Build Cold Calling Scripts to Make Sales Appointments and Grow Your Small Business
Stephen Craine
March 08, 2009
Build cold calling scripts and make sales appointments that will benefit your small business by using a sales appointment process as a base for your call. If youīre getting it wrong now it will be costing you time and money, and youīre missing out on sales opportunities.
Many small business sales people use a cold calling script. It can be written or mentally rehearsed. Often it isnīt effective and doesnīt get the results the business wants. Small businesses, and self employed people that sell their own services, havenīt got the sales training resources that many large sales organisations have. A common mistake I hear and see small businesses making when they make sales appointment calls is that they use a cold call script but they donīt build it around a cold calling sales appointment process.
Imagine if you used an effective sales appointment making process. Then you can build your own words and phrases around that process. Iīve used this sales training technique with my sales team and seen their results multiply. You will have more selling opportunities and your business will grow.
Consider some of the ideas and sales training in these 3 stages of a sales appointment call. Try them out and measure the results you achieve.
Start your cold calling script with an introduction
Grab the prospectīs attention, tell them the possible benefits they could gain. Give them a real motivator to continue talking to you. This is where small businesses have both an advantage and a disadvantage compared to the big well known companies.
Your disadvantage against a big company is that the buyer recognizes the company because it has been well marketed. The prospect knows the company and may have information on what they can offer. They have seen or heard their adverts and marketing, and if the buyer has any interest in what this company sells they will listen.
A small business making cold calls has to get more information into their cold calling scripts. Basic information such as; who you are, what you do, and most important of all, the reason for your call, should all be clearly communicated. You have to grab the buyerīs attention. Remember, the buyer has just picked up the phone. It will take time, a few seconds, for the information you give them to register. Help them out, make it easy for them, and give them some time.
The advantage that a small business has is that they can quickly adapt and be flexible with what they can offer specific sales prospects. Small business sales operations can also target niche markets, and change to meet the market and customer demands and trends. Small business, or a self-employed person, selling their own products can make the calls more personal to each prospect. This personal touch can be a unique selling point something very valuable in marketing your small business. It makes you stand out from the competition.
Motivate the buyer to answer your questions by using benefits
Use phrases such as, īSo I can see if you could benefit from this offer...ī
How about being honest with your prospect. That will make a refreshing change. Tell them, īTo make sure I am not wasting your time can I ask you...ī
Make your appointment setting call a conversation. This is one of your big advantages as a small business as you are not confined to rigid cold calling scripts and company rules.
Donīt interrogate your potential customer
Large scale sales appointment operations will have a tick list on screen of the information they need to ask a potential customer before making an appointment. The ones that use rigid scripts have set questions for the caller to ask. This can sound like an interrogation to the prospect. A technique, which I include on the sales training I present to my teams on how to build a cold calling script, is ask qualifying questions as part of a normal conversation. Simply note the information as you talk, and I mean talk, not interrogate the buyer.
To gain the appointment ask a question and use more benefits
In your cold calling script you have used benefits that the potential customer could gain from doing business with you. Now add some more, especially those specific and unique to doing business with your small business. You want to communicate messages that will influence, not manipulate, them to meet with you and discuss what they could gain.
The prospect will only really know whether they could gain, or are missing out, when they have met you. When they have met you, and heard what you can give them, they are then in a position to decide if they want to buy.
Use any possible benefits that you have heard hit a sweet spot during the call with the buyer as a reason they should agree to a sales appointment. If when you spoke about saving money, increasing production, or that you are a local company, you heard a positive signal from the prospect, you can use this when you try and arrange the appointment.
For example, īSo that I can show you how I can protect your investment while still giving you a good return, are you available on Monday evening?ī
Coat your request for an appointment in benefits. Ask a simple straight forward question, and give a potential benefit that the prospect could get from meeting with you.
This is a small part of the sales process I use when training my sales teams on how to make a cold call sales appointment. Itīs a starting point on which to build a cold calling script. It can be added to by the individual using it both in techniques and sales skills, and the words and phrases that are used. You can get more free appointment training and information by going to Appointment Setting on my website.
One of my aims is to make the sales training that has been developed and aimed at large sales organisations available to small and medium size businesses. Often the high cost of effective sales training is too high an investment for some companies, and individuals working for themselves. Buying training books and sifting through hundreds of pages is a poor use of your time just to find a few nuggets of worthwhile information.
