Develop a compelling, vaue-based talk track for your cold calls

B2B cold calling isn’t as common as it used to be, which is a big reason why skilled, ambitious professional sales reps should be doing more of it. If everyone was doing it, you might have a tougher time trying to get your foot in the door. But because of building security issues, caller ID, and do-not-call registries, along with the hope that networking and social media will get reps to their quota, cold calling has suffered as an respected sales tool in recent years. Your unskilled colleagues and competitors have contributed to the downfall of this prospecting methodology by being obnoxious, unprofessional, and incompetent in their own cold calls. Yet I believe this strategy can still be an effective method for sales reps to uncover new business opportunities. The idea of cold calling makes a lot of people nervous, but with preparation, refinement, and practice, professional sales reps can generate a healthy return on their investment of time and effort.

Here are a few starting points to help you perfect this prospecting technique: First, write an initial talk-track outline that highlights the key two or three reasons why your product/service is proven, unique, and worth the investment. It should take you less than 20 seconds to deliver. Read it aloud, practice it in front of a few prospects, tweak it, improve it, and learn it. If it sounds memorized, it won’t work. It has to come from you and your personality.

Get a quantifiable success story, a reference, or a quote from one of your current clients and include it in your talk track. Here’s an example of what you might say if you were calling on a business in, say, Tampa:

“We help Tampa-based businesses…______ (insert your value statement here – what you help your customers achieve and how you do it better than anyone else). We helped ABC Co. (your neighbor and/or competitor) achieve a XX% return with our…____ (insert your product/service) and I’d like to ask you a few questions to see if we could do the same for your business. Do you have 10-15 minutes now or can we schedule an appointment for later?”

With two quick statements, followed by a request for permission to proceed, your goal should be to:
—Establish your product’s unique value
—Intrigue the prospect to want to learn more
—Establish yourself as consultative, professional, credible, and trustworthy

Remember to think of your cold call as the very beginning of a long and valuable relationship between you and this person on whom you are calling. Don’t be pushy, disrespectful, arrogant, or cheesy. Be genuine. Don’t over-talk, argue, or interrupt. Your objective is to make this person aware of your offering and to determine if he or she may have a potential need for your offering now or sometime in the future. Don’t be obnoxious about it. If the suspect has no need or interest in your offering, you need to find your next customer somewhere else. In another post, I will offer some suggestions on how to overcome the basic objections that you will face as a cold caller in any business. For now, just work on perfecting a smooth, compelling value-based talk track for your initial conversation with your future-customer.