Cold Calling For Beginners - A Talk Track To Book More Meetings

Cold calling is one of the fastest ways to book meetings, but many sellers aren't trained on it. Let's take a look at some common mistakes and go over a framework that's bound to book your more meetings!

Introduction

"There’s no silver bullet to running cold calls but the sellers that mess up typically have these in common: they don’t personalise the message to the persona, they wait too long before getting the prospect involved, and they pitch on the call."

The result? You get told: Not interested. We have a solution for that. Or you just get hung up on.

Cold calling is still one of the fastest way to book meetings though. You just need to be shown how.

Hi, I’m Viktor, a full-cycle Account Executive turned Sales Manager with 10 years of B2B Sales experience and on this channel I cover topics from prospecting to closing and everything in between.

And by the end of this specific video you’ll have a framework you can use the very next time you pick up the phone. Let’s do this!

The Structure of a Successful Cold Call

First, let’s go through WHAT a good cold call structure looks like. There are many ways you can do it, but this is a great place to start. Then we’ll cover HOW to run the call, and lastly I’ll show you a live example.

There are 6 things your call has to cover.

1. Greeting: Every cold call starts with a greeting. The prospects won’t be familiar with you or your company, so state your name and company clearly.
2. Put them at ease: At this point, the prospect will sense this is a cold call, so you want to put them at ease before their fight or flight response kicks in. One good way to do this is to be straightforward and call out that this is a cold call. Now they have some idea of what to expect.
3. Seek permission: Remember, to them, this is a major interruption, so you need their permission to get to the point. Many sellers I’ve seen skip this and think it is okay to just say “I don’t want to waste your time so I’ll get straight to the point” then start talking about what their company does. The only thing this does is get the prospect angry and hang up or tell you they’re not interested. So ask for their consent first.
4. Educate on a problem or challenge: Now you need to show that you’re not just reading a script but actually did your homework and they have something to gain by talking to you. You do this by educating them on a problem or challenge. Something that’s probably familiar to them but it’s reassuring that they’re not the only ones facing this and they’re talking to someone who’s seen this before.
5. Qualify if you’re talking to the right person: But neither you, nor the prospect has time to chit-chat. At this point you want to qualify if you’re talking to the right person. Even though their title and role might signal that they’re responsible for the problem area you’re calling about you could be completely off. And the chances of this happening only increases as you go up market.
6. End with a call to action: Lastly, end the call by asking for interest and sell the meeting. Preferably within the next 3 days.

Now that we know what a good structure looks like, let’s go over 5 things we can do to stack the odds in our favour.

1. Make the call about them: First thing to keep in mind is to make the call about them. The words customisation and personalisation get thrown around a lot. But do you even know the difference? You have to customise your message to the persona and personalise to the person. Customise to the persona, personalise to the person. The persona might be responsible for getting a result or impact at the company, but as a person they might like to ski. Hold that thought!
2. Cut the fluff: Next, you want to cut the fluff. You’re an interruption, and the clock is ticking, so your message needs to be crisp and to the point.
3. Engage them early with a question: You also want to make this a conversation. Show me a person who likes to be talked at! Right? So engage them early with a question. Almost any question will do, to be honest.
4. Go in for the close: Now, what if you’re in luck and the prospect has time and is interested in talking? Do you stay on the phone? Remember: you’re not here to do discovery but to build pipeline, so keep it to 1-3 minutes and go in for the close.
5. Sell the meeting: When ending the call, you want to sell the meeting, and one of the best ways to do it is by framing your question in a way where “No” means “Yes”. See, every “Yes” means change, and people are generally scared of change. After all, right now they’re safe. So instead of asking “How about we continue this talk tomorrow or later this week?” try “Opposed to keeping the conversation going tomorrow or later this week?”. Small change, big difference. Try it!

Let’s look at a real-life example. I’ll customize my talk track to a Head of Sales at an early-stage Startup with a 10-person sales team.

🗣️ Hi Rachel, This is Viktor Hatfaludi calling from Revenue Ramp.

You're probably gonna hate me because this is a cold call.

As a fellow skier can I get 60 seconds to tell you why I called and then you can decide if it makes sense to continue talking?

📞 Sure.

🗣️ Appreciate it, Rachel. I saw you’ve hired 3 new Account Execs and still going. Typically when I talk to Revenue Leaders in this growth stage, their priorities are building pipeline, recruiting, and coaching new hires so they ramp faster.

This last one is key but day to day fires and getting pulled into meetings gets in the way and as a result reps take longer to ramp or underperform. At Revenue Ramp we help Startups like yours overcome this challenge.

Does this resonate with you or do you have things figured out?

📞 Well, I do want to spend more time coaching my team, but sometimes it feels like there’s just not enough hours in the day.

🗣️ I get that. It’s a familiar feeling. Listen - I appreciate that you're in the middle of other tasks right now. Would you be opposed to talking more tomorrow or later this week about how we can play a role in training and developing your team? No commitments.

Credit where credit is due: I took inspiration from Josh Braun, Jason Bay, and the team over at 30 minutes to presidents club when putting together this example, so go check out their LinkedIn for regular cold calling tips.

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