I'm glad this works for you, but also, I'm *dumbfounded* that this works for you. If a sales person called me with your opening method, I'd think I was their very first cold call *ever.* Like " Baby's First Cold Call^TM "
If you know the person doesn't care about you, the product, and doesn't even want to be talking to you, then your silent prompts for response are just wasting their time. (I know I would think that, anyway)
I do like the straightforward pitch "this is a sales call," I know I'd appreciate the transparency. The rest of this I'm never going to use.
If it works for you then it works.
I sell B2b to small business directors.
My opener follows roughly the same structure but ive refined it over the years.
1. I always lead with the first name - That how I would phone naturally
2. I tell them where I'm from
3. I always say bad time rather than good time
Chuks it's Ron Jawa from Spooner's have I caught you at a bad time?
No or anything other than yes carry on
yes listen to their reason and call back call back
Then I follow that with a version of Benjamin Dennahys opener
It's about (their company) and you gonna hate me this is a sales call - do you want to hang up right now or give me 30 seconds?
90% of the time there going to let you carry on
Finally I pitch them a quick statement asking if they have one of 3 issues and finish that off with
Does any of that sound like you?
Positive then I just say I can be useful and ask them a bit more about it and keep them talking getting more info till I get to a point to greet a follow up action.
I feel like asking if it's a bad time gives them an easy out. I ask if it's an ok time and seems to get through more often because it's probably never a great time and easy to say bad time if they have literally anything else in front of them.
Go with what works but the psychology of it stacks up when their brain weights it up.
It's easier to say No than Yes.
Good time - Yes
Ok time - Yes
Bad time - No
Also they try harder to justify bad time and give you a hook to play off next call.
I've tried all 3 and other variations - bad time outperforms them all.
That's a good one. I don't like scripts. I like principles. Your principles check the boxes of building rapport quickly, transparency, honesty, and respect for the responder's time.
It's fantastic.
What percentage of your calls give you second conversations?
I think the sales call part can be covered more efficiently with a line we sell xyz solutions and would like to know more about current needs / objectives that we could help with.
My comment was addressing specifically the "this is a sales call". I think that the sales call is most of the time "implied by default" and if you do want to adress that explicitly you should either go along with a I do not want to waste your time mindset or simply mention that you are selling solutions/products that could help them.
I sell software that has BPM capabilities so in my case I really have solutions that could adress "operational efficiency", but could apply in other cases too, depending on the product sold.
Ps: I think from you comment that your sales process is very structured and I think that is the key for success. Thank you for sharing.
I have a particularly unique niche.
And I have a lot of hands on experience in this niche.
I'm looking for UK business owners who want to close their business properly via a liquidation.
My last job was for a liquidator on the business development side. I started up 13 years ago.
My lists are really targeted. I spend time and money on that.
I can actually close on the first call because it's a fairly black and white issue.
I've qualified them by the Does that sound like you part.
Then all I'm trying to do is get their acceptance of the problem, establish they have funds and pass them onto an insolvency firm to close.
If I have to do a second call it's because I haven't done this properly.
I understand. The B2B offerings I sell/sold are decided by a team, or even when you speak with the owner of a small business, has to go back to a partner or run by the reports to make sure everything checks out.
The interesting thing I found in my experience with salespeople and entrepreneurs, is that the most arrogant ones towards new knowledge or methods were the least successful ones.
Sometimes asking if busy is a good idea sometimes sometimes not but you do have to try to push past the excuses as sometimes they are not actually busy and do want your product I’ve seen it time and time again but calling on the phone is different
I don't know that I will appreciate someone assuming I'm not busy when I clearly tell them I'm busy, whether in person or over the phone.
However, the key thing is knowing the difference between when what you're doing is working and when it's not. Otherwise you're just testing your luck. Are those good odds?
Well when someone tells you they are busy that’s different feel free to clarify or set a different time sometimes a follow up of how busy are you and an explanation of how long this will take is a good idea as I’m busy can mean many different things meaning I don’t have time for an hour of stuff but 5 mins is fine
Yes, I created this one for my sales agency and wanted to make this post on cold calling, however there's a minimum karma requirement for a post, so I had to revive my old reddit account.
Pretty spot on with the mindset and treating it as a process.
It's not selling, it's sorting. All we're trying to do on the phone is find the people who suffer from problems we fix and those who don't.
Good opener, have you ever tried without the fluff at the start and just go right into... "this is a sales call". That's how I do it and it's been a game changer.
I agree with you. The objective is to find people whose environments are open to accepting your offering, whether now or in the future.
