If you work in any marketing or sales team, you must have encountered the cold calling technique. You either belong to the class that loves cold calling or those that dread it. You can make cold calling work for you.
Many marketing and sales professionals develop anxiety and fear whenever they have to call a total stranger out of the blue. Even though they have gotten some experience from it, pitching to total strangers is a challenging task.
You have to brace yourself for the negative responses or angry rebuke that comes with the terrain. The only positive is the occasional positive feedback where your cold-calling efforts turn a stranger into a buyer.
There has been an intense debate over whether cold calling is an effective method for making sales. Many professionals believe that cold calling in today’s age is dead. Others believe that it is still relevant and have a track record of success to show for it.
In the heat of the debate, many top and successful companies are still practicing cold calling strategies. If it is not viable, then why are these companies still practicing it? The simple answer is it still works.
In this article, you will learn about the psychological cold calling hacks that experts use to cold call total strangers and convince them to make a purchase. These psychological cold calling hacks are what you need to enjoy cold calling success and increase your sales.
Psychological Cold Calling Hacks You Should Know
1. Get All Available Information About Who You Are Calling
Although cold calling involves calling out total strangers you have not met before, that does not mean you should be ignorant about them when you call. You need to have the right information about the individual you want to make the sales pitch to. A lead generation strategy goes a long way in determining the success or failure of your cold calls.
The most talented cold callers know that without the right data, all their psychological cold calling hacks will not be as effective. Knowing the individual you are calling will allow you to take the right approach when calling.
Experienced cold callers know that the more information you have about your target, the better your chances of conversion.
Finding out information about your cold-calling prospects is more than just researching their names and position. You also have to study the company they work for and learn what their roles are in the company beyond their position. If you are going to sell them a solution, you have to first know the key problems they face.
You do not have to hire spies to dig into their activities in the company. A simple Google search on the individual name and company name can help you find lots of information. The Google Search Engine Result Page (SERP) will bring out your prospect’s social media profiles and other information.
After scrapping for available information online, you are in a better position to finetune your sales pitch in a way that your prospects will find it hard to say no.
Source: Cience
2. Focus On Developing A Plan, Not A Script
The script is a document used by the sales team to make their cold calling activities successful. The quality of the cold calling script used was believed to determine the success or failure of any campaign.
Companies gave out scripts to amateurs and new additions to their sales or customer support teams. These scripts help amateur cold callers look competent and get the job done. Alternatively, using the same scripts over and over again can make them sound uninteresting and ungenuine to prospects.
Professional cold callers who get results do not rigidly depend on a script but instead have a framework that combines a flexible structure and creative expression.
Situations arise during cold calls that are not in the script. At this point, the cold caller has to rely on intuition rather than focus on the script. Cold calling that involves spontaneous thinking and relevant answers will convert more than the use of cold scripts.
You cannot effectively convince a prospect via cold calling without anticipating their objections. If you are going to have a script, ensure it is not too rigid.
Source: Limecall
3. Use Choice Paralysis
Choice paralysis is a powerful psychological technique used by the best of salespeople and marketers. You can use it to achieve amazing cold calling results. It involves giving your prospect multiple good options that they take a moment to pause and ponder over the options.
Offering your prospects several options causes them to give your offer a deeper thought. In this way, you have successfully engaged them and if you presented a good offer, they will inevitably pick one of the options.
When using choice paralysis, avoid overloading them with multiple options. Too many offers stress them out and can lead to them ending up not taking an action.
Even if you have multiple offers for your products, limit it to a select few that your prospects will be more interested in. Offer your two highest-priced products or offers to high-income prospects, and the two lowest-priced products to low-income prospects. The aim of your cold calling exercise is not to stun them with options but to get them to make a buying decision.
4. Don’t Fear Rejection
Rejection is normal for cold callers. One thing is certain, you will get rejected a lot as you try to cold call prospects and turn them into customers. You may have the most amazing offer on earth, but you are still going to face rejection simply because your prospect is not sold on buying your product.
Do not let the fear of rejection stop you from cold-calling prospects. Not everybody you are going to call is going to be interested in doing business with you. It is the same principle for any sales or marketing technique whether it be automated marketing campaigns or email marketing campaigns. Not everyone you send emails to will make a purchase.
Instead of letting rejection hinder you from cold calling your prospects, just go ahead and do it. You will either get rejected or not. But each time you hesitate and do not make that cold call, you get no sales.
If you receive constant rejections with very little breakthrough, it is a sign you need to work on your cold calling skills. Simple refining of your cold call technique can have you get more sales and reduce the rejections you get.
Top cold callers use every rejection they get to their advantage. Instead of losing momentum when the prospect says no, they probe further to find out why the prospect said no. This deliberate act of finding out why prospects turned down your offer provides a great knowledge base for future calls.
5. Build Confidence with Body Language
Your body language can influence your effectiveness on the phone. Cold callers often sit in a relaxed manner when calling prospects. The posture is bad for sales, as it does not give you the required confidence to execute the sale.
Body language is not for your prospects but you. Except you are doing a video call with video conferencing software, your prospects cannot see the way you are positioned.
What good body language does to the caller is to make them more confident to carry out their facts. There is a massive energy provision that comes from good body language. Your prospects can easily pick up on it.
When you are on a cold call, ensure you stand up straight with your shoulders back and chest out. Avoid keeping eye contact with the ground and try to smile now and again. This simple trick will leave you feeling energized and more confident to close the sale.
Slouching on a chair while making your cold calls can easily reflect in your voice and enthusiasm levels. If the call is important, use good body language by standing up straight. It is no psychological gimmick, your voice becomes clearer and more persuasive when your body language is correct.
