Cold Calling is not dead. How to do it.

Picking up the phone and calling is underrated. Again. Yes. Sales is an 'AND' story. Social, mail, phone. But most forget the last. Don't, just don't. And here is how to.

Transcript

1. C O L D C
2. C O L D C Throughout this presentation, you’ll find these yellow boxes. These yellow boxes give you a little more info about the slides.
3. www.twitter.com/TjorvenD www.facebook.com/eMenKa www.slideshare.net/emenka TjorvenD.tumblr.com www.facebook.com/tjorvendenorme www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/tjorven/denorme TjorvenDenorme @TjorvenD
4. What is your dream job?
7. No current vacancies
8. Since my dream job was not available I went for sales. Company car, smartphone, cool events, ... It could/should be the closest thing to the real thing.
9. C O L D C But sales meant Cold Calling. I come from an age before internet and google and seo and social media, so calling was the way to go. But still now it works and this is why...
10. Purpose cold calling
11. Meeting Sales via the phone is very difficult so you need 1 one 1 contact. It is easier to sell your product or service and the person will remember you longer.
12. Collect data But something important is often forgotten. Coldcalling is very good for collecting data. How is your market doing? what are the trends? is there money for your service or product? When they don’t want a meeting, try to gather as much information as possible.
13. Start!
14. Research
15. Choose the right person Who is going to buy your service/product. Is it HR or IT. Is it C level or lower. It is very important that you select the right person to call. So you don’t lose time and you get the right information.
16. You can search Linkedin to look for more info about a name, but you can also ‘advanced search’. You can look for the R&D manager of a certain company.
17. His profile gives you lots of data. The picture shows you something (tie or vacation pic). Where he is from. But also maybe someone in your network knows him. This makes it a warm call, not a cold call.
18. Look at his career. Maybe he worked at a company who is already a customer. Or is a customer of your competitor.
19. Is he an engineer or a marketing guy. Calling to an engineer is different than to a sales guy. You must approach them differently.
20. Groups and associations show his interests. If you sell .NET development, like we do. And all his groups are open source related , changes are that it will be difficult to sell our services.
21. In my opinion FB doesn’t really help to get much valiable information for cold calling.
22. But Twitter does. You can read his tweets. That way you might read something you can use in your phone call. Also follow your contact today and call him tomorrow. Twitter will have send him an email that you started following him. The secretary will call him and he will know your name from somewhere.
23. The secretary is your friend Be very friendly because she is the barrier between you and your contact. She can help you get through or she can make it hard for you. Your contact will be in meeting, or not there, or not in the mood, so you’ll hear the receptionist a lot.
24. Otherwise, impress her
25. I’m calling you from the eMenKa Group Headquarters in Antwerp. If you call, as a small company to a large entreprise, use words as headquarters or group. Fake it till you make it.
26. ... or with technical stuff Or tell very technical stuff to him or her that they don’t understand. I would like to speak to ... about that. Because she doesn’t understand she might connect you.
27. But sometimes she tough. But most are well trained and there is no easy way past. That is where the games begin.
28. Two-step Don’t ask to speak to the function name, but ask if the name you have (from linkedin) is the right person to contact for your product/service. The second time you can ask to talk to a name. That might not help at the reception, but it does in the next tip ...
29. Change last two digits If you change the last digits of a phone number you will end up in a departement where someone picks up the phone who is not trained to keep you out. Then ask if this is the correct direct number for ... (name you got). Huge change they will say no and give the direct number to you.
30. Timing If you call C – level even if you have a direct nr, you still have a personal secretary. Then try different hours and days. If he or she doesn’t work fulltime, the direct nr may be a direct line. Try Wednesday afternoons , Fridays and school holidays.
31. Smile Even if it is fake Smiling when you call makes you more friendly. I know it sounds stupid, but give it a try. You’ll see it works.
32. Do I call you at a bad time? Always ask, so you are sure you have a 100% attention. If the answer is no, ask when you can call back. And then call back at exactly that time. Because he asked you, it is easy to go past the reception.
33. Script your call Don’t script because the other side will hear you read the script, but because then you think about what you say and how. Change your script for small and big companies and change it if you feel it’s doesn’t work.
34. Sell a meeting not your service/product If your contact has a lot of questions,don’t answer them on the phone. Say that is why you want a meeting. To give information about your service or product. It’s not possible via phone. Sell a meeting not your product or service, that is way to difficult.
35. Practice! The more you do it, the better you get at it. The more you do it, the better you feel at ease. The more you do it, the better your script will become. Practice makes perfect.
36. Easy targets first! Practice on small companies, or less relevant companies. Make sure you are trained before going for the big fish.
37. Nothing to lose. Many people don’t like to cold call because of the constant rejection. You get a lot of no’s. But you have nothing when you call, if you have nothing after the call, you haven’t lost anything. All you can do is win. Win a meeting, or collect valuable data.
38. 3 times No is No Don’t stop with your phonecall after one No. Keep asking untill you get at least 3 no’s . You might get a yes in between, otherwise you will collect more data. Data which can be used the next time you call.
39. Ask permission to call back If your product/service is not interesting today, it might be in 6 months or a year. Ask for that , and than ask if you can call back. Cold calling is persistence. Keep on pushing.
40. Follow up. Do follow up. If you may call back in 3 month, do call back. Refer to previous call. After a while your contact will remember you. Result : If you didn’t get a meeting, you’ll be top of mind. If they need a product or a service like yours they’ll call you, not the competition.
41. If still no, choose different entry If you keep getting no’s, maybe you can try a different entry in that company. Maybe another function/person is more likely to buy.
42. Choose the other one Think of another person in the same company that might be interested in your product or service.
43. Metrics Use a CRM to keep track of your calls, the contacts, the companies, ... The more info you have, the better you can select your calls, the higher your succes rate.
44. What is the best time to call? Once you have all that data you are going to see the times during the week with a high succes rate. That might be Tuesday afternoon or Monday morning. Depending on your product/service.
45. Schedule cold calling Schedule your calls on that day, and don’t do anything else. Don’t postpone your calls. If you stop calling, no more meetings, no more sales. Keep pushing.
46. What are you waiting for?
47. Action!
48. I called the secretary 4 times before I could reach the right contact. I called 10 different companies for 1 meeting. 1 in 6 meetings results in a sale. It’s f*cking hard work! Your metrics might tell you that you have to pick up the phone 240 times to score 1 customer. A lot of work. But very easy if you want 4 more customers. Just make 960 calls. The more you do it, the less effort for one sale. But at the start expect big numbers.
49. ,
50. Have I got my dream job? I ‘ m entrepreneur now. I have a nice car, geek gadgets, I can dress nicely and can attend nice events. The women are in fact just one woman, my wife. And I like that. So I don’t care I only score 4 out of 5. 
51. If you have questions. Shoot!