3 Ways to Add Warmth to Your Cold Calls
Nobody likes cold weather, cold room, cold hands. Therefore, who wants cold calls?
Whenever you are at the starting point of your entrepreneurial path, especially as a solo founder, a sales position in a corporation, or whatever position to engage with future clients, you will face the phone challenge one day.
Why should I call someone instead of just shooting an email or a text message?
Simply because you need to create an authentic bond with your prospect and texts are limited to express ourselves and interact efficiently.
The first time of my life I faced this, I shared two different emotions:
- Fear because you don’t know how people will react. You are not sure of your words and dread a problematic question that you haven’t prepared to answer.
- Pride because you succeed in calling your first prospect and connecting with him.
I called 10, 30, 60 peoples to learn more about my market and connect with influential people in the industry. And you know what? I always dreaded each call.
I never imagined success, but I succeed, and you know what? You’ll too if you start now.
“Cold Call” is a wrong term.
It will help if you have human warmth and emotions. Drop the cold to get the heat.
To achieve that, you need to personalize your interaction.
We are all enough copy-pasted LinkedIn invitations or emails of people wanting us to buy their product.
The first piece of advice I can give you is to create a discussion and trust pattern.
Do not directly take your phone and call the first number on your list. Connect with people on LinkedIn by sending them a message, sending a text message by SMS or Whatsapp, or sending an email.
If you send a message before a call, this will create a context for your target customer. He’ll know who you are and why you want to get in touch with him. If the answer is negative, that’s okay. You stayed away from a negative response on the phone.
Focus on the 20% positive answer that will produce 80% of your results. So, don’t waste time with demanding potential customers and go forward.
#1 — Find a common interest
Your prospect is not a wallet but a human being and could be a friend as well. What do you do to make a new friend? Simply by finding a common interest!
If you have read the best-seller How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, you already know the importance of this golden bullet.
To do so, check his social profiles and identify something you could engage during your discussion: does he make photography? Does he love traveling?
It’s all about starting a new relationship and making it durable in the long run. Not a one-shot action.
#2 — Understanding them
Please don’t start your call by talking about your product but learning more about your future customer.
Some people like to create personas and speculate on them without really talking with their target customers. By understanding your prospect, you will break all your personas’ misconceptions and have another vision about your target.
How does his business operate? What are his pain-points?
By asking good questions, you will find arguments for selling your product and finding new improvement areas to fit their needs.
#3 — Being emotional
Your prospect doesn’t care about your product but cares about the emotion you have created within him.
What’s the story of your project? What’s your testimony? Storytelling is essential to let your prospect identify himself to your product.
The second piece of advice after your story is your personality. Nobody wants to speak to someone depressed, sad, angry, or whatever bad emotions.
You can start by smiling while talking on the line. It changes the tone of your voice. Yes, it sounds creepy, but it makes the difference. 🙌
There is a lot more to write about calling prospects, but these are all the points that will kill the classical cold calls.
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