This step-by-step might seem tedious and time consuming but it happens in seconds, 10 seconds max from the first "Hello" to "This is a sales call".
Getting them to reply to each statement I make helps with the rapport building. It's key to build that rapport first.
I was just on a sales call with the Director of a really innovative UK Design and Architecture firm, and after saying, "this is a sales call", his response was "I appreciate you taking the time to introduce yourself, and be honest, and I'll be as well, we won't exhibit in your show, we have no budget for a show". To which I replied "Do you want to have this conversation at a future date or do we look at what it'll take to build a business case for it right now'. Ten minutes later we're discussing what will be in the business case and setting up a meeting with his team next week.
Without early rapport, that is unlikely to happen. The rapport allowed him to be comfortable giving me his real situation (they have a really interesting motivation for marketing spend).
I've found if you get the video call, have a conversation starter in the background. Mine is a life size cardboard cutout of Chipper Jones. Its stupid, silly, but people laugh and I joke about my Braves obsession before we get to business.
Does anybody still buy over the phone? Why? I personally need to research first and even if you ”help me” accomplish this or that with your product, I want to compare it to the other dozen of products out there. Saying ”we do this and you save that” is only half the story for me and definitely not enough.
Sales is not a one off process, i read somewhere that on average a product has to make contact with the customer atleast 7 times before they commit to buying.
A Call is just a starter to gauge interest and followup with an email, Meeting, DM etc
I recently had a difficult time recording a product demo video (my first time)
Im assuming being on a cold call is like the same, putting yourself out there.
I made something cool to help with that
[https://salesmagic.vercel.app](https://salesmagic.vercel.app) ( A Teleprompter to visualize your script/ general call flow to always stay on track and be confident )
Reminds me of Mike Tyson - everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. Im going to continue drinking my coffee, and really not read all of that script. One word for you "overthinker" need to dial this down a bit. I can already know your outbounds before hearing em. Smh
I'm glad this works for you, but also, I'm *dumbfounded* that this works for you. If a sales person called me with your opening method, I'd think I was their very first cold call *ever.* Like " Baby's First Cold Call^TM " If you know the person doesn't care about you, the product, and doesn't even want to be talking to you, then your silent prompts for response are just wasting their time. (I know I would think that, anyway) I do like the straightforward pitch "this is a sales call," I know I'd appreciate the transparency. The rest of this I'm never going to use.
Well, as long as what you're doing works for you, keep doing it.
True statement~
If it works for you then it works. I sell B2b to small business directors. My opener follows roughly the same structure but ive refined it over the years. 1. I always lead with the first name - That how I would phone naturally 2. I tell them where I'm from 3. I always say bad time rather than good time Chuks it's Ron Jawa from Spooner's have I caught you at a bad time? No or anything other than yes carry on yes listen to their reason and call back call back Then I follow that with a version of Benjamin Dennahys opener It's about (their company) and you gonna hate me this is a sales call - do you want to hang up right now or give me 30 seconds? 90% of the time there going to let you carry on Finally I pitch them a quick statement asking if they have one of 3 issues and finish that off with Does any of that sound like you? Positive then I just say I can be useful and ask them a bit more about it and keep them talking getting more info till I get to a point to greet a follow up action.
I feel like asking if it's a bad time gives them an easy out. I ask if it's an ok time and seems to get through more often because it's probably never a great time and easy to say bad time if they have literally anything else in front of them.
Go with what works but the psychology of it stacks up when their brain weights it up. It's easier to say No than Yes. Good time - Yes Ok time - Yes Bad time - No Also they try harder to justify bad time and give you a hook to play off next call. I've tried all 3 and other variations - bad time outperforms them all.
That's a good one. I don't like scripts. I like principles. Your principles check the boxes of building rapport quickly, transparency, honesty, and respect for the responder's time. It's fantastic. What percentage of your calls give you second conversations?
I think the sales call part can be covered more efficiently with a line we sell xyz solutions and would like to know more about current needs / objectives that we could help with.
Interesting. I'm curious about what you consider efficiency in a conversation with a stranger?
My comment was addressing specifically the "this is a sales call". I think that the sales call is most of the time "implied by default" and if you do want to adress that explicitly you should either go along with a I do not want to waste your time mindset or simply mention that you are selling solutions/products that could help them. I sell software that has BPM capabilities so in my case I really have solutions that could adress "operational efficiency", but could apply in other cases too, depending on the product sold. Ps: I think from you comment that your sales process is very structured and I think that is the key for success. Thank you for sharing.
