Cold calling gets a bad rap these days. You may have seen the statistic that most cold calling professionals report a 2% success rate. The truth is, with the right scripts, you can make cold calling work for your business.
For decades, we’ve heard cries of “cold calls are dead!” Yet, in the year 2022, cold calls are still very much alive and well. Why is that? Because, when done right, cold calling works. With the right mindset, the right tools, and the right script, cold calls are an excellent way to prospect new leads and encourage them to book a meeting.
Ready to see how to improve your cold calling efforts? Let’s go over some of the best formulas for cold calling scripts that will deliver outstanding results for your sales team!
Why Use Cold Calling Scripts?
For some, the term “script” is a dirty word when it comes to sales. After all, a script is inherently generic, boilerplate, and stilted, right? You’ve probably already guessed by the subject of this post that I’m here to challenge that idea.
A great cold calling script isn’t generic or stiff. When you’re using a script that’s right for your team, purpose, and customer base, it’s a great tool that helps your sales team propel any conversation forward along a repeatable, proven path. In short, even your most junior team members won’t ever find themselves floundering, looking for the right words to move the prospect forward.
I developed the talk tracks in my Sales Accelerator specifically for this reason. On my journey to create those foolproof talk tracks, I discovered four common threads that run through all quality sales scripts. Let’s dive into those four conversations that you need to have scripted and planned out, so you can close sales confidently from start to finish.
1. Your Sales Script Should Have A Clear Introduction
The first thing you should do is tell your client who you are, your company's name and why you are on their phone. Because you have looked your prospective client up on LinkedIn, you know who they are, where they work, and their role or title. Your prospective client has no idea who you are. This is why your contacts chafe when a salesperson starts with something like, "Do you have 27 seconds" or "Is now a good time?" Because they have no idea who you are and what you want, you start with a negative first experience, making it easy to dismiss you sight unseen and pitch unheard.
- Keep things short (20 seconds max).
- Introducing yourself and your organization clearly makes your call more credible.
Personalize things! Yes, we’re using cold calling scripts, but there should be places in your script to mention your prospective client and their business by name and situation.
2. Your Sales Script Should Offer Immediate Value
"I am calling you today to ask you for a 25-minute meeting to provide you with our executive briefing and the four trends we believe are going to have the greatest implications for your business over the next 12 to 18 months. Even if there are no next steps, we'll leave you with our insight deck and you'll know how we are looking at these trends and their implications."
Low success rate isn’t about the medium—it’s about the lack of value offered to the prospect. You don't want to offer your prospective client a chance to learn about your company or a chance for you to learn about them.
Your cold calling scripts need to show your prospect that you understand what should concern them about their future results, and offer preliminary value toward helping them start to understand that they may need to make changes in the first call.
Put yourself in your prospect’s shoes: Don’t approach the call with how you can help yourself, approach it from the angle of helping the prospect.
3. Anticipate (and Overcome) Objections With Your Script
"The briefing is really only 25 minutes, and I promise you it is worth your time, and you will likely want to share it with your team."
No matter what your client uses as an objection–like asking you to send them information or try them again next quarter–the real concern lies somewhere else. This is true in every sales call, but with cold calls, you’re battling one large objection off the bat: The objection that this call is a waste of the prospect’s time!
Your script should walk your sales team through main objections they will encounter in their calls, helping to propel the call—and the prospect—forward.
4. Book The Meeting With Your Script
"What does Thursday afternoon look like?" If you need a follow up, ask "What's better?"
The number one goal of a cold call is to book a meeting. Build your call scripts for sales around this fact. Ask for too big of a commitment in your cold calling scripts and it will hurt your success rate.
Ask for the meeting more than once—it may take the prospect more than one attempt for them to see the value in booking the meeting! I once called a prospect for 76 weeks in a row. On week 76, he took my call and gave me orders.
Closing More Sales With Cold Calling Scripts
There is nothing inherently wrong with cold calls despite their reputation. Cold calling is simply one of the many different methods you can—and should—use to prospect and nurture leads. The secret to success is not in the communication medium but in the preparation and your approach. By working with your team to craft and rehearse quality cold calling scripts, you can increase your success rate, book more meetings, and ultimately close more sales.
The Sales Accelerator has more than 100 talk tracks for client objections and challenges you can use to build your cold call scripts for a meeting which is helpful for every client conversation. Good selling is good language choices delivered with confidence.
