Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

It's Only Common Sense: That Darn Cold Call

Editor's Note: To listen to Dan's weekly column, as you've always done in the past, click here. For the written transcript, keep reading...That darn cold call--oh, how we hate it. We dread the very idea of picking up the phone, calling someone we don’t know, interrupting their day, and trying to get them to do something they don’t want to do. For many of us, the very thought of this is terrifying, isn’t it? We’ll do anything possible to avoid making that call. I once talked to a guy who said that he would rather have a root canal than make a cold phone call! Now that’s pretty bad, isn’t it?Recently I was reading Mike Weinberg’s excellent new book New Sales Simplified. The book contains a wonderful chapter on cold calling. I spend a lot of my time trying to get people to cold call customers and I know that it is one of the most daunting tasks facing sales people today. And now, with the onslaught of social media, many sales people fool themselves by rationalizing that as long as they use social media and e-mail, they do not have to make cold calls.Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, especially in this social media age we live in. So much of communication today is silent and non-personal that the value of that good old cold call is on the rise. With that in mind, I thought it would be extremely valuable to delve into the chapter in Weinberg’s book he calls, appropriately enough, "Your Friend, the Phone."The bane of all cold calling is the dreaded voicemail, so that’s what we’re going to highlight today. Weinberg does a great job of showing his readers how to “Win with Voicemail.”

From the book:

Only one in four calls actually connect to a live contact, so we need to take full advantage of the opportunity that voice mail presents.

Here are six thoughts on how you can win with voicemail:

1. Adopt a positive perspective: Most people making a living in sales complain about voice mail. They dread it. And it kills their energy, enthusiasm, and effectiveness. Stop the whining and start seeing the opportunity it provides to “touch” the prospect…

2. Expect and prepare for it: I’m a master at babbling like an idiot on someone’s voicemail. We’ve all done it. We’ve puked out nonsense. We’ve gone on too long, we’ve talked in circles. We’ve panicked and started hitting the pound key or star key hoping to kill the evidence of our pathetic effort. If we’re going to get voicemail three quarters of the time, shouldn’t we expect it? Be prepared to leave a well-crafted articulate message.

3. Use a snippet of your story: Go ahead and make it a productive message. Tell a bit of your story. Pick one or two main issues. Don’t ramble. Think how you react to long, drawn-out, repetitive messages. We want to leave them intrigued to hear more.

4. Take the long view, see it as a campaign: Accept that it is going to take multiple messages to get a call back. Picture this particular voicemail as one in a series. That will help keep it succinct and prevent you from leaving ninety-second messages. Add a touch of variety using a different snippet of your sales story with each message. The reality is that nobody calls back after receiving one message from a sales person. So plan to make it a campaign.

5. Ask for a call back: State that you will call again: Yes, leave your number at a pace that gives the prospect time to actually write it down and ask to be called back. But make sure to let them know that you will call again. We want to send the message that we are serious about reaching them. When I receive e-mails or voicemails from a sales person, I like to test them to see if they’re serious about pursuing me. I almost never respond to their first attempt. It’s shocking how few ever make a second attempt to get me. It communicates that I must not be a high priority. Don’t be a one-and-done salesperson.

6. Be human. Use humor or guilt, not anger: One of the keys to telephone prospecting is to convert the buyer from seeing you as an anonymous salesperson making robocalls to viewing you as a real life human being. To make that happen through voicemail, we need to sound and act like real people, normal people with feelings. For whatever reasons, sales people are not viewed as real people when making proactive calls. Prospects don’t respond to robots going through the motions. They’re much more likely to respond to a fellow member of humanity who has a great story and is making a supreme effort to pique their interest. If I haven’t received a return phone call after a few messages it’s time to ramp up the human side. I like to do that with humor and possibly a little guilt thrown in. It’s amazing how often the return call finally comes in after a third message that includes something funny or plays on the fact that “I hope by now I’ve earned a callback based on perseverance alone.” Similar to asking three times for a meeting, somehow the third somehow the third phone call seems to do the trick. Also, never get angry or show frustration in the message. We have no right to be angry at prospects who don’t know us and haven’t asked us to call. If they’re not calling back, it’s on us not them.

This is all very good advice which I would urge you to follow. Taking that first big step can be easy if you turn it into a small step by calling smaller or more insignificant accounts, those that mean less pressure on you. Start with them and work your way up as you build your confidence. Remember the more you do it the better you’ll get. And remember that the cold call is also a way of life if you’re in sales; there is no getting around that, so suck it up and get it down. It’s only common sense.