How to cold call and make sales appointments is a sales skill that will benefit your small business, or cost you a lot of time and resources if you get it wrong. Many small business sales people have a cold calling script, either written or mentally rehearsed, that isn't effective and doesn't get the results. It's not their fault, they haven't got the sales training resources that many large sales organisations have. One of the most common mistakes I hear and see small businesses making when they make sales appointment calls is that they use a cold call script but don't build it around a proven effective cold calling process.
If you use an effective sales appointment making process as a plan of the path you want the call to follow, you can then build your own words and phrases around that process and your results will multiply. You will have more selling opportunities and your business will grow. Consider some of the ideas and sales training in these 3 stages of a sales appointment call. Try them out and measure the results you achieve.
The cold call introduction
You have to grab the prospects attention, and make the possible benefits they could gain a real motivator for them to continue with the conversation. This is where small businesses have both an advantage and a disadvantage compared to the big well known companies.
The disadvantage is that the big companies are well known. The buyer recognizes the name and has an idea of what they can offer. If there is any spark of interest the buyer is likely to listen to the caller from a large well known organization. When making cold calls for appointments from a small business you have to get into your cold calling scripts, who you are, what you do, and most important of all, the reason for your call. You have to grab the buyer's attention.
The advantage that a small business has is that they can quickly adapt and be flexible with what they can offer specific sales prospects. Small business sales operations can also target niche markets, and change to meet the market and customer demands and trends. Because of this a small business, or self-employed person, selling their own products can make the calls more personal to each prospect.
Include questions in your cold call to qualify the prospect
A good large scale tele-marketing operation will have a tick list on screen of the information they need to ask a potential customer. The ones that use rigid scripts have set questions for the caller to ask. In both cases the questioning stage of the sales appointment process can sound like an interrogation if not done with some flexible sales skill, or if it is at the end of a long shift in a call center.
The really effective technique, which I include on the sales training I present to my teams on how to cold call, is to include in the conversation the questions that you need to ask. Simply record the information as you talk, and I mean talk not interrogate the buyer. Use motivators in your conversation to move smoothly into the questioning stage of the call.
Phrases such as, 'So I can see if you could benefit from this offer.' You could even be honest with them, now there's a refreshing change, and say, 'To make sure I am not wasting your time can I ask you.' Make your appointment setting call a conversation. This is one of your big advantages as a small business as you are not confined to rigid cold calling scripts and company rules.
You don't need linguistic tricks and manipulative sales techniques
Up to this point in the call process you have crammed in benefits that the potential customer could gain from doing business with you. Now add more benefits, especially those specific and unique to doing business with your small business. You want to communicate several messages to the prospect that will influence, not manipulate, them to meet with you and discuss what they could gain.
A message that my sales teams learn to use when learning how to cold call, is that the prospect will only really know whether they could gain, or are missing out, when they have met you. When you cold call to make a sales appointment you are only gaining agreement to meet you. You are not asking for agreement to do business with you. When they have met you, and heard what you can give them, they are then in a position to decide if they want to buy. Use any possible benefits that you have heard hit a sweet spot during the call with the buyer as a reason they should agree to a sales appointment. If when you spoke about saving money, increasing production, or that you are a local company, you heard a positive signal from the prospect, you can use this when you try and arrange the appointment. For example, 'So that I can show you how I can protect your investment while still giving you a good return, are you available on Monday evening?'
A simple question coated in benefits is all that's needed. No double talk or sales tricks that you and your staff are probably not comfortable with, and that get your company a bad reputation in the long term.
This is a small part of the sales process I use when training my sales teams on how to make a cold call sales appointment. It's a starting point on which to build a cold calling script. It can be added to by the individual using it both in techniques and sales skills, and the words and phrases that are used. You can get more free appointment training and information by going to Appointment Setting on my website.
One of my aims is to make the sales training that has been developed and aimed at large sales organisations available to small and medium size businesses. Often the high cost of effective sales training is too high an investment for some companies, and individuals working for themselves. Buying training books and sifting through hundreds of pages is a poor use of your time just to find a few nuggets of worthwhile information.
On my Sales Training website you can find free sales training that will benefit small and medium businesses. All the techniques and skills have been tried, tested, and developed, by the sales teams I manage and train. Have a click around the site. You can even send in any questions you have, or obstacles to your sales success, and I, and sales people around the world will give you some answers.
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