Contrary to popular belief, cold calling is still an effective method of generating new business leads and gaining appointments. I recently interviewed Wendy Weiss, "the queen of cold calling," who explained five rules you need to follow to achieve good results.
- Belief. Your belief system affects your ability to make great calls more than anything else. If you believe people will not take your call or you are interrupting people, you will not succeed. Start believing that your product and service is of value to your prospect.
- Target. A targeted list is the next critical rule. If you use a shotgun approach and simply dial for dollars, you will not achieve good results. The more targeted your list is, the greater the likelihood you will connect with interested prospects.
- Skill. You can't expect to go from being a novice caller to expert in a few days or even weeks. You need to develop your skill and proficiency, and most people don't give themselves enough time to accomplish this.
- Understand goals. Each call must have a clear, specific and realistic objective. Closing a deal in the first call is not a realistic goal; however, discovering who the key decision-maker is might be. And connecting with that person may be a good secondary goal.
- Have a system. You need to consider three things:
- Track results. Record the days and times you call, the progress made and details of people you connect with.
- Apply best practices, which include varying your calling times, making calls every day, creating high-value openings and using scripts.
- Scripts. Scripts should be flexible and not sound like you are reading from a sheet of paper.
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