What is the difference between cold & warm calling?
Well simply put one is the person expecting your call or is warm to the company you represent, and the other (cold calling) is not expecting your call and is probably unaware of your company in the marketplace.
So how do you get a cold call into a warm call?
Well, firstly it’s about making the right impression. With a face to face sales opportunity you have a maximum of 30 seconds to make the right first impression over the phone it is far less 10 seconds at most. It is a lot easier to put a phone down on a person than it is to slam a door in their face.
The first thing to remember is that your prospect can get anywhere between 5-20 cold calls a day dependant on the industry you work in and the market sector you are approaching. Because of this quite often they are not paying full attention when you start your pitch. So, asking redundant questions such as “How are you today?” or “Did you have a good weekend?” when they have never spoken to you before will 9 times out 10 only serve to irritate and not communicate.
Remember your prospect is busy, even if they are sat their playing solitaire or candy crush it’s their time, and they won’t want it wasted by idle chat from some salesperson at the other end of the telephone.
If you get straight down to business and tell them what the call is concerning, you can save both their and your time. After all, there is no point chasing business that is not there. Of course, there are techniques and ways of creating a business that might not appear to be there at first through changing the way a person thinks on a certain subject this is something that I will cover in a later chapter. But the principle is that their time and your time are very precious so make the most of it and get to the point.
Too much telemarketing training is focused on building rapport and telling stories. But in telemarketing, in my experience (which is probably well over 150,000 calls, if I have done my math right), telling stories and trying to build rapport is more for the follow-up calls than the initial cold call.
It may be that you need to send information first, don’t be put off by this because you have just elevated the call from a cold call to an invitation to send info and follow up with a sales call, this is now a warm call not a cold call.
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