I understand why some people are too afraid to make cold calls — it’s hard, grindy work, with lots of rejection.
Fine. I agree. But those are also the reasons why people who are good at cold calling are so valuable. A successful cold call converts contact information into a lead, meeting, demo, sale, or a new business relationship. It is an incredibly powerful way to drive the growth of a business.
These cold calling tips are practical, low-complexity tactics you can use to increase your odds of a positive outcome. That’s it.
I’m not even going to try to convey the art of cold calling here, or somehow pass on the personality traits you must have in order to survive — you’ll figure it out, or you will find another role that comes more naturally than cold outreach.
1. Treat the gatekeeper as a stakeholder
It takes some finesse to convince the person who answers the phone to forward your message up the ladder. Respecting these “gatekeepers” is a much better strategy than trying to get around them, past them, or through them. They screen people all day, so you’re not going to fool them by being disingenuous.
Treat them as a stakeholder, because they are, especially in the initial negotiations. Their opinion matters, their perspective can help you, and, if they don’t like you, it’s going to be a lot harder to push any deal through.
Avoid the aggressive or deceitful “getting around gatekeeper” tactics that are everywhere online. I’m not going to say those tactics can’t work, but over the long-run I think you will win more by being straight up, respectful, and paying close attention to what they tell you (like any other stakeholder).
Receptionists, executive assistants, administrators — people have these roles because the company trusts their judgment. It’s likely that the “decision-maker” you’re trying to reach values this person’s opinion. Winning that can only help.
2. Only spend time on qualified leads
This may seem like an obvious take, but there is always a fresh set of young salespeople with the confidence that they can convince anyone to make a purchase.
If only. I respect the confidence, but not everyone will be interested in buying what you’re selling, and not everyone will want to engage in a business relationship with your brand.
Ideally, you are only cold calling qualified leads, which are: leads that meet the set of criteria that qualifies them as a viable customer. Do they have the money? Do they have the need? Are they looking to make a purchase?
Qualified leads, vetted prospects, SQLs — it doesn’t matter what you call the process or how you break down your sales funnel stages — the key point is to rule out as early as possible any potential client who is not actually a good fit for your company.
Cold calling is a great way to get the information that may qualify/disqualify a lead. As soon as you can disqualify a lead for sure, do it. Record the information in your spreadsheet, CRM, or sales engagement software. If necessary, record the next steps or update statuses, and then move on to the next qualified lead.
The risk is that a rep, confident in their ability to close the deal, spends a ton of time working on an account that is never going to work out. Treating all potential sales targets like thoroughly vetted prospects is a huge misallocation of time, effort, and talent, which can significantly hurt a rep’s numbers.
3. Personalize your opening sequence
The average attention span is less than ten seconds, and that number is only going down over time.
And that’s the average attention span. Consider a busy receptionist. They don’t have time to listen to very much, and if they are justified in hanging up, they will. Odds are that when they pick up your call, it’s not the first unsolicited call they have received that day. You need to break that rhythm and become someone that matters.
I think scripts for cold calls are incredibly valuable, but it’s really just the bones of an interaction. A little creativity can help, so long as you are focused on personalizing the interaction. You want to lean into what you learn from the human on the other end of the call: are they stressed, does it sound busy, are they in a rush.
You still have to say all the important stuff, but trim it down if they are in a rush — the person will value efficiency. If you ask the person who is in a rush “how was your day,” it’s probably not going to be received well.
If they sound stressed, ask them how they are. Even if they don’t dive into their life story, they still think of you as a person with empathy, vs. another telemarketer reading off a script. Respond to whatever they tell you as opposed to just powering ahead with the script.
With modern call routing, the office line might eventually ring to the business owner’s cell phone. They could be getting gas or picking up their kids. You might catch someone working remotely. Whatever the situation, recognize the competing concerns and pitch something quick.
Cold calling is one of the situations where soft sales skills really make a difference. Exercising a little emotional intelligence can make a great first impression.
4. Follow up at least five times
While there’s a positive correlation between the number of cold-calling attempts you make and the number of deals you close, you shouldn’t expect a positive outcome after a single call.
To improve your chances of closing a deal, perform at least five follow-up calls after a productive interaction, or even more if the prospect is on the fence about making the purchase — unless you’ve been hit with a hard no.
The buyer journey in B2B follows a tricky, unpredictable path. Getting in conversation with the right person is never a straight line. Each follow-up is an opportunity to move the ball down the field or get someone onboard. Between calls one and five, a lot can change, and during that time you have remained closer to top of mind because of your consistency.
Keep in mind that although follow-ups are a great tool, you should never nag the prospect more than what they’re willing to tolerate. Leave them room to exit the deal so they don’t feel like you’ve backed them into a corner. A worn-out prospect will look for a way to cancel the interaction instead of converting, which might result in losing a potential repeat customer.