On my sales training website you can find free sales training that will benefit small and medium businesses. All the techniques and skills have been tried, tested, and developed, by the sales teams I manage and train. Have a click around the site. You can even send in any questions you have, or obstacles to your sales success, and I, and sales people around the world will give you some answers.
Many small business sales people use a cold calling script. It can be written or mentally rehearsed. Often it isnīt effective and doesnīt get the results the business wants. Small businesses, and self employed people that sell their own services, havenīt got the sales training resources that many large sales organisations have. A common mistake I hear and see small businesses making when they make sales appointment calls is that they use a cold call script but they donīt build it around a cold calling sales appointment process.
Imagine if you used an effective sales appointment making process. Then you can build your own words and phrases around that process. Iīve used this sales training technique with my sales team and seen their results multiply. You will have more selling opportunities and your business will grow.
Consider some of the ideas and sales training in these 3 stages of a sales appointment call. Try them out and measure the results you achieve.
Start your cold calling script with an introduction
Grab the prospectīs attention, tell them the possible benefits they could gain. Give them a real motivator to continue talking to you. This is where small businesses have both an advantage and a disadvantage compared to the big well known companies.
Your disadvantage against a big company is that the buyer recognizes the company because it has been well marketed. The prospect knows the company and may have information on what they can offer. They have seen or heard their adverts and marketing, and if the buyer has any interest in what this company sells they will listen.
A small business making cold calls has to get more information into their cold calling scripts. Basic information such as; who you are, what you do, and most important of all, the reason for your call, should all be clearly communicated. You have to grab the buyerīs attention. Remember, the buyer has just picked up the phone. It will take time, a few seconds, for the information you give them to register. Help them out, make it easy for them, and give them some time.
The advantage that a small business has is that they can quickly adapt and be flexible with what they can offer specific sales prospects. Small business sales operations can also target niche markets, and change to meet the market and customer demands and trends. Small business, or a self-employed person, selling their own products can make the calls more personal to each prospect. This personal touch can be a unique selling point something very valuable in marketing your small business. It makes you stand out from the competition.
Motivate the buyer to answer your questions by using benefits
Use phrases such as, īSo I can see if you could benefit from this offer...ī
How about being honest with your prospect. That will make a refreshing change. Tell them, īTo make sure I am not wasting your time can I ask you...ī
Make your appointment setting call a conversation. This is one of your big advantages as a small business as you are not confined to rigid cold calling scripts and company rules.
Donīt interrogate your potential customer
Large scale sales appointment operations will have a tick list on screen of the information they need to ask a potential customer before making an appointment. The ones that use rigid scripts have set questions for the caller to ask. This can sound like an interrogation to the prospect. A technique, which I include on the sales training I present to my teams on how to build a cold calling script, is ask qualifying questions as part of a normal conversation. Simply note the information as you talk, and I mean talk, not interrogate the buyer.
To gain the appointment ask a question and use more benefits
In your cold calling script you have used benefits that the potential customer could gain from doing business with you. Now add some more, especially those specific and unique to doing business with your small business. You want to communicate messages that will influence, not manipulate, them to meet with you and discuss what they could gain.
The prospect will only really know whether they could gain, or are missing out, when they have met you. When they have met you, and heard what you can give them, they are then in a position to decide if they want to buy.
Use any possible benefits that you have heard hit a sweet spot during the call with the buyer as a reason they should agree to a sales appointment. If when you spoke about saving money, increasing production, or that you are a local company, you heard a positive signal from the prospect, you can use this when you try and arrange the appointment.
For example, īSo that I can show you how I can protect your investment while still giving you a good return, are you available on Monday evening?ī
Coat your request for an appointment in benefits. Ask a simple straight forward question, and give a potential benefit that the prospect could get from meeting with you.
This is a small part of the sales process I use when training my sales teams on how to make a cold call sales appointment. Itīs a starting point on which to build a cold calling script. It can be added to by the individual using it both in techniques and sales skills, and the words and phrases that are used. You can get more free appointment training and information by going to Appointment Setting on my website.
One of my aims is to make the sales training that has been developed and aimed at large sales organisations available to small and medium size businesses. Often the high cost of effective sales training is too high an investment for some companies, and individuals working for themselves. Buying training books and sifting through hundreds of pages is a poor use of your time just to find a few nuggets of worthwhile information.
On my sales training website you can find free sales training that will benefit small and medium businesses. All the techniques and skills have been tried, tested, and developed, by the sales teams I manage and train. Have a click around the site. You can even send in any questions you have, or obstacles to your sales success, and I, and sales people around the world will give you some answers.