10 ways to heat up your cold calls and your profits

Having a proactive sales program doesn’t just mean mailings, PR and advertising. To succeed at in today’s hotly competitive marketplace, someone at your company must “cold call” prospects.

Cold calling needs to be intelligent and “nugget-based,” calling to a list of prime prospects with whom you want to arrange a meeting. These nugget calls are not simply calls suggesting capabilities meetings, but are calls aligning your company with prospects’ issues immediately.

Take a look at our 10 tips to heat up your cold calls and put your income on the rise.

#1 Make an appointment with yourself.

Prospecting requires discipline. It’s too easy to put off — a customer calls, deadlines have to be met, etc. Schedule yourself to prospect for one hour each day.

#2 Work without interruption.

Like any repetitive task, the more you prospect, the better you’ll become at it. After you get into the groove, take advantage of your momentum. You’ll find that each succeeding call will go better.

#3 Work from a very good list of highly qualified potential prospects.

Have three lists in your company. One list is an A list of the prospects you would do business with today if they said yes. These are prospects who fit your criteria of great potential customers. They do outstanding work, they pay their bills on time, they are located close by, you have experience in their industry, etc. — whatever factors make them high-quality to you.

The second list is your B list. These are companies who, for one reason or another, don’t fit your prime prospects criteria; they’re too big, too far away, etc., to be prime, although you would do business with them if specific factors changed.

The last list is “influencers”, people of potential value to you — politicians, chamber of commerce leaders, professors — anyone who could influence others to do business with your company.

#4 Research before you call.

Never call off the cuff. Find out something about the prospect’s industry, distribution channel, customers — anything about their company that might give your conversation parity. Nugget research is the most important thing you can do to make a new business call successful.

#5 Have an objective.

If you don’t have a goal to reach by the end of the call, you could wander aimlessly or allow the prospect to determine the action you take. Your objective could be to schedule a meeting, send them more information about you or get more information about them. Whatever it is, make sure you know before you call.

#6 Call during off-peak hours.

Conventional wisdom says to call between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. But you know that voice mail has taken over regular work hours. Try calling between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. or between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.

#7 Put your deal on voice mail if necessary.

If you have done your homework, you can leave a bit of nugget research on the prospect’s voice mail. If the prospect is interested, they will call back or answer your call next time.

#8 Use a reference name if possible.

Calls get answered if there is a common link between your company’s new-business person and the prospect. Work hard for this human linkage.

#9 Be organized.

Even better, take your entire list and input it into a sales program such as ACT. These programs allow you to build your list, print personalized letters or e-mails and keep a contact history for each of your prospects.

#10 Don’t stop.

Persistence is one of the key skills shared by all successful new business people. Remember, most appointments are closed after the fifth call. Most new business people quit after one or two calls.

Need better results? Reaching potential customers is just one business communications solution we’ve provided over the past 25 years. To explore some innovative ways to reach your audience, e-mail Matt Harlow or call 800-800-9547.

Ideas are our product. We work to analyze your markets, isolate your key brand benefits and send clear, focused messages right to your target audience. Messages that build your brand image and achieve what you’re really looking for … measurable results. We call it Communication with insight.^sm