Transcription
A often forgotten, commonly maligned sales strategy to grow your sales 50%, 100%, 200% or more in today's world. The classic cold call. I'm going to give you a couple different iterations to do a cold call, even give some sample scripting what this might sound like.
Many people have no real understanding of how to make sense of the data that their CRM and their other technology stacks in their company have. In the world today, people are overwhelmed by email. Social media is so crowded and so expensive they change the algorithms. So, by all means, keep what you're doing, but consider adding cold calling to the menu of what you have.
Maui Mastermind presents the Business Coach podcast, answering your questions and providing real actionable insights for building a better, stronger, more profitable business without sacrificing your time, life, or freedom anymore. Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of The Business Coach. I'm your host, David Pinkle, and this week I want to get old school with you here. Um, I've been feeling a little bit old. No, I'm teething about that. We're going to get a little bit old school. How can you use a a oftenforgotten commonly maligned sales strategy to grow your sales 50% 100% 200% or more in today's world with so much technology out there.
What's interesting is that I'm seeing a lot of our coaching clients successfully using some old school strategies to revitalize their sales. And I want to go into what one of my favorites is this week in this episode of the Business Coach podcast. So, let's set it up here for the right way. Have you noticed that for example if you relied on pay-per-click ads or Facebook or Instagram ads or ads on other social media platforms have you noticed that those ads have you had the frustrations like many of our clients have had where the underlying platforms keep changing their algorithms that that you might have shifted where 10 years ago a lot of what you spent was on direct mail and on conventions or conferences or trade shows and you shifted more and more of your advertising dollars away from billboards and and from outdoor advertising to online ads. And it worked really well. But in the last couple of years, it seems right when you get the formula right, they changed the algorithm on the platform and now you're scrambling to start over. What was working and generating 20, 30, 50 leads a day, a week, a month, depending on your business, now it's generating only a fraction of that. and your cost per qualified sales lead has actually shot through the roof. We're seeing that with lots of clients. And so I want to give you a little bit of coaching on an old school strategy that today works exceptionally well because of so many companies have moved away from it.
So I want to talk today about the classic cold call. The cold call. And I'm going to give you a couple different iterations to do a cold call. Even give some sample scripting what this might sound like. But in your business, I want you to think about how can you reach out by phone to have a conversation with your prospective marketplace. If you're selling businessto business, how can you get the right decision maker on the phone? If you're selling business to consumer, how can you get the right consumer on the phone, the right prospect? In today's world, it's hard to do, but so much more effective than some of the other strategies. I watch way too many companies send out hundreds of thousands of cold emails every single month to get a small fraction of them to take the next step, but there's no actual phone calls being made to follow up.
So, let's give an example of what this might sound like. So imagine, let's say that you have a company that does, let's say here, windows and sighting, for example, and you have a house list of people who in the last 12 months have somehow responded to something that you've got where they've either gotten a report about the seven most important ways to reduce costs when you replace your windows. Or they've responded to get an estimate from your company and then they flaked and and disappeared on you. or they met with a salesperson, but they didn't buy. And now here you are four or five months later. Or here they are. You're doing a project in a neighborhood, and you pulled together a list from online sources of the 150 homes within a a quarter of a mile of the home that you're actually doing the window replacement with. Or the list goes on with that. So now we can reach out and talk with them. Ring ring. The person answers, you know, "Hi, this is this is David here with, you know, Acme Windows. I was hoping to speak with Mrs. Johnson. Is this Mrs. Johnson?" Mrs. Johnson says, "Yes." And I say, "Look, Mrs. Johnson, I don't want to take much of your time. I don't know if you're even the right person I should talk with. Can I just even take 60 seconds and explain what we do and then you can tell me that we yes, we should continue talking or you might tell me that no, there's no no reason to keep talking. Would that be okay with you if I just tell you briefly what we do and then you can tell me should we take a next step or not? By the way, that approach, you're getting an agreement to be able to share what you do. That will get you 60 seconds to 90 seconds of their attention. In many cases, it's a simple approach on a cold calling script and you share in an exciting way with Mrs. Johnson. What you do? It might sound like, well, Mrs. Johnson. Right now, what we do is that many people in the Dearborn community that you live in have homes where the windows are 10 years or 15 years or older. Again, I'm making this part up because I don't know exactly when to replace windows. I'm going to pretend they have a useful lifespan of 15 years or 10 years. So, they're the windows are at a 10 or 15 year or older. And what we do is we help homeowners who have older windows to upfit them in a in a really cost-effective way so they look beautiful and most importantly they can actually lower their costs by making the energy more efficient. In fact, we're actually doing a house a block and a half away from where you live for that very reason for the Sandersons. So, I don't know if there's a reason for us to talk. How old, Mrs. Johnson, are your windows? Or Mrs. Johnson, when did you last have your windows replaced? Oh, they were never replaced. Hm. Well, can I just ask you two more questions to see if if this is something that that is important for you to deal with or or maybe it's a non-issue for you. Okay. And I can ask my qualifying questions, right? So, I incrementally get permission to take a little bit more time, a little bit more time, and a little bit more time. And now this person's engaged.
