Cold Beginnings on Cold Calling
By: Dale Noles

“Cold Calling.” Those two little words strike fear and anxiety in most people. One might wonder why that it is the case. Is it related to speaking with someone that they do not know? Potentially. Is it “phone-a-phobia”? Not likely. You would probably spend countless hours on the phone with an old friend or your mother. Why then does cold calling make your heart beat fast and your hands sweat?

The problem can stem from the fear of rejection. Growing up, if you ever dated anyone, you probably experienced anxiety over asking someone out on a date for fear that they would say no. Well, this is not high school. This is the real world. You can live your entire life and never face the fear of asking someone out, but if you want to survive in business, cold calls must be made!

1. Knowing Your Target Market

To get started with cold calling, your first step is getting familiar with who you want your clients to be. What does that mean? Determine the professionals or types of individuals your product and or service appeals to. Who wants what you have? This is your market.

Then take it a step further and determine within that market who the specific professionals or types of individuals are any why they will most likely to buy from you. This becomes your target market. It sounds much harder than it really is, but keep your focus and you will do fine.

2. Knowing Your Services and Relating Their Core Benefits

The next step to consider is familiarizing yourself with your business. At first glance, this step seems easy, but it isn’t as easy as you might think. You have to think outside of the box. What do you want to offer to your target market? If your target market is Real Estate Professionals (REPs) do you want to handle their direct mailings, entering and updating listings, produce flyers and sell sheets or handle transaction coordination?

3. Top Five Features of Services

You need to assume that your target market doesn’t know anything about the virtual assistance industry, which may be the case. You have to consider your client’s needs and address them head on. Why do they need a virtual assistant? So you can save them time, so what? Why should they care? They will care because you care enough about what they want not just what they need. Think about what your client can do with the time that you can provide them with.

4. Planning Your Script

Every successful cold caller needs to have a script. Why? When you make cold calls, you control the direction of the call. You need to get your point across quickly and clearly. You have about ten seconds to gain their interest. You want to be sure to include your name, your company’s name, what you do, why you have what they need and any objections that you can think of. Be sure that your message is upbeat. Use words that you are comfortable with. Make it sound conversational. This is not the time to try out five-dollar words.

5. Practice

This is key to making a good presentation. After you have written your script, review it. Does it flow? Are you tripping over words? If you are, you need to revise it. Remember to continue to practice until you feel comfortable with the script.

6. Role Playing

Find a partner that you are comfortable with and ask them to be a role-playing partner. Ask them to get into the mindset of your target market. Start by pretending to make the actual call from the pickup through the close. Ask your partner to come up with objections. Use what you wrote to overcome the objections. If you come across an objection that you do not know how to get around, rewrite the script to incorporate the objection as a selling point in the script. The best objection is one that is answered before it is asked! That tells the other person on the phone that you understand what they want, not just what they need.

7. Test the Water

Pick up the phone and start calling your target market. If you don’t call, you should not expect to do much business, this rings true in most every business with a few exceptions. Stick to your script. Measure your results. How far did you get on your script before you were stopped? Does it flow naturally? Do you sound intelligent? Are you covering all the objections?

8. Re-Examine

After about twenty calls, you will know if you need to rewrite any part of your script. Look at your measured results and see where the objections come and determine how to overcome them before they are asked. It may be necessary to rewrite the script completely and go through the steps again. You may need to change your script a few times until you find the one that works for you.

9. Perfect Your Techniques

Once you have found a script that works, memorize it. Memorize all the objections and how to overcome them. You should be affluent with your script. The person you are calling should not be able to tell that you had a script to begin with. Keep your script close by, in case your brain has a meltdown. The last thing you want it to say is…ah…um…ah.

10. Negative or Positive

Cold calling is a numbers game, the more people that you talk to, the greater your chances are of reaching someone who is interested in what you have. Expect to hear, NO! It is inevitable. Someone will say it. Expect to hear, YES! It is inevitable. Someone will say it. If someone decides that they want to buy from you, be prepared to sell them what they want. A good rule of thumb is to expect a three percent return for your efforts. Think of a negative response as one more “No” out of the way and one more “Yes” is coming soon.

With all of that said, you are well on your way to great business success. You may have heard the saying, “Use the right tool for the right job.” Cold calling is a phenomenal tool and like any tool if you do not use it, your job is harder to do. Keep your chin up and your ear to the receiver and you will do fine.

© 2004, Virtual Accuracy

About the Author
Dale Noles is the President of Virtual Accuracy, Assistance For Coaches and VA Training. His areas of expertise include complex database creation, marketing, website design and coaching. For more information visit www.VirtualAccuracy.com or www.AssistanceForCoaches.com.

This article can be reprinted as long as it is kept intact, about the author is used in its entirety (with hyperlinks) and an email notification is sent to VA@VirtualAccuracy.com.