Cold Call Tips & Advice for Small Business

You’re a small business, and you have been looking for a way to increase your customer base. The web is fine and good, even television and radio spots, but perhaps you are looking for a way to get more direct interaction with potential customers. Cold calling can sometimes be a great way to grow your business. There are a few things you will want to keep in mind as you plan for a cold call campaign:

 

  1. Have a goal – SELL, SELL, SELL! No, no, no. The goal of cold calls isn’t necessarily to make that sale right then and there, in fact if you have any concern for your brand desperately trying to sell to perfect strangers over the phone can create a deep disdain for you and your brand in the mind of those you’ve been bothering at dinner time. The goal of cold calls is to create an opportunity for a sale. Keep this in mind during every step of the process, from writing you script to the actual phone calls and your final call to action during the phone call.

 

  1. Know your target – Every audience is different, and this goes way beyond B2B and B2C. You need a different tone, pitch, script, presentation even call list depending on what you are selling, who would be interested in what you are selling etc. If you think, (which many business owners do think) that every human on earth should love your product you are not being honest with yourself and you are not targeting your sales method enough to be effective.

 

  1. Don’t be a cartoon character of a telemarketer – Telemarketing has a bad enough name all on its own without you being overly aggressive during the call. Be direct, present the benefits clearly, ask them to buy and if not ask them if it is alright to contact them again. Don’t get rude, desperate or demanding. So maybe acting that way will make one or two old ladies buy your product? Is that worth all of the damage it does to your brand when they tell friends and family about the horrible person who forced them to buy this thing they don’t want?

 

  1. Tell them who you are – Did you know that there are cold call companies that actually don’t want people to know who they are? Insane right? That’s because they depend on hard sell tactics that don’t really work that well, and they don’t want all the people they are rude to on the phone to know who they really are. This is stupid. Be polite, and let them know who you are. The number of people who need what you are selling this very instant is naturally going to be small. A much, much bigger number are all of those who will need what you are selling eventually, and you want them to remember who you are, how polite you were, how much you cared about taking their precious time.

 

  1. Keep track of who you talk to – Have a way to mark where in the conversation you left off with any potential customer. It’s easy. There should be a way to indicate this in the script. It makes potential customers feel like a real person (they are real people) when you call back, instead of a number on a list somewhere.