Cold calling is something that takes a lot of patience and perfection to make it work the way you need to. The idea is to attract new business from prospects who have not reached out to you.
This blog will discuss the top 3 tips that you could use when cold calling potential prospects. As you have seen in my other blogs, I have mentioned many tricks and steps that you can take when you are doing your cold calls. Things like staying short and straight to the point while telling the prospect what you do. How to get past the gatekeepers and to remember the ABC’s – Always Be Closing. Also, to always remember the follow up calls and more importantly closing the deal. In this blog I will discuss the importance of your mindset, knowing your prospects and measuring your KPIs.
1. Mindset
When you are cold calling, you usually call anywhere from 50-150 prospects a day. That can be very daunting, especially if you are getting a lot of negativity throughout the day. Your mindset and frustration levels will play a huge part on your success. The best way I can explain this is through my own personal experience.
[su_row][su_column size=”2/3″]The month of February was very tough for me, I was only able to get about 1/2 of the sales I would typically get in a month. I went almost a full 2 weeks without any sales, and for me that was unheard of! Those 2 weeks I started to get very frustrated and even angry when prospects would turn me down. This downhill spiral continued to go downhill the more I got frustrated, until I realized what the underlying problem was. It was my entire mind set, I would go into each call with the precedent that it would not go well, and sure enough it did not. [/su_column] [su_column size=”1/3″]
[/su_column] [/su_row] Near the end of the month, my boss came up to me to see what is going on, as my numbers were down. This is where I realized it was my mind set and not any other excuse I was trying to come up with (the number of contacts, the area I was calling etc.).
I decided that something obviously had to be done, So I came into work the next week (just happened to be the 1st Monday in March) and when I got to my desk, I pretended that this was going to be the first time I was doing outbound calls. I just put the past behind me and had a positive outlook for the month coming. I was able to make March the most successful month to date. So it goes to show, that your mindset plays a huge role in your success. If you are having a bad week, just remember we all have them, then put the past behind you and start fresh.
2. Knowing Your Prospect
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[/su_column] [su_column size=”2/3″]As you start calling, it is a very good idea to have a little background information about the prospect you are calling. This can come in handy in for many reasons. The first one is that it can help you get past the “gatekeeper” if you know exactly who you are looking for and the department. Also second, if you can have an idea about the background of this person (such as what school they graduated from, what else they are apart of etc.) then you are able to use that in building rapport with the prospect. [/su_column] [/su_row]There is a saying that I was once told, “People don’t buy your product, they buy why you do it” – in other words people buy from people they like, people they trust, and if you are able to build a relationship like this than you have a foundation for a strong partnership and prospects will turn into clients.
3. Measuring Your KPIss
What is KPI? – KPIs stand for Key Performance Indicators. They play a huge part in being able to tell how successful you are. It is vital that you track your progress as doing so will let you do trials on different scripts, different techniques and methods to find out what works best for you. We all have different styles and skill sets and what may work for one person will not for another. Also you can use it as a sales incentive to ensure that your sales reps are doing everything they can to better your agency and of course make a better living for themselves. However more importantly it is viewed to see how the overall agency is doing. It can give indicators as to what needs to change or what is excelling. KPI’s are used in every department, however this blog is only talking about Sales KPI’s
It is important to know what KPI’s to track in sales. Here is a list of general KPI’s that a sales team should consider when deciding on what KPI’s to track:
- # of calls
- # of presentations or contacts
- # of sales
- # of DNC
- # of Not interested
When you have the right mindset, do your homework before you call your prospects, and track your results, you are putting yourself in a position to really go above and beyond; for yourself and for the creative agency sales as a whole!
*This article was taken from functionpoint.com by Eric Ivker
