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1. How To Guide
Making Cold Calls Work for You
Executive Summary:
This report has been designed to provide practical advice for improving
your „cold calling‟ direct marketing programs.
Read this brief 7-page report to learn:
 Definition for Cold Calling
 Cold Calling Benefits
 Levels of Cold Calling Process Maturity
 Cold Calling Best Practices
Read this report to learn how to make cold calling an effective method
for generating leads, increasing sales, developing staff, and achieving
predictable and reliable results.
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2. 2
Table of Contents Page
What is Cold Calling? 3
Cold Calling Benefits 3
Levels of Cold Calling Process Maturity 4
Cold Calling Best Practices 5
Conclusions 7
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3. 3
What is Cold Calling?
“Cold calling is the process of approaching prospective clients, typically
via telephone, who have not agreed to such an interaction. The word
“cold” is used because the person receiving the call is not expecting the
call or has not specifically asked to be contacted by the sales person.”
- Source: Wikipedia
Cold Calling Benefits
 Lead Generation - cold calling can be argued to be the most
effective and efficient direct marketing technique. Leads are
generated when inside salespeople introduce your company‟s
product/service to a prospective client and/or book appointments
for senior Account Executives.
 Predictable Results - cold calling has the potential to be a fully
defined, repeatable, measured and managed process with
predictable results. Since there are clear metrics that exist for
dials, contacts, leads, and sales, this process can be consistently
improved until the winning formula is established.
 Direct Sales - with web-conferencing tools widely available
these days, many organizations have found that cold calling
results in direct sales which have a much lower cost than
traditional, face-to-face, outside sales.
 Cost-effective Marketing - even when a lead or sale is not
generated from a cold call, value can be extracted in the form of
inexpensive marketing. A good inside salesperson can make over
200 calls/day and send out 10-20 “services overviews” or other
collateral that increase brand & product/service awareness.
 Skill Development - People with limited or no sales experience
can be quickly taught how to effectively introduce your
organization, and develop their sales skills very quickly given the
volume of calls per day.
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4. 4
Levels of Cold Calling Process Maturity
 Level 1 - Initial/Ad Hoc: sales process is not documented.
Dials, Contacts, Leads, and Sales goals are not established or
measured. No consistency in productivity levels or sales results.
Each salesperson uses a different method to create interest,
demonstrate value, and generate leads.
 Level 2 - Repeatable/Intuitive: sales process is well known
but not fully documented. Dials, Contacts, Leads, and Sales goals
are not measured. There is limited consistency in productivity
levels and sales results. Some information sharing occurs
between experience salespeople and newer recruits.
 Level 3 – Defined: sales process is documented to include:
Introduction, Value Statement, Problem, Solution, and Close.
Scripts are developed to ensure all salespeople follow best
practices. Goals related to Dials, Contacts, Leads, and Sales, are
set on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual basis.
 Level 4 - Measured & Managed: sales process is fully
documented including call procedure, objection responses, and
economic value arguments. Metrics exist and are monitored for
Dials, Contacts, Leads, and Sales. Reporting on leads and
opportunities is completed with forecasting tools. There is a clear
formula for effectively converting a prospect to a new client.
 Level 5 – Optimized: sales process is defined, repeatable,
measured, managed, and optimized. Scripts are continually
adjusted to improve effectiveness. Metrics are used to identify
poor performers, or areas that need to be worked on from each
salesperson‟s perspective. Sales Growth Teams are formed to
share best practices across the inside sales department.
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5. 5
Cold Calling Best Practices
1. More Activity Equals More Sales: while there are many factors
that cannot be controlled by your salespeople, dialing the phone
is not one of them. The more calls that are made, the more
contacts, leads, and ultimately more sales will result. Top
performing reps should be making over 200 calls per day when
dialing into new territory. Of those 200 calls, 10% contact can be
expected. Of those 20 contacts/leads, 10% (2) are likely to
become sales, given a solid product or service.
2. Capture Metrics: it is absolutely critical that you capture
metrics for dials, talk time, contacts, leads, and sales. Use our
Sales Productivity Metrics tool to capture metrics daily,
monthly, and quarterly. Additionally, all contacts with
prospects should be documented in a CRM system for future
reference, database scrubbing, market research intelligence etc.
Determine the reasons why prospects are not buying, such as
“not interested”, or “not a good fit”, to identify where your
salespeople need coaching.
