You may have heard it said that for a business to be successful fifty percent of its time should be spent in marketing.

Businesses that produce great products and don’t get them to the customer go broke. Businesses that produce second rate products but get them to the customer (and the customer wants them) can do very well indeed.

We all try a variety of marketing and advertising strategies, ranging from use of printed media, radio, tv, word of mouth, but I want to talk about everyone’s favourite – cold calling.

There are times when the most successful way to contact your prospective client is face to face. In person. It is great if you can get an introduction, and so you should be actively cultivating your social network and encouraging referrals (a great way to encourage referrals, by the way, is to give them and to ask for them).

But if you can’t get an introduction then it is going to have to be a cold call. Who likes to cold call? Not many of us at all. Sometimes we feel that if we send a brochure out first and phone second it helps. And sometimes it might. It is all about testing and trialling things out.

But if you are doomed to cold call, then here are some tips that we picked up from a friend in Melbourne who is in corporate sales. He has been for years, and I believe he is very good. At any rate, he keeps getting bigger and better jobs. At the moment his job consists of cold calling businesses and trying to sell them software packages. And not any kind of software that they have already had, he has to try and sell them on a concept on which they are also cold. He is approaching big head offices in Melbourne.

Here are his tips:

1. Do your research. What is the company about, what do they do? Do they have any major projects on the go at the moment? What are their values, needs and buzz words. This will help in talking to them.

2. Go to the top. Don’t talk to people in the IT department (or whatever department is relevant to what you are trying to sell them,) they ultimately do not have the decision making power.
Go to the boss. Find out who the owner or CEO is in your research, or by phoning up the company and asking. That is who you want to phone. If you have been talking to someone lower down the tree then get the details of their head honcho off them. Then phone the head honcho. But don’t mention that you were previously talking to someone lower down the tree, or they may say something like “Thanks for phoning, I’ll talk to (Melissa) and she’ll bring me up to speed and then I’ll get back to you.” This is salesman’s death.

3. Have a reason to phone. This helps you get past the watchdog at the switch board. They are hired and trained to keep you out. If you can phone up and say “I would like to speak to Mr Jones, it is in relation to project X’, then you have a better chance. It puts you on the inside and increases your status. The secretary is unlike to say “no” because you sound like the CEO knows you and you have a reason to call.
Having a reason also helps you structure your pitch for the great moment when you are finally on the phone with your target.

4. Make your reason relevant to them. They will only let you go further if they feel it is relevant and something they may need. This is where your home work helps.

5. Don’t be afraid of conflict. Once you have the interview to present your goods, don’t be afraid of conflict. You want them to raise the objections that they have (if they have any, I mean, great if they don’t). Those objections need to be brought out into the open and then you need to object to their objections. For example you might say “You have a website that is difficult to use. It simply isn’t going to get you any sales, and quite frankly, that’s not good enough.” Now this takes courage, and you also have to be able to connect with them, or you will just come across as obnoxious. It also requires that you really believe in your product. If you think that your product is excellent, it really is a great deal and they would be so much better off with it, it will be easier to pitch it to them than if you really feel that you are ripping them off.

So, try those tips when you next have to cold call, but don’t get discouraged if things aren’t all plain sailing – our friend says that he gets maybe 1 out of 30 that he calls. So you need to make sure that you have plans in place to ensure that the value of a new customer to your business is great enough to warrant spending the amount of time wooing them.

And if you really can’t bring yourself to cold call, well, having a great website is also a great way to get new customers! So speak to us.

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