Cold Calling, Part 1: The DOs

Phoning potential customers uninvited — cold calling — gets mixed reviews in the sales and marketing world. Some managers say it doesn’t work well enough to bother. Others swear by it.

Smaller businesses that use it successfully know that much of the “common knowledge” about cold calling is wrong. For one thing, it’s not about tons of sales and marketing support people dialing numbers hoping to deliver a pressurized sales pitch.

Cold calling is really just business development. And what business doesn’t do that? If you’ve made one unsolicited call to a potential client — even if it was just to gain information — you’ve employed cold calling. Cold calling can work for many types of businesses, including business-to-consumer and business-to-business selling of either products or services.

One of the first steps to employing cold calling successfully in a business is to realize that it’s not just about making an on-the-spot sale. Here are six DOs about cold calling that can help:

Six DOs

1. DO recognize that even when you hear “no”, you still gain valuable insight that can help refine your approach. Think of cold calling as informal market research. It’s a powerful way to learn about who your best prospects are and how they think. Listen to what people say and put that to work.

2. DO be brief. It’s hard enough to get someone to take your call and listen beyond a few seconds. The last thing you want to do is to launch into a lengthy, convoluted message. Get to the point. Skip the “how-are-you” lead-ins that sound insincere anyway. Prospects appreciate directness. State your purpose, what’s in it for the customer and your request (a meeting, for example), in as few sentences as possible.

3. DO be positive and prepared. Know who you’re calling and what you plan to say. Trust is missing in every cold call. If prospects can ask questions and receive answers, you’ll build trust.

4. DO be “real” — be yourself. Nobody likes a canned, robotic message. Especially in a business-to-business or service-type business where you’re looking to build long-term relationships, you’ll benefit by being authentic.

5. DO carefully craft your message. Being “authentic” doesn’t mean shooting from the hip. You still want to prepare a message that sounds interesting, natural and avoids industry buzzwords, jargon and clichés. Well-chosen words make prospects more comfortable.

6. DO leave a brief but detailed message if you get voicemail. Give your name and number, then say why you’ve called and repeat your name and number.

I will follow up this blog with one on six DON’Ts when cold calling. When expansion stage companies’ management teams are building their lead generation systems, cold calling should be a part of it as well!