Step by Step Guide for Cold Call Prospecting
In cold calling, a “prospect” is the business, client or customer who is receiving a call from you and is likely to provide a prospective business opportunity related to your current proposition. Prospecting is a process of identifying the business prospects and approaching them to achieve your business targets.
If you work thoroughly on prospecting before you actually venture into the process of making cold calls, it can provide a high success rate. In other words, prospecting is an inevitable part that can make your cold calling a success.
If you work thoroughly on prospecting before you actually venture into the process of making cold calls, it can provide a high success rate. In other words, prospecting is an inevitable part that can make your cold calling a success.
The following steps describe the process by which you can systematically take up your prospecting process:
- Create and sort your target list. Start off by concentrating on the most prospective targets. You can take the help of experienced colleagues for this process. In some cases your existing customers can be your prospects as well. There are professionals who can provide customer lists to organizations as well.
- Re-consider the prospects where your couple of cold calls has not worked out. They can be called up again after a period of a month or so. Based on the first experience of the call with the prospect you can predict if it can lead to success in the consecutive calls. Some of the clients can consider the offers in the second or even in the third call. However, maintain the time interval between two successive calls and rework on the style of presenting the offer. Your persistence should not irritate your customer.
- Work and rework on the major statement in your conversation which is “The offer”. It has to be precise and perfect. You can even rehearse it and check out the way it sounds. This will reduce the chances of the cold call failure.
- Teach yourself to respond appropriately for each cold call. Even in case of negative responses the call should end gracefully with a polite and professional greeting.
- Assumptions for the success of the cold calls need to be within limits. Do not take the success of the so called prospective calls for granted. Sometimes the day can surprise you when your prospective clients hang up while a new offer can work out miraculously.
- It is a good practice to keep a collection of recorded calls. You can yourself record your calls and listen to them at leisure. This gives you a fair idea of the way you sound and also helps you identify your flaws. You can work on them gradually to make your performance better. You can study the pitch, tone and speed of your speech. You should not be sounding overly enthusiastic or eager neither should you be too nervous.
- Schedule a particular duration for cold calling each day. Do not overdo the task of cold calling aimlessly for the sake of achieving numerical targets.
- Get into a habit of creating and updating a progress record of your cold calls. Mark the important points related to each cold call and specific remarks that can help you in the future.