How To Make Outbound Calls
Figuring out how to make outbound calls when working in a sales roles can tremendously improve the probability for success. Here are six steps to help any sales person with improving in this area regardless of skill level and experience.
1. Focus on your core value
The very first step in improving outbound sales is to clearly identify the core value that you have to offer the prospects you will be calling. This is the business value that transfers from you to your clients when they purchase your products or services.
Not only is this important as it should likely feed into your script and objections responses, but having a clear awareness around the value that you have to offer can also improve your mental state while cold calling.
This is because we can easily have a needy frame of mind when calling because of all the pressure to close deals. But when we focus on the value that we deliver, we can transition from neediness to confidence.
2. Identify the ideal prospect
It is very important to clearly identify what your ideal prospect looks like. We cannot and should not try to sell to everybody as there is likely a segment of the market that fits better than others.
By identifying what this segment looks like in terms of geography, size, industry, and contact title can help to create a laser focus for the prospects that you should spend your valuable time on when figuring out how to make outbound calls.
3. Identify differentiation
Regardless of what you sell, you will face competition. Even if there is no direct competition in the market or in the actual deal that you are working on, you still compete against the prospect’s option to do nothing. Figuring out how you differ from the competition is a key step when looking into how to make outbound calls.
4. Develop a call script
During outbound sales, we could just wing it on every call and just say what comes to our mind at the time. Or we can develop some sort of cold call script or plan. This could be as detailed as a script that we read word for word or it could be something that is more of an outline with key points. Either way, having a document that has your thoughts organized can greatly improve your probability for successful calls.
5. Prepare for objections
You are guaranteed to run up against objections on every cold call. These are statements that the prospect will make to try to end the call. The better we are prepared to deal with these, the more success that we will have when improving our knowledge around how to make outbound calls.
6. Reflect back to improve moving forward
One of the most important steps to improve outbound calling actually takes place after the call as it involves reflecting back after a call ends to evaluate what took place to improve moving forward.
You can look back at questions that could have been asked, look back at objections that the prospect delivered, and identify what could have been done better. Going through this routine after each call can greatly improve your success on future calls.
Michael Halper is an ICF certified coach that works with businesses to help increase sales by improving their cold calling. For more information on how Halper does this, please, please visit Launch Pad where you can read more about How to Make Outbound Calls or Sales Coaching.
How To Build Interest On A Cold Call
Once we have uncovered any pain that the prospect is experiencing on a cold call, we need to try to build interest. This is where will we begin to take all of the stuff that we have been listening to and begin to share with them some of the details that we have been withholding to lure in more of the prospect’s attention and create momentum.
To use an sporting analogy, if we were fishing, at the point where we get the prospect talking about pain is where the hook is inside the mouth of the fish. But before we begin to try to reel in the fish, we want to try to get the fish to bite down on the hook. If we do not, we could begin to reel in before we really have anything on the hook.
Connect Pain to Value
One of the most powerful ways to build interest is to connect any of the prospect’s pain with value that you have to offer. Essentially sharing with them a way that you can decrease or eliminate their pain. If you are able to successfully do this, closing for a first conversation should be fairly straightforward and easy.
Deliver Silver Bullets
Another way to try to create interest is to fire some silver bullets at the prospect. These are key points that are company facts, product characteristics, competitive advantages, ROI statics, etc.
A good way to handle this is to have list of silver bullet type of facts or details in your call script or call outline. Then when you get to the point in the call where you want to try to trigger interest, you fire a few of the points off at the prospect.
Examples of silver bullets could be:
We have been in business for 30 years (company facts)
We are a local provider (company facts)
We have a full portfolio of solutions (product characteristics)
Our products have won awards for the past three years (product characteristics)
Our products are easier to get up and running and use (competitive advantages)
We have award winning service and support (competitive advantages)
We helped many companies in the chemical industry to decrease cost of goods sold by between 10 to 15% (ROI statics)
An important detail on using silver bullets to build interest is to not read through them like it is a list features on a brochure. Have the list in front of you and pick a couple that you feel might resonate well with the prospect based on what they have shared so far. If the conversation up until that point has not uncovered enough information to where you know what points fit best, just share the three that you think are most attention getting.