5. Sit upright while making calls
Your posture impacts your demeanor, which in turn drives your tonality. In simple words, the way you carry yourself has a significant impact on your mental state and your impression in front of others.
Don’t slouch. Sit up straight. If you like to pace and talk on a headset, be alert when you are hunching over or leaning on something. None of these habits are fatal, but good posture can have a positive impact on your mood and create a productive environment where you can perform your duties at your best.
I’m not going to go into excessive detail here, but I have noticed that how I am sitting impacts how I talk. I find it easier to be convincing when I am sitting up straight.
6. Learn to overcome pushback
It’s rare to call someone and get yes right away. You are going to have to help people along, which is routinely going to involve dealing with pushback. There are many clever and elegant ways to overcome objections in sales, and the more tactics you can learn, the better your close rate will be.
Some of the most common kinds of pushback you might face will look as follows:
Pushback 1: “I have to go, can you just send me an email?”
Response 1: Prospects will commonly use this excuse to rid themselves of the conversation. You can respond by saying “Sure, I’ll shoot an email your way, but can you share more info about the project we talked about so I know which details are the most relevant moving forward?”
Pushback 2: “Your idea sounds interesting, but I don’t have the time to talk now.”
Response 2: This rationalization comes up a lot, but you can play ball by telling them, “No sweat. When can I reach out again for another three-minute chat?” It’s a simple response that serves two main purposes—it conveys that you’re not desperate, and it encourages the prospect to stay on the call just a bit longer.
Pushback 3: “I can’t make a decision at the moment. Call me sometime next week.”
Response 3: This might happen in large corporations where the decision-making process about what to purchase is divided between multiple people instead of one person, following a meeting or two. Here, you could assert yourself with a simple “Great, that makes sense. Would it be alright with your management if I joined your next meeting about it so that I can fill in any missing details?”
SEE: Check out seven cold call scripts you can steal right now.
At the end of the day, respect your prospect’s boundaries and try to sound assertive without stepping on too many toes. A good rule of thumb is to take a break to reassess your approach whenever you catch yourself sounding too needy or spammy.
7. Stack your questions
Question stacking is a sales technique where you provide your prospect with a contextual statement and then follow that up with a relevant question that builds onto your first sentence.
For example, let’s assume your company has a new AI call center feature that promises to revolutionize sentiment analysis in call centers. The main pain points for the majority of your current and prospective customers have to deal with the costs associated with collecting, cleaning, and processing call data.
When on a cold call, you’ll want to learn if your prospect is subscribed to multiple tools, plugins, and other software as soon as possible—because that’s where you can offer your help.
A common question-stacking approach looks something like this: “Many small and medium-sized business owners use tools like Nextiva, TalkDesk, or Qualtrics to run reliable sentiment analysis to uncover insights about their customers. I was thinking, how are you gathering and analyzing call data at your company?”
The initial statement serves as a contextual anchor to the follow-up question. If you were to pose the second question immediately without context, it’s more likely that you would’ve gotten a generic answer that doesn’t provide you with enough information to give you a proper sales angle.
In terms of what to avoid, don’t pepper your prospects with complex questions or excessively long statements that could deter them from giving you a succinct and accurate answer in return.
If you’re not sure what to ask, research your existing customers to uncover the frustrations they currently experience, and use this to build a sales funnel for your future clients.
8. Call at an appropriate time
The timing of your call is one of the most important and most overlooked cold calling tips in modern sales. It’s essential to avoid disturbing your prospects at an inappropriate time — like when they’re resting from a hard day’s work on a Friday evening, or early Monday morning when they might have what they would consider more important things to do.
This sounds obvious, but it can get tricky whenever you call nationwide or internationally. You don’t want to catch a west coaster before breakfast or an east coaster after dinner.
Using virtual contact centers or call center outsourcing to conduct cold outreach is a very popular option, but it’s important to be aware of the potential time-zone issues.
Keep track of any trends regarding the timing of your calls. It may not matter, but it might very well turn out to be that, in your industry, weekdays after 10AM but before noon have a much higher rate of success. Maybe it’s after 3PM on Fridays. You’ll figure it out if you pay attention.
9. Get comfortable with rejection
Sometimes, despite your best efforts, your well-rehearsed sales pitch just won’t turn into a conversion. This is normal. Rejection is part of the process, one way or another.
If a prospect rejects your offer, try to have a polite discussion about what discouraged them from working with your company so you know how to improve your approach in the future. You might be surprised to learn that sometimes it wasn’t because of you at all.
For example, maybe they just couldn’t find a use for your product or service at the moment. Whatever the case may be, strive to understand their reasoning so you can learn from your mistakes, and don’t allow rejection to dissuade you from trying again.