After a conversation on twitter about cold callers this morning, I was asked how I deal with cold callers, so here are my thoughts:
- Remember the person who rings you is a person, and be civil. You don’t know who s/he is yet anyway.
- Find out what they really want – If it’s your job to be a gatekeeper you’ll need to decide whether to open the gate and an intelligent person will give you the information you need if you ask them directly. ”Are you selling x?” If they won’t tell you what they want, then they probably don’t have a good reason to call. If they think you’re too lowly to speak to remember they are probably ill informed too!
- Be helpful – whoever they are. If you aren’t a prospect they’ll want to end the call quickly so they can talk to one. If they tell you what they are selling you can easily say ‘we don’t pay for that service’ or ‘we don’t have a need for that service’ for example.
- Be honest. People like that.
- Be constructive and helpful. If they are from your industry or are likely to be a good advocate for your business (e.g. a contractor) why not give them something back? Suggest a good place where they can meet the sort of person they are looking for.
- Think creatively. If they might be an advocate for your business how might they get to work with you? I have a series of suggestions I give to cold calling construction people. If they are responsive we might even meet and make introductions to useful people.
- Treat every phone call as a potential opportunity. If the person is really into hard sell they will say goodbye quickly, but if they are at heart a natural networker they will respond well.
- Doing the above can take 15 seconds or less, – so don’t use pressure of time as an excuse to be rude, it damages your brand.
What’s your take on it?
Thanks to @EmpireSteve for asking the question!
Image: The Telephone by Tyler Durden
Sometimes you have to use the so-called “hard-sell”. Nothing wrong with that and it is expected in certain markets.
Your comments are quite refreshing, it’s a pity that most “gatekeepers” don’t give the time of day to cold-callers even when they have something of value.
Cold-calling remains a valuable tool for all businesses and professions alike.
Sorry to disagree with you Jeremy but “hard Sell” is really old school now. Anyone who has to resort to hard selling techniques is going to find it really hard going.
As someone who cold calls for a living I can say that the secret to successful interactions on the phone is the same as successful interactions face to face, its all about relationships and helping people to make informed buying decisions. Who likes to be “sold to”? No one! But everyone loves to buy. Our job is to make buying easy.
Julian, There’s hard selling and there’s hard selling. Nobody wants to be brow beaten into an appointment but you mustn’t roll-over and die when you’re hit with an objection.
Thanks for the compliment Jeremy 🙂
I disagree with you about the ‘hard sell’ though. Unless you don’t mean ‘makinging someone buy what they wouldn’t actually want if they had time to think about it’ – which is how I define a hard sell.
If there’s a clear need (real or perceived) for a product or service then there’s nothing wrong in “striking whilst the iron’s hot”. Some consider that to be pushy or engaging in a hard sell. I guess it’s all in the definition Su.
Sorry Jeremy, but I have to disagree with you there. I feel cold calling is an outdated format for business and a dying one. The more that social media becomes mainstream the less this type of intrusion will be tolerated. Most folks already hate it-which is why they feel pressurised into being rude when caught off guard. People tend to have an intrinsic distrust of sales folk too, which does not help the cause.
Time will become an even more precious commodity. They are already making TVs that are internet ready and SM ready.People will do business in a more ‘engaging’ and possibly less structures way in the future-when everyone catches on to the possibilities.
They will choose who and what they want to talk about. I may be wrong of course-only time will tell……
Roberta, selling is about making contact with people. The telephone remains the single most effective communication tool around. Everyone has access and it is cost effective. However, as I just said in my previous reply, it is about relationships, not about “hard sell” which puts everyone off.
If I were calling you, you would find that I am respectful of your time and that my role is to help you to find the right solutions to the problems facing your business and you as an individual.
Its not about persuading its about facilitation.
No matter how many technologies help you to become informed, there will still be a role for the person who respectfully helps you to buy. That person may well initiate the first contact with you, a so called “cold call” but hopefully, if they really understand how the rules of Like, Know Trust work, they will leave the call as a new friend, irrespective of whether you chose to buy or not.
“Its not about persuading its about facilitation”. In some instances yes BUT the best sales people I know are the best persuaders Juian.
How do you define the ‘best’ sales person Jeremy?
Of course, getting “warm leads” via networking, direct mail, social media and recommendation is preferable. However, there will be times when leads, for whatever reason, dry up and you’ll be forced to take a more direct hard-nosed route to market.
Cold-calling in absolute terms may be dying out as with the internet there’s now no excuse not to get a prospect’s name but as long as telephone communication exists there will be the cold-calling.
Happy Selling!
Ha Jeremy, I’ll let you have one link off the site but two just looks greedy!
Thanks Su!
Thanks Roberta,
I agree that people are more and more intolerant of intrusions on their time.