3. Pre-call Research: this is a highly debated topic in cold calling.
One school of thought is that the more you know about a
prospect going into a call, the better you can position your
products for their needs. Unfortunately, it takes 2-5 minutes to
review the prospects website to gather insight, and more often
than not, the call will go into voicemail without the target
answering. This leads to lost productivity, and a much reduced
dial rate per day. Our recommendation is to do very limited pre-
call research, unless a conference call has been scheduled to
identify the fit with your product, or you are conducting a very
specialized calling program for a very specific target audience.
4. Provide Concise Value Proposition: prospects decide within
30 seconds whether or not they are interested to learn more
about your product. The most effective way to generate interest
is to provide a very brief value statement such as “we are an
advisory firm that helps marketing professionals be more
effective”. The goal is to get the prospect to give you 5 minutes
on the first call to qualify the opportunity, rather than sending
info.
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6. 6
5. Minimize the Risk: the best way to get a prospect to give you 5
minutes, is to ensure they know that you are not going to keep
them on the line for more than a few minutes on this initial call.
Try saying: “you will know right away if this is a fit. If you like
what you see, we can continue. If not, I‟ll be on my way.” Then
be quiet. Let the prospect respond by asking how they can very
quickly evaluate your product. Usually an online demo of your
product is a good bet. Delivered effectively, this introduction can
yield a 70% lead conversion rate, unless the prospect really is in
a meeting at the time, or cannot spend a few minutes discussing
this now.
6. Take Control of the Call: once you have a prospect interested
in learning more about your product, you need to assume control
of the call without being aggressive or controlling. To do this, use
questions that have a limited number of answers, rather than
open ended questions which may lead to a need that you cannot
provide a solution for. For example, asking a question like:
“between Demand Generation, CRM, or Strategic Planning, which
is the most important priority for you currently?” This type of
question lets the prospect feel in control, while the salesperson
can limit the scope of the discussion to items where their
company can add value.
7. Use Questions to Engage Prospect: to keep your prospect
engaged through the pitch, ask directed questions that stimulate
conversation in veins that are related to your product‟s features
and benefits. Top salespeople ask up to 10 times as many
questions as poorly performing reps. Use our SPIN Selling
Questions Tool to develop strong leading questions.
8. Use Scripts, but Don’t Sound Scripted: it is critical that you
map out a structured call process with an Introduction, Value
Statement, Problem, Solution, Objection Responses, and
Close. For new reps, using a script can be helpful for getting the
hang of the pitch, but be careful that your reps are not sounding
like they are reading to the prospect. Practice pitching, like how
actors practice their lines, is a very effective way to script
presentations but ensure that the prospect feels like they are
having a genuinely unique conversation.
9. Listen Intently & Take Good Notes: top salespeople are
notorious for taking meticulous notes and leveraging this
knowledge to demonstrate value on subsequent sales calls.
Showing that you were listening intently and understand the
prospects needs is a simple way to increase your close rate.
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7. 7
Don‟t forget to add these call notes to your CRM system so that
other staff can quickly get up to speed on what was learned
during your call.
10. Follow Up Diligently: don‟t let leads slip through the cracks.
Like dialing, this is one element of the sales process that you do
have control over. At the end of every call, be sure to set an
actual appointment for your next contact. Knowing that it takes
about 10 calls to get 1 contact, don‟t waste time trying to get
back in touch with prospects; be proactive and set call back
times.
Conclusion
Pound for pound, cold calling is the most effective form of direct
marketing, since it provides a dynamic, personal touch that can build
trust unlike a well-crafted email marketing communication. The key
success factors for making cold calling work include: measuring the
process to increase productivity; providing a compelling value statement
to generate interest; and taking control of the call.
Remember that a good rep can make over 200 calls per day, which
should result in 10-20 contacts, and 1 sale or highly qualified lead. Be
careful to monitor burnout, as it is very common in contact centers that
have high performing reps pumping out cold calls and intensely focusing
on 5 minute sales pitches with an eye toward a “one-call, one-close”, or
a sale on the first call.
Break your sales process down into its components and coach your sales
reps to perfect the introduction, value proposition, build the
need/problem, present a convincing solution, handle objections, and
close. Finally, make results visible with a sales board, and provide
incentives that keep your salespeople motivated to keep their phone
engaged for 7+ hours per day.
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