Cold calling can sometimes feel like hard work, for very little reward. It can be demotivating for your sales team to rack up hundreds of calls, only to be disappointed by the lack of tangible results. If you’re struggling to convert calls into sales, book meetings or qualify leads, it could be time to overhaul your approach.
Let’s take a look at a few tactics to help you improve your in-house cold calling and lead generation processes…
Get Organised
The success rate for cold calling is notoriously low. In fact, Harvard Business Review estimates that you’ll need to make over 6,000 calls to make just four sales.
With such a low rate, you need to make every moment of every call count. This means you need a super organised CRM system with as many automated tools as possible. This’ll save your team time hunting for contact details or finding out where a prospect is up to in the sales journey.
Bin The Script and Have a Real Conversation
Nobody buys from a robot, and people tend to feel irritated when cold callers interrupt their day with an irrelevant or overly aggressive sales pitch.
Much of the time, cold calling is ineffective because sales professionals are terrified to deviate from a telemarketing script. This leaves no room for conversation, or chance to make a human connection.
With a call guide to assist them rather than a script, your salespeople should be able to use their intuition to promote the relevancy of your product to the client. They can invite and answer questions, anticipate reactions and solve the prospect’s problems.
Do Your Research
The more research you do, the more you can understand the client and their needs, challenges and pain points. Do your homework, and you’ll have a sound working knowledge of each company you call. It is more time-consuming, but being able to tailor your pitch to each prospect should give you a better chance of success.
Think of ‘Failed’ Calls as Lead Nurturing Opportunities
Rather than being demotivated by a prospect saying ‘no’ or ‘not now’, encourage your sales team to see rejection as an opportunity. The client may not be ready to buy now, but make the right moves and you’ll be perfectly positioned to strike if the situation changes.
Nurturing is a vital part of lead generation. You need to develop a clear lead nurturing strategy, which recognises each prospect’s readiness to buy and takes tiny steps to ‘nudge’ them along to the next stage.
Always Follow up – and Do it Fast
With so many calls to make and such a low success rate, you need to maximise the value of each and every interaction with a potential lead. This means capitalising on even the smallest flicker of interest with a timely follow up. This means acting really fast, as each moment you delay reduces the chance of booking a meeting or making a sale.
Cold calling can be brutal when it doesn’t deliver results, but you don’t have to go it alone.
Outsourcing to the experts at IT Focus could save you a huge amount of time, and bring the results you’ve been hoping for. If you’re struggling to handle cold calling in-house, give our lead generation specialists a call on 0330 058 0100.