Funnily enough @AquilaAndCo replied to me on twitter: “@SuButcher Cold Calling is still used because it works and works really well! How else could you get to speak to over 25 new people a day?”
I can think of another way…
I agree with Roberta. Times have changed, hence the need for more professional cold-calling. This would include following up sales enquiries, old records, existing customers and similar.
Since signing up to the register, I dont get any cold call marketing on my mobile phone. Cant say I miss the interruptions.
And companies who spend millions on developing sophisticated scripts for their cold callers to follow, may like to know that all their investment is wasted when their employees call me and they cant even pronounce my name properly! It is uncanny. If someone phoned and asked for me by name and they got the pronunciation wrong, I would be instantly on the defensive and they lost my attention. Honestly, 95 times out of a hundred, wrong pronunciation equals insulting cold caller. For some reason, prospective clients dont get my name wrong.
Business/sales/graduate training should include an element of cross-cultural training. The mess that some multi-nationals get into!
Before you even pick up a phone you really ought to have an idea of the background of the person you’re trying to engage with.
I’ve been asked on twitter by @LivingLifeWales whether my technique of offering cold callers something works.
The answer is yes!
For example, Barefoot & Gilles are actively looking for new contacts in Essex and London so that we can do more work from our growing Chelmsford office. If a cold caller from construction (for example a contractor) rings me and asks if they can go on our tender list, I’ll say no – we don’t put people we don’t know on tender lists, and anyway projects we work on frequently come from contractors….
Tell me more about what you do. OK, why don’t you meet me at this networking event in Chelmsford on Friday. We can talk more and find out whether we might be able to help each other.
The contractor gets to meet loads of other professional people at the networking event, and me, and we get to see if we have any areas of common interest. Everyone wins.
People by from people.
I can see how that is of value in the construction industry where long sales cycles are the norm. As someone who runs a practice office Su, would that approach by viable for sellers of office equipment, stationery or similar? Don’t forget, the sales cycle for a medium-ticket piece of capital equipment could be a week and in my experience, sales-people from those arenas would want to control a sales call/meeting. That would be denied them at a networking event and rightly so.
Interesting question Jeremy.
I’m contacted by stationery firms all the time. That’s simple. If I wanted a stationery supplier I’d get a recommendation from a colleague. I have a stationery supplier, so calling me is a complete waste of everyone’s time. That’s not to say that a stationery supplier might not get some benefit from networking. Probably get a better class of customer.
Office equipment is similar. These items are infrequently purchased (with stationery, rarely purchased from a new source), and compared to the dozens of people who call me every year the expenditure is small. So again, its a complete waste of time.
The other aspect of these suppliers is the emphasis on price over quality (of product and service). Busy managers will waste loads of time sorting out the mess left by a poor supplier they chose on price (I know, its happened to me). So why would I buy from a cold caller? Some will, but only to end up disappointed and frustrated.
I used twitter recently to decide on an equipment purchase (A Leica Disto5 laser measuring device). My contacts on twitter helped me choose the right model for my circumstances, helped me find more information online, and found me a supplier who gave me a substantial discount. No-one wasted my time.
“I understand this is called Pull Marketing. When I want it, I’ll go and get it. Now stop bothering me!”
“So why would I buy from a cold caller?” – I presume in this instance the cold-caller will have little or no knowledge of your needs. That’s fair enough, however, a cold-caller asking the right questions of you (assuming a good industry knowledge of e.g. photocopiers and in your case architecture) may be given an audience with a buyer with whom there has been no previous contact.
Pull marketing undoubtedly works well when the buyer is well informed and knows exactly where to go and how to buy.
In today’s environment, the power in the sales relationship is firmly with the buyer not the seller.It is the seller’s job to help the buyer to buy. Gone are the days when the seller knew everything about a product and the buyer very little.
The way I see it, my job is not to product info dump on prospects, because they probably know more about the products I represent than I do. However, I am there to be a helping hand should they need it. I help buyers to buy – not necessarily the products or services that I am representing. That’s ok too because buyers only buy what they cannot fulfill from their own resources and what they perceive is missing.
“Traditonal” telemarketing (as opposed to that practiced by Aquila & Company), still tries to either bludgen people into buying, persuade them into buying something they neither want nor need to buy from someone else or it relies on thousands of calls to “manage coincidences”. None of these techniques work and are damaging to the image of professional telemarketing organisations.
Well, I’ve done a bit of cold calling. (I define this as an attempt to talk to a person, sometimes by name, where I have no existing contact with them and they are not known to anyone else in my network). In my new role, I am trying to set up a new buildings structures team in an established Pell Frischmann office in Birmingham. So yes, I do have to do a small amount – but much prefer to meet people face to face, or work from personal recommendations etc.
