B2B Cold Calling Campaigns; Do it yourself instructions

Many times small businesses can expand their business client base and revenue by cold calling or, perhaps it could be better called, warm calling. This is a strategy and tactic that will certainly work when you are in a hurry to get additional customers or clients right away.

First, let’s look at the limitations. Cold calling is a difficult process because you have to find a person who has a need for the product or service that you are trying to introduce and furthermore, they need to be aware of the need. This means that you must make many calls to businesses that do not need your products or services and only occasionally, you will reach a company with the precise problem you are trying to solve. Therefore, it is certain that you will get far more rejection than acceptance and it is important that it is not taken personally. Because of these reasons, it is important that you commit to this process and stick to the commitment. This means that a certain block of time must be set aside each day for this purpose.

It is precisely because of these limitations that this process should be given to an employee who has other duties as well but, has the personality and skills necessary to do the cold calling. While you can hire outsourcing services to do this, it is probably better to use an employee on a part time basis to make it as economical as possible. It would be better to outsource some training and coaching for your designated employee.

Pre-call Planning:

• You must have a precise view of your target and his or her wants, needs and desires. You should be certain what is causing them pain in the area that you can provide a solution for. It will benefit you greatly to spend some time brainstorming to make a list of these needs.

• You should have a warm offer and a good offer. This offer should entice the prospect to allow you to make a presentation to him or her. One of the best things to offer these days is knowledge. You can prepare a paper that will help the prospect solve a problem. If you are offering a free service make certain that it is a true value to the prospect.

• The person calling, whether it is you or one of your employees should go through ten minutes of mind preparation before picking up the phone. First, let go of anything that is on your mind that can detract from a positive attitude. It is imperative that you have a positive attitude during this activity because people can pick up on non verbal signals even over the telephone…I’m not sure how this works but I am sure that it is true.

• Be certain that you know what you are going to say before you make the call. It is important to have a written script but, you cannot read it on the phone so, you have to know the script by heart. You should practice it over and over until it is second nature to you. You should also be conversational which means that you need to take the conversation in any direction it naturally goes based upon the responses of the prospect.

• It is better to send out email’s with offers to the list of people that you are targeting. You can use email follow-up as a reason for the call but, I think that a strong offer is better, however, even if you have a strong offer I recommend and email first.

Finding and Preparing Your List:

Once you decide on a target market you should then try to find a database list that has names, phone numbers and email. To get this kind of list will cost you up to $5 - $10 per contact. This may be prohibitive for many businesses and, if it is, you can get company information for free from jigsaw.com. Yes, you can download all of the companies that jigsaw has in their databases in csv format for free; that’s right, no charge. With this, you can build your own database. You can call in to get names, email, etc. I will tell you that it is better to have the names of your target or the owners but, you can get a lot of information off the internet and Jigsaw has their web addresses in the company information. Basically, your budget and need will dictate what you do in this regard. If you only want company, owner and phone number you can get lists fairly reasonable at goleads.com or infousa.com.

Making the Calls:

In making the calls, be sure to set aside a specific time to do it. You will want to make a minimum of sixty calls per day. Since many calls will result in no conversation at all, you should be able to make twenty to twenty-five calls per hour. It varies from industry to industry but out of the sixty daily phone calls you ought to be able to have between six to nine conversations. You can try to reach the prospect five to seven times before giving up. People are busier these days than they used to be so the call back four times rule should be replaced with a call back five to seven times.

If you continue this process you will find a certain number of people who happen to need what you are offering right when you call and it will result in additional business, clients and revenue

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