It goes without saying that buyers today have a very different set of tools at their disposal versus just 10 or 20 years ago. There’s a tremendous amount of information online and on social networks that they can use in order to make a purchase decision.
Think of the last time that you purchased a product.
You probably started with a Google search where you didn’t even leave the first page of results, and you started to get a feeling for what was out there.
You may have checked a few review sites to see what other people are saying and see who the top players are in the market.
Once you narrow down your top three or four you probably went to their websites and started to look at what their content and thought leadership…are they legit?
At some point in this process, your phone probably rang with an unknown number that you either blocked or sent to voicemail.
If you decided to take that call or listen to your voicemail, and it was someone describing a problem that you were trying to solve at the moment and how they may have helped you might have added that company to your list of ones that you were checking out.
You may have then filled out their lead form, or taking a demo with them.
Here’s the important point: had no one ever made that call you may have never heard of the company and never added them to your shortlist.
That right there is the value of cold calling in 2020.
In the competitive market we live in, you want to use every measure possible to get into the conversation and ensure that buyers know that you are one of the players in the space and are solving the specific issues that they’re having right now.
So it starts with really knowing your industry, knowing the vocabulary and becoming a student of the problems that your potential buyers have.
That way when you make the call you can be talking about how you can help them to solve problems and introduce one of the options, which is your solution.
You must be highly skilled and trained for if they do answer the phone or listen to the voicemail because you want to be able to state their pain points, state your value proposition, handle objections and close for the meeting if you happen to catch them at the right time.
But you’re never going to know that if you don’t make the call!
Are you going to cold call this year? Leave a comment below.
