Successful Ways to Open Your Sales Cold Call

Successful Ways to Open Your Sales Cold CallSuccessful Ways to Open Your Sales Cold CallThe most important part of any cold call you make on the phone is the first fifteen seconds. If you cant get your prospects focus and attention during that time period, then they will stop listening to you and the odds of your getting an appointment drop dramatically. Thats why you need to come up with a hook, an opener that will grab a prospects attention and give you time to do the actual selling later in the call. Strong Opening Statement A good strong opening statement is critical to cold calling. It piques the listeners interest and gets him thinking about you as someone who can do something for him. Many prospects will automatically say no thanks and hang up as soon as they realize youre trying to sell them something. However, if you can break through that automatic response with an opening statement that engages the prospects brain and gets him thinking instead of reacting, you can get the call moving in the right direction. Surprising Benefit Approach One approach that often works well is the surprising benefit approach. Heres an example from an actualreal estate broker cold calling script Them Hello?You Would you like to save an additional $10,000 this year?Them Who is this?You My name is You, and I show people how to save an additional $10,000 would you like to learn how to do it?Them Whats this about?You Its about saving an additional $10,000 this year would you like to learn more about it?Them Is this some sort of scam?You No, I can show you how to save an additional $10,000 this year, its what I specialize in. Would you like to learn more?Them Who are you with?You Im with your company, and I specialize in showing clients how to save an additional... The idea here is to get the prospect to permit you to tell them more. The surprising benefit approach as used in the above example can be risky because it tends to be confrontational, and prospects can find it annoying if you refuse to answer their questions. But depending on your product and market, it can be a very effective opening approach. You can also try a milder version of the surprising benefit approach (meaning less resistant to answering the prospect) and see if it works better for you. Utilize a Question Most successful cold call openers include a question. If you ask the prospect something, it tends to jolt their mind into gear and get them thinking about the answer (or at least about the question). Ideally, the opening question will provide a reason for the prospect to want to hear more. And if you know your prospects name, work it into the opener. By saying their name, youve already customized the call a bit and told the prospect that you at least know who he is. To use this style of an opener, include the prospects name (if you know it), your company name, what you sell, and how your product can benefit the customer, followed by a request for permission to ask the p rospect some qualifying questions. An example might look like this Mr. Customer, my name is your name, and I am your local what you sell representative. I have helped a lot of local businesses here in your city bring more customers into their stores. May I ask you a few questions to see how we can do the same for you?