It's a cold call with a businessto business service offering. Let's say I'm selling consulting services. I might get uh I call up uh Mrs. Johnson and I don't reach Mrs. Johnson. and I get Heidi, her assistant on the phone, and my script might be like this. Hi, Heidi. Is Mrs. Johnson a Oh, she's not available right now. Oh, absolutely. You can take a message for me. Question for you. Would it make sense for me to to tell you what what I'm calling about and then you can make you you help me know the decision if if I should talk with Mrs. Johnson or not. Would would that work for you? Okay. Well, Heidi, what we do is that many people have no real understanding of how to make sense of the data that their CRM and their other technology stacks in their company have. They have all this information, all this data, but they really don't know how to turn that into insights that help them run the business more profitably, more successfully. What we do is we help small companies in this industry X that you're in to take the information that you're already gathering and to quickly and easily turn that into insights through a simple dashboard using AI. Do you think that's something that would have value for Mrs. Johnson? Heidi. Oh, you do? Okay. Well, you tell me, Heidi, how what's the best way for me? You want to put me through to talk with her now? Or perhaps you could set up even a a five or a 10-minute phone appointment for Mrs. Johnson and I later on this week, right? What you've done is you've turned Heidi, the gatekeeper, into a referral source. So now when I go talk with Mrs. Johnson, I can now open up my conversation. Hi Mrs. Johnson, this is David Finkele with Acme Data Analytics. And I was talking with Heidi earlier in the week on Tuesday and she felt it would be important for the two of us to talk. Would it make sense if I just take even just a minute or two and explain what we do and then you can decide if what we do has relevance for what you're working on, Mrs. Johnson? Great. Right now, I've got the upfront agreement to to again give my quick little elevator pitch. One to two minutes right there. I end that with, you know, does that have relevance for you? Can you can you see why that might be that Heidi thought we should have a quick conversation? Right? And now I'm in there.
It's amazing to me how many businesses don't use the phone very well. Now, when you're doing this, a couple things that are really important. Number one, I'm going to encourage you not to leave messages in today's world. So, if I've got six salespeople on my team, generally, I don't want them leaving messages. I want them calling back a second, a third, even a fourth time before I consider leaving a message. Why? The moment you leave a message now, they're going to take a look at the transcription of that message, and they're going to go ahead and make a decision based on a very limited exposure to whether or not they're ever going to be willing to talk with you. Follow up, follow up, follow up, follow up with that part.
