Cold calling is a sales technique where sales reps reach out to customers that your business hasn’t had any interaction with before. The person the sales rep is calling may be familiar with your business, or the cold call might be the first time they are hearing about you. Cold calling is a bit different from warm calls because the latter are ones that are made to those individuals who have expressed interest in your business before.
Cold calling for real estate can be challenging and intimidating, which is why so many sales reps don’t generally enjoy this sales technique. Do you know who does enjoy cold calling though? Salespeople that are ready to bring in millions of dollars for their companies.
If you are thinking of doing away with this sales technique, think again. When done correctly, cold calling can bring in tons of qualified leads and ultimately boost your revenue. To help you improve your cold calling techniques, here are some tips to change the way your team is handling this essential process.
Tip #1: Embrace rejection
If you are in the sales industry, you are always going to experience rejection. It’s impossible to close every single one of the potential deals that you encounter. To make rejection easier, start to make a joke out of it. Between your team, make a list of some of the funniest rejection quotes. Of course, we want to avoid rejection as much as possible, but this will help your team with getting comfortable with being rejected. It’s inevitable, but it can make sales reps uncomfortable with the idea of cold calls.
Tip #2: Never take no for an answer
Unless a cold call is really unpleasant, it’s important to keep pushing…even when a prospect says no. If a prospect says no in a nice way, ask them why not. Depending on their answer, you can show that your product is misunderstood, and they really could use your business. Or at the very least, you will have an understanding of why some prospects are not interested. This will help you to know what types of people are best targeted on future cold calls.
Tip #3: Master your script
Cold calls usually use some sort of a script when reaching out to prospects. Reading off of a script can feel uncomfortable because it is easy to sound artificial and more like a robot instead of a human. Keep in mind that you want to sound as human as possible in the most natural way.
If you find yourself getting stuck with a part of the script, figure out exactly where that is and reword this section in a way that you feel comfortable with. Once you start cold calling with this new script, start to analyze your conversations and gather the answers your prospects have given you. If you write down all the conversations (good and bad) that you have had on a cold call, you can see just how far you have come, and you will find yourself being more comfortable since you have mastered your script and made it your own.
Tip #4: Don’t waste your time
You are wasting your time if you are calling a list that is not full of qualified leads. Your rejection rate will drastically drop if you are smart about who you call. A large list of contacts looks great at first because it seems like a lot of potential leads, but at the end of the day, you are wasting not only the prospects’ time but your own. If you haven’t updated your call list in a while, it’s time to do so. Factors that you should look for when building your contact list include the size of the company, the industry the company is in, and related technologies. When creating contacts, consider who the person reports to, who reports to them and their role and job title. If you call someone in a company that has absolutely no ability to present your pitch to whoever they report to, this is an unqualified lead and wastes your time. Be wise about who you are calling.
Tip #5: Have a schedule
A lot of the reasons why you can’t reach prospects is because you are calling at the wrong time. Most people are in meetings throughout the day, and it’s unlikely they will return your call. Calling twice can also be a waste of your time. Consider calling during slower parts of the day when people are unlikely to be busy. We know most workers take their lunch break between 11 a.m. and 1.p.m. Lunch is a great time to call because they can still be in the office, but not in a meeting. Most people also don’t have activities planned towards the end of the day, so if you can catch your prospects before they head out, this is a great time.
Tip #6: Leave good voicemails
As mentioned above, it’s unlikely that prospects will return a cold call. But does it really have to be this way? There are a lot of mistakes sales reps make when leaving voicemails that contribute to not getting called back. If you’re leaving a voicemail to a prospective customer, remember to keep the message short (under 20 seconds,) use an upbeat, friendly tone and do not sell in your voicemail. Instead, consider telling your prospect you have solved a lot of problems that they face, and you want to help them. Or create a sense of urgency and tell them that you have something important you would like to discuss. Also, remember not to blow up their inbox. Leaving more than one voicemail can come off as desperate and/or suspicious if you have never spoken with them before.
Use Call Motivated Sellers to Enhance Your Cold Calling
So cold calling is hard. It’s an art form. Don’t have time to learn the art of cold calling, want to outsource or teach it to your sales team? Call Motivated Sellers are expert sales team that handles calling for you. We are here to bring new qualified contacts to your business that are ready and waiting to experience a great ongoing relationship with your organization. Want to start closing deals from cold calls? What are you waiting for? Taking the next step to success is only a call away.