      Identification:

You need to convince John this conversation will be useful for him. You will have to show that you know him, which is why you know he will be interested in taking this conversation further. Ideally, you will collect a “yes” at this stage (cumulative yes strategy, as mentioned previously).

John, last week you attended the Open Tech summit in Lyon. There was a conference about international trade, does that ring a bell?

John, you registered on XXX.com last week. It’s a website about YYY. Does that ring a bell?

Possible answers to prepare counters/answers to: Yes. No.

 3.      Hook:

Now the link has been established, you need to give him a reason to keep this call going. Why are you calling him? Why should he grant you these precious minutes of his time?

Great, we are hosting a VIP conference about International call technics and you’re one of the last of the group who hasn’t sign up for it yet. The reason for my call today John, is that during 24 hours – 24 hours only – we offer a 25% discount for the registration. But John, there are only 20 places left so if you want to be in, I need your confirmation right now. What do you say?

Well, the reason for the call today John, is that we will do a special XXX next Wednesday and, if you had 60 seconds, I’d like to share an idea with you. Got a minute?

• Add some technical terms here (VIP conference, call technics, etc depending on your industry).
• Say “one of the last” and “of the group” very fast, but with a mini pause between both groups of words. These keywords said fast usually push the interlocutor to follow what you said and reinforce your authority.
• Say “the reason for the call today John” with a lower and slower voice, to imply scarcity, just as if you were about to share a secret with him. That will make him want to get closer to you and your idea, to give you attention.
• Add a special offer (or reason to keep the call going), if possible add a limit constraint inside (only 24h available, only 10 places, etc) to reinforce the urge of saying yes.
• End it with either a close (yes/no) question, either an open question, depending on what works best in your situation. If you have a high rate of yes, go for the close question, it’s more efficient. If the rate isn’t high, go for an open question, that will open the talk and give you a chance to argument (it’s harder to keep the talk after receiving a no).
• “if you had 60 seconds… got a minute?” is a powerful sentence to reinforce the fact the talk will be short and that anyone should have a minute to dedicate to the mysterious idea you’re about to share. The “got a minute?” should be said in a light and up tone, like it’s obvious he will say yes.

 4.      Sales process

In most cases (unlike the example 1 above) you won’t close a sales immediately. You will then need to have a similar sales process as a classic face to face. It means you will have to discover your interlocutor’s needs, summarize them, offer your solution, deal with the objections and close the deal.

• You must ask questions before talking about your solution. There are many ways to sell a product, but you can only use one of them with your customer. It’s important to choose the most relevant one. You can’t know which one is the best without asking questions first (will your customer care more about security/reliability? Fame/reputation? Novelty/originality? Comfort/ease? Profitability/cost? Sympathy/happiness? Environment? Social? …).
• The discovery needs should have questions from the most general ones to the most accurate ones. Each answer must be reformulated to be confirmed (especially numbers, on phone it can be tricky).
• At the end of the discovery needs, you summarize your interlocutor’s needs:

If I understood you well, if we could solve this and that like this and like that, you would do this and that, right?

At this stage, you know what he wants, why he wants it and how to present it. More than this, you actually got a promise of agreement (easier to get when we talk about hypothetical things than if you already said you were actually doing your activity).

 5.      Solution proposition

This is finally the moment when you offer your solution:

This is exactly what we do. We do this like this like that for this and that. You said if we were able to do… you would do… right? Then it’s very simple and I will hold your hand every step of the way. I just need to get your passport number and phone…

• You have to say exactly what he said he wanted in the way he wanted it. That will engage him as he said he would agree if you were matching these conditions.
• Use terms as “very simple” and “just”. You can also ask him a 2 choices question to help closing the deal (do you prefer this or that).
• “I will hold your hand every step of the way” is a very powerful pattern as well, use it.
• Expect the solution to be received with an objection, such as it’s too expensive, I already have a provider, I don’t need it, it’s too big, it’s too red, etc. I won’t get in the details of the classic sales process or negotiation here though, it could be done in another post (a bit too long).

 6.      Closing

• Summarize the information collected. Explain what will be the next steps (for example you have to send him a document and he has to fill it) with deadlines and the follow up way (I will contact you on Thursday if I don’t receive this from you).
• Finally thanks him for his time and remind him your name & company name to end on a positive tone. That will show him you are proud of your services. It will reinforce his satisfaction and confidence in your services:

John, thank you for the time you gave me today. If you need anything, please remember my name. I am Quentin and welcome to Company Name.

Wait for him to say thanks then say:

Have a good day.

That’s it!

 Now keep in mind it’s always a game numbers. Calling well matters, but calling a lot matters even more.

 If you are interested in classic face-to-face sales technics, negotiations technics, manipulations technics, body language reading or interviews preparation, let me know in the comments. I could do some posts for these later.

 Give it a like if you thought it could be useful! Available to discuss specific questions/needs in DM or in the comments