Hello, and welcome to the first episode of The Cold Calling Podcast, a new series dedicated to helping you improve the effectiveness of your cold-calling activities.
In this episode, we give a brief introduction to some of the wide range of topics we’ll be covering throughout this podcast series.
First of all, let’s take a look at why cold calling does work. Why is it such an effective sales strategy?
You’ve probably seen adverts scattered around the web for things like “Never Cold Call”, sales programs that try to tell you that cold calling doesn’t work and that for sales people, there is no need to cold call.
Go ahead and buy those programs if you want to. And then stand on the sidelines watching with dismay as your competitors, who do cold call, find all the new business opportunities in your market before you do!
This is one of the main reasons why cold calling works really well and why it is such an effective tool to have in your sales strategy. Cold calling gives you a distinct advantage over your competitors, because not many b2b salespeople actually make cold calls on a consistent basis. They’re too busy reading the “Never Cold Call” books! Think about it. If you are cold calling and your competitors aren’t, then you’re getting to speak to prospects that your competitors aren’t speaking to.
The key thing about cold calling is that it is a two-way information flow. Nearly all other forms of marketing (e.g. trade shows, advertising, mailshots, e-mail, seminars, etc.) work on a “push” basis, i.e. you are pushing stuff out and waiting for a response to come back. Whereas with cold calling, you will always get some sort of response from every individual in your target market, provided you make the effort to reach them.
Now of course, that response may not be the response you are looking for (”not interested, goodbye!”), but if you listen to this series of podcasts and implement the ideas we discuss, you will without doubt vastly improve your hit rate. You will enjoy many more positive (as opposed to negative) responses when you do cold call.
So what are the topics will we be covering on the series?
First and foremost, we want to help you make your cold calling more efficient and more effective. So we’ll be starting with first principles, covering things like how to find people’s direct numbers. It’s not anywhere as difficult as you might think, so we’ll be providing some useful tips on that.
We’ll also cover a range of other topics, such as cold calling etiquette; planning your cold calls; dealing with cold call reluctance; cold call objectives; questioning techniques; objection handling; articulating value propositions; opening gambits, cold calling scripts; dealing with rejection; and various other things besides.
There will be a wealth of information in this series, and it’s all free! So take a listen to this first episode and if you enjoy it, feel free to download and listen to every episode in the series. The Cold Calling Podcast is designed not jut for business-to-business salespeople, but also sales managers and business owners, so there’s something there for everyone!
We also offer sales training and sales coaching services. So if, after listening to The Cold Calling Podcast, you would like personal, one-on-one cold call training from Mike or Greg, please visit our sales coaching page to find out more. We would love to hear from you!
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