Tell a Story
One very effective way to build interest on a cold call is to tell a story about another client that you have worked with. If you can paint a picture in the prospect’s mind by telling a story of another company that had similar challenges and needs and then briefly explain how you help to drive positive improvements and share where the company ended up in terms of results, you can make large strides in terms of building interest.
Michael Halper is an ICF certified coach that works with businesses to help increase sales by improving their cold calling. For more information on how Halper does this, please, please visit Launch Pad where you can read more about Build Interest or Cold Call Training.
Reflecting Back To Improve Outbound Sales
One of the many reasons that outbound sales can be challenging is that each person we call and each conversation we have is unique and unpredictable. There are some things we can do to better prepare for the calls that we make, but at the end of the day we never know how the call is going to go. With that being the case, one way to continue to grow and improve results is to embrace a concept of reflection after each call we make.
After a cold call ends, it can be very productive to stop for a minute to reflect on how the call went in an attempt to identify what could have done better. While there are many different scenarios that we can come across, they tend to recur again and again. With that being the case, if we can consciously reflect on what happened on the previous call and identify what we could have done better, then we can improve our ability to handle similar scenarios that occur on future calls.
We are likely to face objections on every cold call. And whether the objection brought the call to an end or not, it can be helpful to reflect on the objections that a prospect used so that we can improve and be better moving forward.
1. Reflect on the Objection
It can be very helpful to reflect back during outbound sales to identify what objections the prospect had. Ideally, if there is one that brought the call to end, that is a productive place to spend time and energy. Once you identify the objections, reconcile those with your list of anticipated objections. If you faced any that are not on the list and you think it is likely that they may come up again, this would be a good time to get them added so that you can begin to be more prepared on future calls.
2. Reflect on the Response
The next thing that we should do in this process is to reflect on how we responded to the objections. Were there better responses that we could have given to keep the call going? If the objections were on the list of anticipated objections, it can be good to look at whether or not we delivered a response that was part of our plan and if we followed the plan. We can also reflect on how the prospect responded to our objection response to measure how well our response worked in our effort to keep the call going during outbound sales.
3. Strategize Moving Forward
Once we have evaluated both the objections we faced and the responses we gave, we can strategize how best to handle objections on future calls. If we already had a responses scripted, this step may involve adjusting or tweaking our plan. If there are new objections encountered, this step could involve building responses for the new objections moving forward.
By stopping to look back after each call during outbound sales, we will can greatly increase our ability to be prepared for all of the different directions that calls go moving forward.
Michael Halper is an ICF certified coach that works with individuals and organizations helping to drive growth and improvement. For more information about driving positive results, please visit Launch Pad you can read more about Outbound Sales or Sales Coaching.
The Ultimate Goal When Making Sales Telephone Calls
When making sales telephone calls, we can improve our results by keeping our eye on the ultimate goal. If we are making true cold calls, it is sometimes best to have the primary goal of appointment making. It can be easy to lose sight of that goal by getting side tracked by trying to go beyond that to selling something or even try to gather information.
Those goals are great, and if you are a true sales person, having difficulty with not getting lured in by the “trying to sell something” temptation is understandable. But due to the amount of time to work with, a cold call is not the right place to try to accomplish a tremendous amount. As a result, we can improve results by keeping our focus on the main goal of moving the prospect to an appointment or conversation where we have more time to work with and are able to accomplish large goals.
What is the First Conversation?
The first conversation is the stage of the sales cycle where the sales person and the prospect have a first official conversation. This could get confused with the cold call as that is the first time that the caller and prospect are talking but it is not an official conversation until the prospect officially agrees to talk in more detail.
