Cold calling can be a daunting task, especially if you are new to an organization and/or how well you know the product you are selling in comparison to your competitors.Similar to anything in life, it is all about the confidence that you bring to the call and not being afraid to admit you may not have all the answers to their questions (especially technical ones). I believe if you can humanize the experience and showcase real value to their role and organization when you are calling people out of the blue, they are far more likely to give you the opportunity to get your message across. Additionally, a key component of cold calling is doing prior research to personalize the call to that particular individual and their business.
How to handle Cold Call objections
Our team utilizes an abundance of third-party stories while handling objections. We will also be completely transparent in our introduction to help circumvent objections. We will say something along the lines of, “that reminds me of company X when we reached out to them a few months ago (who are currently our customers) and they were in a similar situation as you and thought that their current X was performing optimally. However when we conducted an apples to apples comparison of X value add compared to ours, they quickly realized they could do x, y, and z by utilizing us where they couldn’t before. Does any of this resonate or sound like something you have encountered before?” We will also prepare early in the call to help prevent objections from occurring. For example, “I know I am calling out of the blue and to be completely transparent, we are a direct competitor of X. Now I would be crazy if I thought I would get you to do X on a 5 minute phone call but I would like to see if it makes sense to have a conversation about X, is this fair?”
On Onboarding, Training and Upskilling SDRs
We continuously strive to provide relevant information such as questions, concerns and pushbacks that SDRs are most likely to encounter when reaching out to prospects; this can actually help evolve and strengthen our onboarding process.
We have discovered that presenting realistic situations and listening to previous SDR calls (we utilize Gong and have created an asset library for new hires to listen to), our SDRs have become more proactive and began outreaching much more effectively than they have been previously.
The second facet to this is that every week we have a “learning is earning session,” where we bring experts in the field from inside and outside the organization to help educate us on new trends in the industry, advantages and disadvantages of our product compared to our competitors, and new products that we are introducing and launching, and how we can weave that narrative into what we are already addressing when outbounding to potential customers.
Favorite Sales Book Review
Prospect: The Sandler Way
This is a great book that my boss gave me and we share it with all our new SDR’s. The book showcases the Sandler selling method by providing examples of how to utilize pattern interrupts and how to ask for permission from the individuals you are outreaching to. We want our SDRs to continuously be curious, confused, and concerned when on-call with a prospect. This book gives you the tools to be successful at utilizing this selling methodology.
How to handle objections
Our team utilizes a lot of third-party stories when we are handling objections and we also will be completely frank in our intro to help circumvent objections. We will say something like, “ that reminds me of X company when we called out to them a few months ago (of course now they are a customer of ours) and they were in a similar situation and thought that there current X was performing optimally, but when we actually did an apples to apples comparison of X value add compared to ours they quickly realized they could do x,y,z utilizing us where they couldn’t before, does any of that resonate/sound like something you have encountered?” We will also set the scene early in the call to help prevent objections from occurring. “ I know I am calling out of the blue and to be completely frank we are a direct competitor of X, now I would be crazy if I thought I would get you to do X on a 5 min phone call but I would like to see if it makes sense to have a conversation about X, is that fair?”
Onboarding/Training/Upskilling
We are always looking to evolve and strengthen our onboarding process to make it more relevant and informational with regards to the types of questions/concerns/push back that our SDRs are likely to encounter when reaching out to folks. We find by creating realistic situations and listening to previous SDR calls ( we utilize Gong and have created an asset library for new hires to listen to) our SDRs have been able to get up to speed much more quickly and start outreaching much more effectively, than they have previously. The second part to this is every week we have a “learning is earning session” where we bring folks in from inside and outside the organization to help educate us on new trends in the industry, advantages/disadvantages of our product compared to our competitors, and new products that we are introducing/launching and how we can weave that narrative into what we are already saying when out bounding to potential customers.
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