40 Best Cold Calling Tips for 2021

By Abhinav Girdhar | Last Updated on May 8th, 2023 7:35 am | 8-min read

Is cold calling ineffective? Think about it – we have Caller ID to check who’s calling us, spam filters in our inbox and voicemail as our e-checkpoint. We literally have no time for sales calls and promotional emails from unknown parties.

Yet, cold calling thrives. The same technology has ensured that companies can call thousands of phones and send thousands of messages simultaneously. Email service providers allow brands to not only segment the recipients by age, sex, locality, and buying preference, but also sends out legitimate-looking emails to all listed contacts.

In this post we will be talking about cold calling techniques that can help you formulate effective cold calling strategies for lead generation and more.

Here are 40 effective cold calling tips and tricks that your sales personnel can leverage for making successful cold calls in 2021 –

Find the best time to call

Nobody likes answering sales calls when they are about to step out of their homes in the morning. Monday mornings are one of the worst times to call a person, as is Friday afternoon. Wednesday and Thursday mornings and late afternoons typically generate more frequent positive responses than other days and times.

Learn about your company, product, and services

Your sales staff must be adequately trained to be able to answer your lead’s questions instantly. It reflects poorly on the company if they cannot answer questions related to the company or product.

Learn voice modulation and control your tone

Around 93% of the outcome of a sales call depends on the tone of the salesperson’s voice. Train them to retire that monotone and add some freshness to their voice. Enthusiasm can make your products sell like its Black Friday every day.

Draft a cold calling script

Here’s what you need to tell your sales team. The first few times will be the worst! Your hands might become clammy, and your voice might choke. The only way to fight that is by writing a script for the calls. They can even add bullets that they MUST include while speaking, and specific words that should or should not be used to come up with possibly the best cold call script. Well written cold calling scripts can help them deal with the initial anxiety effectively.

Practice with colleagues

No one knows cold calling better than an experienced colleague. Encourage your salespeople to find someone they can practice with, at least 5-times per day, till they have a cold calling script that works. In fact, this can help them come with cold call script to get appointments for further conversion as well.

Add some warmth to the call

Cold calling is evolving. In 2021, things are going to get a little warm – brands are not only relying on the old-school strategies for reaching out to potential customers but making sure that their potential buyers find their brands first. What results is “warm calling” rather than cold calling when the target recipient acquaints themselves with the enterprises first. Make sure your salespeople understand this.

Try to make it fun

Cold calling is intense, and there is no denying that. You need to consider adding some fun to your sales teams’ routine. Be a source of positive energy. It can be contagious. The potential customers will pick up that energy. Make sure that your sales callers do not sound drab. If the ones selling the product don’t care about the brand and product, why should your customers?

Learn to deal with rejection

Objections and rejections are going to be an integral part of your salesperson’s typical workday. If they haven’t heard enough NOs till now, they haven’t made enough calls! Encourage them to learn how to deal with objections and move their pitch ahead. Tell them that it is necessary to take a rude rejection in your stride and just move on!

Learn to dodge interruptions

Here’s what master entrepreneurs teach their sales teams.

It is essential to let your prospect speak, but “send more information to me later” is an age-old tactic every customer uses to avoid a cold call. There’s your chance.

Convince the party to stay on the line while you explain the purpose of the call, the offers, product USPs and more. Remember that more than 90% of the prospects looking for “more information” are already lost leads. So, this phrase should push the salesperson into ‘salvage mode’ rather than remain passive.

Avoid premature pitches

It is essential to learn precisely when to pitch. Premature pitching is a common faux pas for most new cold callers. Ask your salespeople to listen to the prospect’s pain point and pitch him/her a solution.

Try leaving a voicemail

Many people don’t answer calls from unknown numbers. Encourage your sales staff to leave a voicemail. Let them treat this as a golden opportunity where they can deliver their sales pitch uninterrupted. Again, keep a script handy since voice mails are typically only 8 – 14 seconds.

Follow up on clients

Was there a client who showed some interest in your product or services? Is there an existing client who needs a subscription reminder? Train your sales personnel to follow up on such prospects today! When you get the first meeting with a client, your work is just beginning.

Leave open-ended sentences

The time for yes/no questions is over! Whether it involves assertive sentences or queries, make sure to leave them open-ended. The customers must feel important and heard. A prospect is a human being; experienced salespeople know that they need to allow him/her to express their opinion against your question.

Do NOT waste anyone’s time

Time is the most valuable asset for you and your customers. Be smart about choosing your consumer and find common traits (job, role, company, or industry) that can help the salesperson start a meaningful conversation.

Gauge the response of the prospect

Learning to evaluate a cold call takes time, but a few things predict the course of any lead after the call. The prospect’s questions and responses should tell a salesperson if they are genuinely interested. So, train your team to follow the prospect’s tone, volume, and choice of words carefully.

Listen to your prospect

While you are the caller, your client will have queries and opinions too. So, hear them out before you can go back to your sales pitch. It may be a good idea to stick to a script, but interruptions are detrimental and can even stop them from talking during a call.

Be patient and tenacious

Cold calling might seem easy, but it isn’t. Salespeople need the practice to master the warmth in their voice and perfect that friendly, confident tone. Tenacity will determine the rate of your success. With repeated calling, scripting calls, and practicing open-ended conversations, the rate of successful cold calls should increase in a month!

Do not give up

Here’s another useful tip for all sales professionals. Cold calling requires more than a phone and a headset. It is about mastering the nerves to call completely unknown people with the trepidation of facing rejection. More than 44% of individuals quit if their first follow-up isn’t successful. Give each prospect 4-5 follow-ups before you back off.

