The first 10 steps, 10 seconds, 10 words spoken are crucial in any interaction. On the phone it’ll make the difference between you having a great conversation and getting pushed off.
A little context…I’ve been working over the last few weeks on an outbound call campaign. While listening in to the calls we’ve been hacking best practices to find what does and doesn’t work in the modern age where cold calling ‘is dead’.
The introduction
You should have a solid reason for disturbing someone and a good reason for how you found them. If you do you’ll engage 100% more.
Bad/Worst example:
Hi, are you the person responsible for marketing/sales/..?
Better example:
Jump straight into pitching.. ‘The reason I’m calling you today is that I thought I’d let you know how we’re helping [competitor name] [value statement]…’
Awesome example:
Explain how you came to want to speak to them.. ‘My colleague found you on linkedin and noticed that you were into [industry name] so I thought I’d give you a call. The reason is’
The third approach beats the others hands down. You’re telling them that they’re special, that you’ve found them based on their credentials and that there’s no one else in the organisation that you want to talk to at that stage.
Give it a try, you’ll be surprised at the response 🙂
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