Seven tips to get more appointments from your cold calls

By: Andy Preston

You know, it’s always interesting to read articles on cold calling from people that don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. A client sent me a few articles recently that he was laughing about, all about cold calling, all written by people that can’t, won’t or don’t cold call. Hilarious!

1.     Stop thinking ‘cold calling is dead’

There are a number of so-called ‘experts’ saying that cold calling doesn’t work, how it’s ‘dead’ and so on. They’re wrong. Dead wrong. Funny how most of these ‘experts’ use that statement to then try and sell you their ‘referral system’ or their ‘internet marketing system’ instead, and talk about how it’s so much better. Let’s be straight here: cold calling is still one of the best (and quickest) ways to get new business. But it’s changed. It’s evolving. You need to be aware of what’s changing so you can stay ahead of the game, and your competition.

2.     Stop asking stupid questions!

This is one of the things that loses you credibility, rapport and respect straight away on a sales call: asking stupid questions. So what do I mean by ‘stupid questions?’ Anything that asks about things they don’t want to disclose (while they still hardly know you, and you have no rapport whatsoever), asking about things your competitors will also ask about, and asking questions that have no value for the recipient of the call.

Let me give you some examples:

When is your contract up for renewal?

How much do you currently pay for …?

And my personal favourite: What will it take to get your business?

Now before you fall off your chair laughing at these, these are REAL-LIFE examples of questions from sales calls I’ve observed in the past month. How scary is that? You might as well say to the prospect: “these are my pathetic attempts at qualifying you in order that I can decide if you’re worth my time right now, or whether I should call you back in 3/6/12 months time in the vain hope you remember me (rather than forgetting me within seconds of putting the phone down). Please let me know the answer to this so I can get on with calling the rest of my list of people I’m supposed to call today.”

3.     Have a strong reason for calling

This is another thing the average salesperson fails to do, so if you do it, you’re already well ahead of the game. The prize for ‘worst ever’ call reason goes to someone who I once heard say ‘the reason for the call is to find out when your contract is up for renewal’. Brilliant! Abject failure to understand tip number two! Great effort. Your ability to grab your prospect’s attention is a major factor in whether you get a little more time on the call. And an important part of that is having a strong call reason. You do have a strong reason for calling, don’t you? And it’s about the prospect, not you?

4.     Call with confidence and belief

This part is often missing; particularly if the salespeople concerned are calling over a period of more than an hour. If you’re not careful, your motivation can drop off over time, and your confidence and belief can be affected in a negative way just by one bad call. Prospects can hear confidence and belief in your voice, and they notice when it’s missing. You need to persuade people to buy into you and what you offer. They need to have faith in you and trust that you know what you’re talking about. But if you don’t have strong belief and confidence they won’t do either. Lost sales opportunity!

An example of how vital this area is: I worked with an internal sales team recently whose role it is to get appointments for their field sales colleagues. Purely focusing on motivation, confidence and belief we achieved a 60% increase in appointments! Note: I didn’t change anything about what they said, just their motivation, confidence and belief. Anyone else out there want similar results?

5.     Do some preparation

It often astounds me how little preparation your average salesperson does. Cold Calling is evolving, and you need to evolve with it to give yourself a good chance of success. No longer can you call companies with a name of the person you’re trying to reach and have a good success rate in terms of getting through to them, or getting appointments with them.

The minimum preparation you should be doing prior to a call is to get the name of the decision maker, direct phone number and email where appropriate, an idea of your call reason and what you’re going to say, likely objections and how you’re going to handle them, plus access to your diary (or your colleague’s diary) to book those appointments in.

Remember, you need to know exactly the date and time that you’re trying to make the appointment for, before you start to close, otherwise you’re affecting your chances of success in a negative way.

6.     Focus your time

If you’re starting any sort of calling session, whether it’s cold or warm calling, make sure you’re focused before you start. This means eliminating any distractions. Far too many salespeople allow themselves to get interrupted during calling sessions, which then has a negative impact on the results they get from them, which in turn falsely leads some people to the conclusion that it ‘doesn’t work for them’ or they’re no good at it.

Interruptions would include things like colleagues talking to them, incoming phone calls, emails, making a drink and so on. Particularly if the salesperson isn’t enjoying the session, they’ll take advantage of the interruption, therefore ruining their chances of success in the calling session.

If you’re going to start a calling session, make sure you’re focused on it, as well as the end result you want to achieve.

7.     Create some energy

Another big mistake the average salesperson makes is sounding bored and tired. Remember, when you’re making a phone call, your voice is all you have to persuade people, so make sure you give it your best shot. You need to have energy and enthusiasm in your voice in order to persuade others, so why are you making calls where you sound like you’re terminally depressed?

The longer the calling session goes on, the more you have to be careful of your energy levels. Sometimes short breaks between focused calling sessions actually produce better results.

Remember: if you’re going to bother making a call, make it sound like a good one.

A one-time professional buyer, Andy has heard it all. He knows what buyers want to hear and now he trains salespeople to deliver those winning messages. A regular speaker at conferences all over the world and the creator of the ‘Stand Out Selling’ system, Andy will join SALESGURU as our headline speaker at our June Roadshow. Find out more at www.andypreston.com