Every body hates picking up the phone and cold calling a complete stranger - me I feel the same but I do try to make it a little bit easier!

Here are the results of three cold calling sessions I recently carried out in October 09 and January this year with two different clients using three different approaches

A. Calls made 42 - got through to 5 people - time spent 84 minutes

B. Calls made 23 - got through to 10 people - time spent 65 minutes

C. Calls made 19 - got through to 16 people - time spent 100 minutes

A. 12% success rate - average call time for all calls 2 minutes

B. 43% success rate - average call time for all calls just under 3 minutes

C. 84% success rate - average call time for all calls just over 5 minutes

Approach A and B were for the same company, Approach C was for a new start-up company who had until the calls never sold anything.

You will not be surprised but the number of meetings and qualified opportunities are higher with approach B and C. Although we did get one meeting and a fantastic opportunity worth over £5,000 from approach A! If it ends up as an order I will tell you.

Over the next few weeks and articles I will cover the three approaches as well as show you how you can handle the objections you get on the phone i.e. we already have a supplier thank you (said with a smug voice!)

All three approaches have some merit, it depends on what you sell, who you are selling to, what you are trying to achieve with the call and who is making the call.

If approach A ends up with a $7,500 (£5,000) service order 65 minutes of telephone work was worth it however if you want larger and recurring contracts approach B and C maybe better for you.

We will walk through each cold calling approach which will involve picking up the phone, sending out direct mail and using email effectively.

We will highlight the best opening styles to use during the first dreaded phone call. We will cover the style and content of the questions to use to quickly make the prospect relaxed and into a conversational mode.

The direct mail approach will surprise you and will even shock you in how successful it is.

We will give you the tools you make the choice over the next few articles with the approach that fits best for your business.


Copyright (c) 2010 Michael McMeekin

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