In an ideal scenario, the sales person will connect with a prospect on a cold call and at that point communicate why they are calling and why it may makes sense to talk in more detail. Once the prospect agrees to talk more, the sales cycle progresses to the first conversation.
In some instances it may be best to schedule the first conversation for another day where the prospect can be more ready and available for the discussion, both from a mental and schedule standpoint possibly by formally blocking out time on their calendar. Although, there are some instances when performing sales telephone calls where the prospect is available and interested in talking more at the actual time of the cold call and the first conversation takes place at the same time (technically right after) as the cold call. It will depend on the product or service being sold as to whether it is best to schedule the first conversation at another date or try to execute it right away.
Cold Call vs. First Conversation
It may be confusing what the difference is between a cold call and a first conversation and where one leaves off for the other. A cold call when performing sales telephone calls should be designed to only be between two to five minutes. During that time, there should be a laser focus on communicating business value, qualifying the prospect, identifying pain, and building some interest.
You really should skim the surface in those areas and once you complete what you need to do in each area, it is time to transition to closing to secure the first conversation. One of the reasons a transition is needed is that you likely have eaten up most of the time that is available for a cold sales telephone calls. As a result, you now need to get permission from the prospect to continue.
You can get this permission by checking in with the prospect and identifying if they are available and interested to continue. Based on the product you sell and the vibe from the prospect, you can then determine if it is best to execute the first conversation right then or try to schedule for another day.
Michael Halper is an ICF certified coach that works with individuals and organizations helping to drive growth and improvement. For more information about driving positive results, please visit Launch Pad you can read more about Sales Telephone Calls or Cold Call Training.
Three Ways to Improve Phone Sales Calls Today
There are very clear and practical things that we do to immediately improve phone sales calls. Some are outlined below:
Improve Your Mind
Making sales calls over the phone can be a very mentally challenging and taxing activity. With that being the case, we can improve not only our results, but also our stamina by taking some time and effort to improve our mind. Improving your mind refers to going through some mental steps and exercises to improve your mental state and frame and this can have a positive impact on results.
One thing that we can do to improve our mind is to go through a mental exercise periodically to affirm ourselves on all of the great things that we have to offer the people that we call. It is easy to feel like we need to sell something so when we cold call a prospect we can easily have a needy mental frame or mental state.
But if we stop and think about it, the products we sell offer some sort of business value to our clients. If our products don’t, we have a bigger problem to deal with than trying to figure out how to improve our phone sales calls. If we stop to think about this value, and think about the great qualities of our company and in our personal strengths as a sales professional, we can greatly improve our mind and our mental state.
Improve Your Voice
One we have worked on improving our mind, we can move on to focus on improving our voice. During phone sales calls, the only real thing that we have to communicate with are the words we say and the way we say them. And it is important to be aware that the way we say our words is the much more important and impactful variable in that equation. Supporting this is the saying that it is not what you say, but the way you say it that matters. As result, improving your voice and tonality that can a large impact on your effectiveness selling over the phone.
There are some very clear things that we can do to improve our voice, but the good news is that half of the work is done when we spend time to improve our minds as being in a stronger mental state will come through in your voice and tonality when talking on the phone.
Another simple thing that we can do to improve our voice is to smile when we make phone sales calls. It may sound like wasted effort since the people you are talking to cannot see you, but you can actually hear a difference when someone is smiling as they talk over the phone and this can have a positive impact on sales results.
Invest in Cold Call Training
One of the great things about sales is that there are very specific things that we can do and not do to impact our results. With that being the case, there can usually be a return on investment for time spent in the area of continuing to learn and there is cold call training can typically have an immediate impact on phone sales results.
Michael Halper is an ICF certified coach that works with individuals and organizations helping to drive growth and improvement. For more information about driving positive results, please visit Launch Pad you can read more about Phone Sales Calls or Cold Call Training.