Next, on your cold calling script that you use, you have to recognize that every time you call, people are putting you into two columns. Is this a pure sales call or is this a person that I actually want to speak with? That's the judge they're going to make. And the best thing I can do is I lower the bar. I don't ask for them to spend, hey, can I take five minutes of your time? No, way too much. Hey, would it make sense? How about if I just tell you what we do briefly? And then you can tell me that yes, we should keep talking or not. It's a simple way as that that the person on the other side, they feel in control. They know that you're not going to be asking for hours or even 10 minutes of their time. And now you can share a very sculpted, sexy version of what you do. And then you ask your question to close to have more conversation with them on that call. That question to close might be, does any of what I share here have relevance for you? Hey, would this have value for you? Hey, can you see how this might be useful in your company? They answer yes. Now, I'm into the qualifying portion of that conversation. Well, Mrs. Johnson, I don't have time to do a deep dive here, but may I ask you three or four quick questions? Based on those questions, you and I can determine together, is there enough of a fit that would make sense to set up an actual demonstration of how we can help you find ways of getting insights to make your business more profitable and more scalable by using the data that you're already collecting better through some of the AI platform tools that we have. Before we even take that time, would it make sense just to spend a few more minutes? Can I ask you a few questions to see if that even makes sense? Wonderful. Question one, question two, question three. One more question number four. Based on what you're sharing, Mrs. Johnson, from my end, I think it does make sense. You have a company that I think we can help you increase profitability and most importantly increase volume at the same time. When would be a good time for us to spend 30 minutes to do a live demonstration with your data or live demonstration of the software about how it can concretely help you to increase profitability and grow revenues? Would it be better to do on Thursday or Friday of this week? Okay. Thursday. Better in the morning time or the afternoon? The afternoon. H I'm pretty booked that day. Would 1:30 work better or four o'clock work better your time? Four o'clock. Got it. Let's book it in here in the calendar here. So, it's just a simple scripting approach that says I'm incrementally going to ask for a little bit of time. Hey, officially initially should I would how about if I just explain what we do and then you can tell me if we should even continue talking or not if what we're you know anything we do has relevance and value for you. It's a simple way of doing that.
Next, I'm going to encourage that if you're going to be doing dial, make sure you do this, ideally with some way of tracking the dials that are being made. Old school way is to simply have people do it on a sheet of paper that they put into a spreadsheet at the end of their call day. You can certainly do that. In today's world, it's very easy for most CRM. They have a dialer program that connects to it where you can actually have the dials be done automatically. I can manually dial about 20 25 dials per hour manually with a reasonable contact rate. 8 10 12% contact rate. With a dialer, I can have it call two people at once. Whoever picks up, that's who I talk with. I can have it call three people. I can have it call four people all at once, and whoever picks up, so I can increase my dial efficiency. If you don't currently do any cold calling, start with the manual process. Give yourself 60 to 90 days to really give this a fail a fair test with that part. Generally speaking, you're going to want to be doing a block of dials. Your sales force, hey, we're going to want on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays that you're going to be doing two hours of outbound dialing. Everyone's going to be on the phone together from 8 in the morning till 10:00 or hey, everyone's going to be on the phone in the afternoon from 3:00 to 5:00. The only reason that you would have to not be on there is if you've got a sales appointment booked during that time and we're all going to be here on the floor making our dials together in our individual work cubicles, right? We're going to do our prospecting together. It's amazing. But for whatever reason, the results tend to start showing up in week three, four, and five. They don't tend to show up in weeks one or two. And so the consistency of staying with that, you know, imagine you were to have your sales team and let's say you've got six salespeople and each of these salespeople is going to be doing just an extra 5 hours of dials per week outbound. They're currently not doing that. You know, if they're doing that, that means they're going to be making 100 to 150 outbound dials or more each week, which means that they're going to be talking to anywhere from eight to maybe as many as 15 or 16 people every single week that they wouldn't otherwise talk with. And again, those numbers progress through. And that's per salesperson. Times that by six, that's 60 to 65, 70 new prospects that you never would have had them talk with every single week. And the cost, the cost is really inexpensive because your sales team has the time in terms of who to call.
You start off with your house list. Who do you already have? You start off with prior customers to reactivate them. You start off with people who were in the sales process but stalled and never went anywhere. You start off with those people in the past who raised their hand to some advertisement, but you never reached. You start off by those people who you can scrape off of lists in your industry that fit your target audience. You start off with an AI put together list. You start off with a list from a lead broker, an information broker that can sell you a list of a thousand different business and or c customers in that part. You start off with a geographic list that gives you a reverse directory of all the other homes within a within a thousand feet of the home that you're currently doing your remodel on. You start off with and you see the point. There are hundreds if not thousands of prospective people that you could be reaching out to. But are you?