Know when to stop

Following up with the clients 4-5 times, doesn’t mean harassing a prospect. If they stop receiving or make it a point to ask you to stop calling them immediately, you know they mean it. Some names in your call-list are not intended to be target customers. Focus on the others you haven’t tried yet!

Avoid multitasking during a cold call

Get this straight with your sales teams. Forget mobile phones, forget checking Instagram updates and forget updating the old excel worksheet that they have neglected for weeks now. They need to focus on the ongoing call, or you will miss the microsecond window to place that perfect sales pitch.

Use customer relationship management software

CRM software will help your teams keep track of people they have already called, new leads, and already successful calls. It allows callers to score their leads on a central database. The leads with the highest points are most likely to become potential customers, and they are the ones your team should call first.

Rely on data and stats

Cold calls don’t have to be all about push-selling. Callers need to think about making their pitch more believable to a person who has never met them or used their product. Therefore, include sales data, consumer satisfaction data, and stats from recent company surveys that the prospect can verify online.

Try auto-dialing setup

Auto-dialing feature comes with many leading CRM platforms. Your CRM will assess the new numbers and contacts, and then auto-dial them for you one-after-the-other. It will save your team a lot of time and help them focus on the script in hand.

Adopt post-call automation

When you have adopted auto-dialing, you also need to think about post-call automation. Here’s what your CRM should encompass –

Saving call notes

Saving call date

Planning meetings

Planning tasks after a call

Managing the entire call history

Use a call recording system

We know how much everyone dislikes hearing their voice in a recording. However, if you want to figure out where your callers went wrong during a call, encourage the team to record all the cold call conversations. Ask them to listen to the calls at the end of every week, make notes, and apply them during their next call.

Track and measure your progress

CRM software will help your callers track their call progress, outcome, lead scoring, and much more. So, after each day, visit the net result of their day’s work. If the current script or tone they are using isn’t generating enough positive response, think about trying something different.

Learn from your rejections

Following a script should help your team with the beginner’s jitters, and it should also tell them where most leads are dropping out of the conversation. Help them perfect the script till they can get through at least 50% of it without rejection. It can take you weeks but using a CRM should help.

Always follow up

Callers need to call back prospective customers who had shown interest. Even the ones that told them to provide “more information” should receive follow-up calls and voicemails. Follow-up calls, voicemails, and messages can influence your consumer’s decision by 40%.



Do not oversell

The average sales cycles are now 28-56 days. Overselling is unlikely in today’s scenario since you will be talking to your interested prospect quite frequently, and it will be impossible to lie. It is essential to stick to the truth only!

Don’t push for the borderline sale

Callers must remember that they are selling a solution to the customer, and the size of the solution needs to be as big as the buyer wants it to be. Do not aim for the necessary deal, if you know you can close a bigger one and even the best cold call scripts should leave space for this. Know when taking a risk is worth the effort.



Pay enough importance to social media

Everyone is on social media. Facebook has over 1 billion users, and you need to jump onto that bandwagon right now. Just having an account isn’t enough. Update product info and send links to your prospective consumers. This helps your sales teams ‘warm’ up the leads before making that killer pitch.

Communicate with the rest of the marketing team

Your marketing team helps with the generation of leads. It is time to embrace the idea of working cohesively, share ideas about generating leads, and segment consumer lists, together, according to demographics.

Don’t leave lead generation to others

You can come up with leads too. Follow social media groups, reopen the closed accounts from last year, and attend networking events to find new cold calling leads.

Leverage modern marketing

Attending trade expos doesn’t cut it anymore. You need to be thinking about weekly podcasts, paid advertising, broadcasting marketing messages, and mass SMS campaigns to drive brand awareness.

Learn the in-and-outs of your sales software

Every marketing and PR team requires the support of CRM and sales software programs. However, not learning the new features and functions of the updated versions can set your target back by days, if not weeks.

Know when to switch up your act

Your team cannot approach all prospects with the same script. You need to find new tactics, selling points, and approaches for each segment of the list. Find points to talk about by learning about the target demographic.



Learn to talk about common interests

Your current prospects might all be interested to learn about a new anti-inflammatory product in the market, while tomorrow’s list might be interested in talking about golf. It is the caller’s responsibility to find out more and continue a conversation the prospect enjoys.

Working alone and selling alone

You need to sell with your team. Share tips, advice, and useful tactics. Communicate with your sales leader and teammates. You might come across new information that makes selling to your current prospect a walk in the park.

Find a mentor

The person can be a sales guru you have found online, a blogger, or a vlogger. Take classes, read, and practice cold calling. You have to keep learning to change every “no” to a “yes.” Get all the training and motivation help you can, to keep your team well equipped with all the tactics they need to sell well.

Never stop respecting

Your choice of words, tone, and volume convey more than you think. You need to respect your sales teams and motivate them to respect the prospect. It is challenging to resist frustration and annoyance after the 100th prospect has hung up on you, but each call is a new hope, and your teams need to treat it as such.

Conclusion

Cold calling is far from being obsolete or ineffective. The right cold calling techniques and practices can boost your sales and create a dedicated clientele, just like warm calling. Follow these 40 cold calling sales tips and tricks to improve the success rate of your daily cold calls.

Do you follow any cold calling scripts, or have you developed any cold calling techniques of your own? Share your cold calling tips with us in our comments section. We’d love to hear from you!

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