Many B2B companies have tried cold calling in the past but gave up too quickly because they didn’t see any results. This is mainly because they weren’t using the right techniques. You can easily increase your B2B telephone sales with expert strategies and a solid team.
Want to know how you can do it yourself? Try some of the 11 calling tips below:
Have a solid opening statement
How long have you lasted each time you’ve answered the phone to a cold caller? Chances are, you’ve hung up after the first sentence. That’s why, when you’re making the call yourself, you need to have a solid opening statement that grabs the recipient’s attention.
Instead of asking them if they are available to talk, TELL them straight away who you are and what you can do for them. For example, ‘Hello, I am John Doe from XXX, and I have a product that will grow your company’.
Outline your target audience
B2B calling isn’t about HOW many businesses you contact but rather about WHO you get in touch with. You could call 100 businesses in a shift but come back with zero sales because you aren’t contacting the right clients.
Before you put together your dialling list, you want to outline your target audience. For example, if you are a wholesale manufacturer of baking tools, you won’t want to be cold-calling tech companies as they will have no interest in purchasing your products.
If you’re unsure where to start with lead generation and putting together your dialling list, the Novus B2B telemarketing team is here to help.
Expect and accept rejections
No matter what sector of sales you work in and whether you use cold calling as a strategy or not, you have to learn how to deal with rejection. Not every business will want to purchase your product or service, so you have to learn how to overcome the fear of someone saying no.
Each time you make a cold call, expect they will say no. However, don’t let this affect your sales strategy. And if you have given it your all, and they still say no? Don’t get defensive. Understand why the prospect said no, confirm there is no objection handling you can work on and lastly, just accept that sometimes they don’t want what you’re offering and move on.
Share previous customer successes
When a business purchases a product or service for their company, they want to ensure it will benefit them. Of course, you can tell them this, but how can they take your word for it? That’s when you start talking about previous customers and case studies.
Talk about other clients you have worked with, how your offering has helped them, and any relevant statistics or results the prospective client will want to know about. It makes the benefits much more real and increases the chance of a sale.
Ask the right questions
Most people don’t want to be spoken to all the time. It can get repetitive and boring, and they may lose interest. However, if you start asking questions and getting feedback from the prospective client, you build rapport and establish a relationship.
Some potential questions you may want to ask the business you’re cold calling includes:
- We’ve noticed a few of our clients have struggled with X. What are you doing to handle it?
- Is there anything within your company you want to improve?
- What do you think is standing in the way of achieving your goals?
Practice makes perfect
Cold calling is an art, and it won’t be perfected on your first try. That’s why you want to get some practice before you start going into the real world and calling reputable businesses you wish to take on as clients.
There are several ways you can practise B2B calling:
- Conduct mock cold calls with other members of your team.
- Identify the biggest challenges you face in the mock calls.
- Listen in on successful cold calls performed by other members of the team.
- Try multiple different approaches for your mock calls.
Use a script but avoid sounding robotic
You don’t want to go into a cold call with lots of ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ because you don’t have a clear idea of what you want to say. However, you don’t want to sound scripted either. So, what’s the best way to sound professional and informative?
Putting together a script is a good idea, but there are ways you can ensure the conversation flows, and you don’t end up sounding like a robot. Use the script as a guide, with multiple answers to different questions. You don’t have to read them word for word, but rather help you out when you’re stuck with an answer.
Utilise your CRM
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is an important part of any B2B company. It helps you achieve success in your cold-calling strategy and identify data patterns that can help you make the right changes for further growth.
If you already have a CRM that you are happy with, then keep using it to the best of your ability. However, if you’re looking for a great CRM, you don’t have to look far. Novus’s B2B telemarketing team will handle all your strategising and data entry through our own bespoke software.
Timing is everything
Not only is the time of day for B2B calling important, but how long the call lasts is also detrimental to your success. Of course, you want to ensure you’re calling during business hours and not disrupting anyone at home when they aren’t in the office.
You also want to ensure that your calls aren’t too long. No one wants to sit around for hours listening to a sales pitch, even if it will help their business. Ensure you get your point across as quickly as possible and with enough time to close the deal.
Conduct call reviews
What’s the best way to improve your cold-calling strategy? By going over your past cold calls! Each time you make a call, make sure you keep note of who you’re calling, a general sense of how the call went, and any challenges you may have faced.
After each call, review the information and see how you could have improved the call. It can either help you as an individual caller, provide management with some insight into how to train other people on your team, or even improve sales.
Follow up after your call
Not every cold call will end in a then-and-there close. Sometimes the person you’ve spoken to may need to go and talk to their team or do some deliberation before they make their decision. That’s when follow-ups come into play.
Try and set up a date for another call or meeting, or even schedule a demo if your product or service has one. The day before you are supposed to talk again, send your prospective client a message saying you can’t wait to meet again to remind them.