All I would ask of a recipient of a cold call – if you are going to take a message but the person I am calling for is never actually going to ring me back – please tell me. I am a professional trying to build a network of possible future relationships – I don’t want to waste anyone’s time either…
Sue, I do like your points 6 and 7. If I am trying to open up a new relationship, and doing it via a cold call – I would more than welcome a bit of give and take. If I can help out with something or in someway assist the organisation I am contacting, that seems fair and sensible to me. To be honest, it is what I am seeking anyway – the establishment of an open and mutually beneficial business relationship – and this often has to start from something small first. For example, giving a structural engineering reality check review of an architects early scheme, in return for a cup of coffee…
@DMS_StructEng
Hi David,
Thanks for your reply. I’ve called people without knowing them before too. I don’t object to it in principle, sometimes its really necessary, but it depends what your purpose is. After all, many of our clients ring us ‘cold’!
I bumped into a contact on the train a couple of days ago and he said that his own research suggested that senior professionals don’t like to be cold called because it is not on their terms. They would prefer to receive something in the post – then they can decide if (and when) to respond to it.
I wonder if sending something by post is a bit old fashioned, and whether dropping an email to a new ‘cold’ contact is a better alternative.
The fact is, it is undeniable that cold calling is not an effective route to building a professional business. It is far better to start from a small list of contacts via face to face meetings, and let things grow bit by bit from there. Seeing a new person in a networking event allows you to instantly gauge the reaction to your business approach – and you always tend to start out talking about more social stuff to see what the other person is like anyway… At least, I hope that is the right way – it’s what I’ve been doing!
…but there is always twitter…
@DMS_StructEng
I think you all are a little bit off. Sometimes a hard sell is needed, sometimes it’s not. The good sales person needs to intuit when to pressure and when to be chill.
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Hard Selling is never ever called for. The term implies pushing someone where they dont want to go. What is the point of that.
If you are refering to the tanacity of the salesperson to keep going, then fine, but remember: People only buy what they percieve is missing and that they cannot fix with their current resources.
Don’t get hung up on whether cold calling works or not. It does, if it is done correctly, with respect and with the intention of helping someone to buy.
One of the main reasons salespeople say Cold Calling doesnt work is because they are doing it wrong. Starting with the mindset that they are trying to persuade or manipulate.
Agree with most of what you written Julian. “Hard Selling” could be viewed as selling with conviction or enthusiasm which is a good thing.
I think cold calling is still a part of the sales mix for small businesses and many companies I know still do it effectively. Networking is also a great part but the two can work alongside each other.
There are times even in what I consider my extensive network I cannot get an email for a organisation I would like to speak at and have to resort to cold calling. More often than not I am charming enough not to have the phone slammed down.
Good tips Su
Cold calling is the backbone of my business. It enables me to me literally hundreds of interesting people every month. Some I am able to help with their buying others I’m not.
If anyone did hang up on me, I would put it down to them having a bad day. I never take it personally. Incidentally, I have had just one person last year hang up on me. It turned out that he had just received an email informing him that he was to be laid off the following week.
Good to remember: “people are not their behaviours”
It’s also good for major organisations too David.
Some fantastic comments and a very thought provoking discussion.
Su, I really like your attitude as a ‘gatekeeper’, after all those that are ‘selling’ may one day be ‘buying’ so good mannners and a friendly attitude never hurt!
Julian, totally love your appraoch .. may well hire you in the future!! We should definitely meet up for a chat some day (you know me on twitter as @roundaboutmag – thanks for retweeting me today too!)
Jeremy, I agree with most of what you’ve said too – possibly all of it but those definitions can be a bit distracting at times!
I cold call a fair bit too and one thing I think should be borne in mind when calling is the fact that it is not scheduled for the potential client and could be an interruption. I therefore ALWAYS ask if it’s ok to talk and will happily call them back later if necessary. After all if it really does take 7 contacts with a person then the aborted call counts towards that 😉
Happy chatting everyone!
Thanks Gemma. You have a new follower on Twitter. How’s Hadleigh looking nowadays?
I find this topic really interesting as for many many years I have been the gatekeeper.
If I want a product or service I will tend to ask for recommendations or research it. I have found, and it may just be my experience, that the companies who adopt the cold calling hard sell are never the ones I would buy from.
I agree with Su, if someone is not hard sell then there are sometimes opportunities there to work with each other, or to refer them to other more suitable companies.
At the end of the day it is about courtesy, treat the caller as you would like to be handled, and when I say I am not interested in that particular product or service because I am tied into a contract or have purchased or have spent the budget – STOP – don’t keep giving me the hard sell, it will only alienate me.
Excellent blog Su, thank you.
Thanks for your comment Helen, much appreciated.