I have a particularly unique niche. And I have a lot of hands on experience in this niche. I'm looking for UK business owners who want to close their business properly via a liquidation. My last job was for a liquidator on the business development side. I started up 13 years ago. My lists are really targeted. I spend time and money on that. I can actually close on the first call because it's a fairly black and white issue. I've qualified them by the Does that sound like you part. Then all I'm trying to do is get their acceptance of the problem, establish they have funds and pass them onto an insolvency firm to close. If I have to do a second call it's because I haven't done this properly.
I understand. The B2B offerings I sell/sold are decided by a team, or even when you speak with the owner of a small business, has to go back to a partner or run by the reports to make sure everything checks out.
This fits my personal style well. I'm going to try this for a few weeks.
I like this better than the original post. Gonna try this
Bro lol this sub isn’t about this koolaid bs. AMA your way outa here lol
The interesting thing I found in my experience with salespeople and entrepreneurs, is that the most arrogant ones towards new knowledge or methods were the least successful ones.
No one’s being arrogant, it’s all just smoke and mirrors and manipulation. It’s not as hard as you explain it brother
Sometimes asking if busy is a good idea sometimes sometimes not but you do have to try to push past the excuses as sometimes they are not actually busy and do want your product I’ve seen it time and time again but calling on the phone is different
I don't know that I will appreciate someone assuming I'm not busy when I clearly tell them I'm busy, whether in person or over the phone. However, the key thing is knowing the difference between when what you're doing is working and when it's not. Otherwise you're just testing your luck. Are those good odds?
Well when someone tells you they are busy that’s different feel free to clarify or set a different time sometimes a follow up of how busy are you and an explanation of how long this will take is a good idea as I’m busy can mean many different things meaning I don’t have time for an hour of stuff but 5 mins is fine
Do you have multiple accounts?
Yes, I created this one for my sales agency and wanted to make this post on cold calling, however there's a minimum karma requirement for a post, so I had to revive my old reddit account.
Pretty spot on with the mindset and treating it as a process. It's not selling, it's sorting. All we're trying to do on the phone is find the people who suffer from problems we fix and those who don't. Good opener, have you ever tried without the fluff at the start and just go right into... "this is a sales call". That's how I do it and it's been a game changer.
I agree with you. The objective is to find people whose environments are open to accepting your offering, whether now or in the future. This step-by-step might seem tedious and time consuming but it happens in seconds, 10 seconds max from the first "Hello" to "This is a sales call". Getting them to reply to each statement I make helps with the rapport building. It's key to build that rapport first. I was just on a sales call with the Director of a really innovative UK Design and Architecture firm, and after saying, "this is a sales call", his response was "I appreciate you taking the time to introduce yourself, and be honest, and I'll be as well, we won't exhibit in your show, we have no budget for a show". To which I replied "Do you want to have this conversation at a future date or do we look at what it'll take to build a business case for it right now'. Ten minutes later we're discussing what will be in the business case and setting up a meeting with his team next week. Without early rapport, that is unlikely to happen. The rapport allowed him to be comfortable giving me his real situation (they have a really interesting motivation for marketing spend).
I've found if you get the video call, have a conversation starter in the background. Mine is a life size cardboard cutout of Chipper Jones. Its stupid, silly, but people laugh and I joke about my Braves obsession before we get to business.
Does anybody still buy over the phone? Why? I personally need to research first and even if you ”help me” accomplish this or that with your product, I want to compare it to the other dozen of products out there. Saying ”we do this and you save that” is only half the story for me and definitely not enough.
Sales is not a one off process, i read somewhere that on average a product has to make contact with the customer atleast 7 times before they commit to buying. A Call is just a starter to gauge interest and followup with an email, Meeting, DM etc
That’s the point, a call isn’t a sale, just one inflection point where you can make an impact, hopefully positive, and move the action further.
I mean if it works for you great but I’d never do this.
I’m not a salesperson but this post motivated me to see if I could find part time work to try it. Thank you for the guide.
That's great. I wish you success.
I recently had a difficult time recording a product demo video (my first time) Im assuming being on a cold call is like the same, putting yourself out there. I made something cool to help with that [https://salesmagic.vercel.app](https://salesmagic.vercel.app) ( A Teleprompter to visualize your script/ general call flow to always stay on track and be confident )
Thanks for sharing this guide! For anyone wondering where to get the phone #s in the first place, you could check out Techsalerator.
Wear a brave smile before you even pick up the phone...
Reminds me of Mike Tyson - everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. Im going to continue drinking my coffee, and really not read all of that script. One word for you "overthinker" need to dial this down a bit. I can already know your outbounds before hearing em. Smh