In the world today, people are overwhelmed by email. Social media is so crowded and so expensive, they change the algorithms. So, by all means, keep what you're doing, but consider adding cold calling to the menu of what you have.
I want to give you one more old school cold call technique that I have used in my past history and I've referred and recommended to dozens of business coaching clients over the years. We call this the research approach. So, we'll call this the research approach. Here's how it works. It's a tactic that is really useful in so many different ways. So, for example, I'll pretend I'm doing this for my business coaching company because it'll make it easier for me to give you an example right here. I call up you as a business owner. I say, "Hi, this is David with Maui Mastermind. Hey, I just want to let you know this is a a research call that we've got. We're doing a short survey of business owners, and if you're interested, you can actually get the results for free of this survey. We're basically finding out that in your industry of builders that are in the Phoenix, Arizona area, we're looking at what are the two biggest challenge points that they're dealing with. And so I've got three quick questions. If you answer the questions, you'll actually get the first access to the answers to this emailed to you and you'll get those answers within the next six to eight weeks. Would you like me just to go ahead and ask you those three quick questions, get you off the phone real quickly so that you could have access to those survey answers? You say yes. I say, great. Question number one. Question number two. Question number three. Got it. So, here are your answers. Wonderful. Now, like I said, in the next 6 to 8 weeks, we'll have the report compiled. Um, what's the best email address for us to send it? I've got your email address as, you know, Joe Smithacme.com. Is that the best email to use? Got it. And is this the best phone number for me to have for you or is there a better number for me to do that? Like for example, some people prefer I text them the results, not email. Would you prefer me to text the results? Um, it'll be a simple one to twopage summary PDF that I'll be sending. Would you rather get that by text? Okay. What's the best number to text you at? Okay, I've got that. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Joe. It's really been a pleasure talking with you. Right now, I actually have started a relationship. I ask another 50 or 100 business owners. I put together the results and the results I turn into an attractive one to twopage report. That one to two-page report is part marketing brochure but part useful information about the industry. Hey, here's the answers to one. Here's the answers to two. Here's the answers to question number three. These are what your peers are thought. I follow up and send that out to people by text and or by phone by email. And now I get a followup. So, if I sent the report to Joe and I sent it to him six weeks later, now I got to follow back up with him in seven, eight weeks. Hey Joe, this is David again. The Maui mastermind. Hey, uh, about a week and a half ago, I sent you the outund like as promised, I sent you the results of the industry survey that we did. Did you get them? You didn't. While we're talking, can I resend them to you right now while I have you on the phone? Oh, by the way, Joe, and now I can go into my sales steps. It's no longer a cold call. I actually have made a promise. I fulfilled the promise. I followed up on the promise. I've earned the right to get 10 or 15 minutes of his attention on the phone to take the next sales step with him. It's a powerful way. We used to do that in my earlier company around real estate. We would work with lots of investors. We ran surveys and research about market spaces. We would actually do our next follow-up step when we did the report was to invite them to a live workshop which is where at that time 20 plus years ago we did the selling for that business but it's a simple process for you to use under the opaces of research you're giving them something of value gives you a reason to call back to check in with them as a support or service call and now I can transition I've earned the right to have 5 10 15 minutes of their time.
So all the different ideas that you have to market your company, let's recognize that in the world where technology and AI and these other things have become more and more complex where it seems to be harder and harder to reach the right people. Sometimes old school strategies, direct mail or in this case direct outbound phone calls, sometimes referred to disparagingly cold calls can be so effective to generate cheap and cor uh effective immediate volume for your business to set appointments for salespeople, to bring back customers who haven't bought for you for a long time with that part, etc. These strategies simply work. No, they're not the glamorous portions of sales, but hey, you want the result? Here's another tool in your toolbox to help you get that result. I wish you every success, and thank you for joining me for this week's podcast. Bye, everybody.