6. Get Emotional
People rarely buy based on logic, they buy based on emotion. Top salespeople, copywriters, and marketers understand this and use it to create powerful marketing and sales campaigns. It is the reason why virtually all of the advertisements you see are trying to appeal to your emotions, and not spending so much time talking about its features.
You can spend hours talking about the features of your products, and people will not understand because it tends to be coated with lots of hard-to-read words. If you switch and talk about the benefits for the user, people will get more interested in your product.
The reasons why people buy are rarely based on rational grounds. Humans justify their buying decisions with logic but are moved to buy because of emotional triggers and illogical factors. Brand loyalty, attachment to a product, nostalgia, and other benefits can be just as persuasive or even more as your product features.
When cold-calling prospects, look for emotional triggers that you can pull. Spellbinding storytelling works. Let your prospect see the perceived value of your product through a story they can relate to. You can also point out their pain points to show them you can relate to their situation. Offer your product as a solution to their problems.
7. Know Their Objections And Tackle It
Cold calling requires lots of research for it to succeed. When you call a prospect, they are likely not going to give you the “Yes” answer instantly. At the mention of your product, they start building objections to why they shouldn’t buy from you.
On every cold call you make, expect several objections from your prospects. Objections do not often mean that your prospects are not interested in your product. It is often an attempt to learn more about your product and find out if it has real value for them.
Source: Salesforce
The best way to handle your prospect objections is to anticipate them ahead of time. Take out a pen and paper and think about all the objections your prospects could have. If you sell a product, you can check Amazon to find the product and look for the customer review section for ideas. Forums and social media platforms are also good places to look for objections.
After knowing their objections, the next step is to find out how best to tackle them. Your method of tackling their objections may differ based on demographics or location. Ensure you have answers to all their objections before you initiate the call.
The benefits of identifying and having ready-made answers in advance before cold calling are enormous. It gives you confidence and enthusiasm to handle the call. As the objection arises, you do not get knocked off your comfort zone because you already have the answers to allay their fears and objections.
You can easily turn your prospect’s objections into a sales opportunity. For example, if your prospect complains about the high price, tackle the objection by showing them the high value it provides. You can even compare the difference between your products and other products to justify the price.
Every objection presents an opportunity for you to reinforce the value of your product. Top cold callers are masters of the act of converting objections into conversions.
Source: LiveandLearnConsultancy
8. Learn How To Bypass Gatekeepers
Gatekeepers are not your enemies but a gate through which you can reach the decision-maker in the company. Ideally, your cold calling approach should focus on bypassing the gatekeepers and talking directly to the decision-makers in the company.
However, if you cannot talk directly to your prospects, you have to settle with dealing with gatekeepers. Business-to-business (B2B) sales pass through gatekeepers such as receptionists and administrative assistants.
When you cold call a business with an offer, very often than not, the person who answers the phone is a gatekeeper and not the decision-maker. How do you get them to pass your message to your prospects? Note that most companies instruct these receptionists and administrative assistants to say no to sales offers as they arise.
Gatekeepers can be difficult to deal with, but if you want to make sales, you have to learn to deal with them. Because they are not your prospect, selling to them is impossible. It is like selling ice to the Eskimos. No matter the answers you have to their objections, they won’t buy because they don’t need it.
Next time a gatekeeper picks your cold calls, act like someone who does not know exactly who they are looking for. Give them the name of the department you are seeking, and ask to be put through to it. This simple hack will help you bypass the gatekeepers and get you closer to your prospects.
You can convince gatekeepers to pass across your message and offer it to your prospects. They are humans and respond to the same psychological tactics your prospects fall for. Repeat these tactics, overcome their objections, and you will get the sales you desire.
9. Track Your Sales Results
Keep a record of your cold calls. You do not have to record every sales call, rather keep track of the sales results that come from such calls. Recording a phone call is a bad cold calling technique as it can irk your prospects and make them lose interest in your offer.
Analyze all your sales results gotten from your cold calls. This approach will help you identify those techniques that work perfectly and those that are less effective. If you are not getting results, do a performance evaluation to find what works and what doesn’t.
The more cold calls you make, the better cold caller you will become over time. Tracking your sales calls will help you quickly improve your success rate. It allows you to build a rich knowledge base which you can use and study for selling to similar kinds of prospects.
Source: Salesforce
You can easily keep track and document your process with CRM software like Zoho CRM and Salesforce.
Are You Ready to Start Cold Calling and Getting Results?
Cold calling may seem like an outdated sales technique but it is not. Professional cold callers are getting amazing results from it comparable to the results gotten from email marketing, paid ads, and others.
Once you overcome your fear of rejection and learn how to turn objections around to sell your product or offer, cold calling will have an almost magical feeling.
The same psychological hacks that work for other sales methods are also applicable to cold calling. Some of these psychological cold calling hacks include choice paralysis, appealing to their emotions, finding out their pain points, and selling your offer as a solution, and others.
You can use more than one sales method to convert prospects into customers. For example, you can combine cold calling with an email marketing approach to increase your conversion rates. Some of the best mass email services include Mailchimp, Mailchimp alternatives, and ActiveCampaign alternatives.
Use the best business phone services and business VoIP such as RingCentral, CallHippo, Vonage, and Grasshopper for your cold calling. Use these services instead of traditional telephones for a better sales experience and lower costs. Get a dedicated business phone number to have a better work and life balance, and make your calls professional.
Cold calling when done right is an effective way to acquire new clients for your business. Start cold calling with these 9 psychological cold calling hacks and experience amazing results from it.
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