Selling Decision Makers: Cold Calling – How You Guarantee More Appointments in 20 Secs

How do you quickly interest your prospect in dealing with you? You don’t have much time. SDM as well as industry experts say it’s done in as little as ten seconds and typically twenty seconds!

1. To get that meeting we emphasize cold calling. It is not optional but a must in today’s enormously crowded space of millions of Reps selling their wares and solutions. You can get the executive or decision maker on the phone, entice them, and ask for the appointment. It’s tough to do in email alone.
2. Knowing upfront where your trouble will be coming from. The killer of lost Rep productivity and effectiveness is “Call Reluctance”* It needs to be dealt with if you’re very determined to succeed. IT is about what holds you back from cold calling and reaching out to new prospects. Rejection is the issue and the book helps you to address and fix it. SDM recommends you read the book, as footnoted below, on Call reluctance. It is a fantastic exercise that will yield many more sales and with lower failure rates.
3. Stop pitching and describing your product! Your prospect does not care. When trying to make appointments or meetings, etc. using the phone to cold call is a value game. It’s only about your prospect. NOTHING ELSE. Call numbers are meaningless, value is #1. So, do your homework and know how you can help them.
4. Practice, practice, practice! Write out or script (free “gifts of Knowledge”) your first 10, 20, 30 seconds and learn it well. Craft it to the prospect’s pain and how you can help them with value and not with product. Think about this then write it out. See yourself and your company as a problem solver. It will resonate! Guaranteed.
5. The top, key sections to your messaging or script: A) It starts with who you are? Just 2 sentences! B) The purpose of the cold call? Get to the point and don’t pitch product, sell the benefit to them! C) Tell them what they get. Save money, make money, lower risk, help a key initiative they support, get the idea?

What do you do next? Send us an email and we’ll arrange for you to speak with Ed to chat about how these learnings can help build more sales just for your business.

*The Psychology of Sales Call Reluctance: Earning What You’re Worth in Sales, by George W. Dudley and Shannon L. Goodson).