For any company, the issue of finding new clients, which is associated with working in a “cold” market, is always relevant. How do “cold” sales differ from “warm” sales? How to turn a skeptical stranger into a “hot” client?

How are “cold” sales different from “hot” sales?

Negotiations with clients without intermediaries are called “Hot” and “cold” sales and are carried out in different markets. The “hot” market is regular customers, store visitors, that is, the target audience.

For any company, the issue of finding new clients, which is associated with working in a “cold” market, is always relevant. As a rule, “cold” sales involve business trips, telephone conversations and a mandatory meeting with a product presentation.

“Cold” calls are telephone conversations, the result of which should be a positive attitude, an agreement on a meeting or a concluded deal.

Specifics of working in a “cold” market

Working in a cold market has its pros and cons.

Any cold sales department needs technology that will help it work effectively with customers.

10 rules for successful cold sales

1. Before negotiations, let go of tension and relax. A successful salesperson is an energetic and confident person.
2. Self-motivation.
3. Thoroughly know the product to be sold.
4. Create a comfortable environment for the client and evoke sympathy. To “hook” the buyer, simply to interest them, but not to “shove” the product.
5. Get a feel for the client. What language, with what intonation does he speak? You can use similar vocabulary, tone of voice, style of speech.
6. Generate interest in yourself, in your product, service, company with the help of the media and participation in buyer meetings, forums, fairs, exhibitions and other events. Creation of mailings, leaflets with useful information for potential clients.
7. Record effective “cold” calls with appointments.
8. Constantly and daily replenish the database of new clients.
9. Remember that every “no” brings you closer to closing the deal. In order to conclude a profitable deal, you must be prepared to hear a lot of refusals.
10. Be sure to prepare before calls and meetings using cold sales scenarios.

Ability to respond to failures

Drawing up a form (table) for entering information received during negotiations.

Work in pairs. Conversation with the manager, department head and director. The goal is to make an appointment.

How to bypass Cerberus?

Choose a tactic and come up with a wording to bypass the adamant secretary.

Objections

Remember the answers to common objections and work in pairs.

• “We entered into an agreement with another company.”
• "We're not interested in that."
• "We don't need this."
• "We can't afford it."
• “Call another employee.”

Statistics show that almost 90% of information received at trainings and seminars is forgotten after a month. Trainings are useful if the sales manager regularly trains, repeats and consolidates the knowledge acquired during the training.

Conclusion

All the secrets of “cold” sales lie in permanent job above oneself. Those who are capable of self-motivation succeed. Faith and love for your work help resolve any difficult situations!

The primary goal of cold calling is to increase sales and attract new clients and customers. As a rule, people react to them unfriendly, and sometimes even aggressively. To prevent the conversation from ending in the first seconds, it is important to know how to start a cold call in order to interest the person on the other end of the phone.

Cold call script

Everything must be planned out. Even such an unpredictable thing as a telephone conversation should be outlined point by point. are built according to the following algorithm:

1. Greetings. It must be formal, which will let the listener know that the conversation will be about things that are serious for him.
2. The business card of the company and the caller himself. Here the seller should introduce himself as briefly but informatively as possible. Not just: “Semyon Semyonovich from the Lotos company is bothering you,” this will not give the client anything. And here: “This is Semyon Semenovich from the Lotos company.” We are a major supplier of legal information systems. The number of our clients throughout the country is more than 6,000 companies,” is a completely different matter. In this case, the person understands with whom he is talking.
3. Purpose of the call. The third step should make it clear to the client why he was disturbed. Just one expression needs to make it clear that he is not wasting his time.
4. Question of buyer interest. At this stage, even after a spectacular introduction, many fail. A well-posed question will lead to the expected answer. Erroneous approach: “Maria Alekseevna, are you interested in high-quality submission of quarterly reports?” Experience shows that in more than 90% of cases this type of questioning receives a negative answer. There are much more chances when formulating: “Maria Alekseevna, I am sure that your company, like most others with whom I have been fortunate to collaborate, is interested in high-quality preparation and submission of reports.”

Technique for starting a cold call

Starting a cold call is an important stage on which the effectiveness of the subsequent conversation depends. Therefore, you need to start it in such a way as to attract the client’s attention. In any case, a person will answer your call, but the answer is formed based on what you tell him. The rule works here: “Whatever the question is, so will be the answer.” Stupid and empty questions give rise to stupid and empty answers.

Stupid and empty questions give rise to stupid and empty answers.

Let's look at an example where a conversation started poorly:

P: Maria Alekseevna, are you interested in the promotion developed for lawyers, which is offered by our company “MIG”?

The conversation is over. This perfect example how the answer matches the content of the question.

The correct question is:

P: Hello, Maria Alekseevna. I am Alexey Semenov from the MIG company. Do you use SPS? If you don't mind, tell me what kind of program this is?

K: Yes, I use it. We work with SoftBukh.

Then comes the decisive moment, which determines whether the conversation will stop or continue. Let's look at the unfortunate turn of events:

P: Would you like to use our services by replacing your current service provider?

The conversation has reached a dead end and cannot be continued as it will begin to irritate the client.

And now a good continuation:

P: Maria Alekseevna, what exactly attracts you to the SoftBukh program?

A casual conversation will relax the client, he will begin to list what is attractive to him in the current cooperation. The seller’s task is to listen carefully and use the received flow of information in a further conversation.

The basic rule for successfully starting a cold call is to address the client by name and patronymic. In this way, the status of the listener is elevated, which cannot but flatter him. Outright flattery is, of course, unacceptable, but respect must be required. This is the easiest way to gain the client's trust in the first seconds and increase the chances of a productive conversation. The caller's tone should be confident and his voice pleasant but clear.

Outright flattery is, of course, unacceptable, but respect must be required.

Errors in the construction of the beginning of a cold call

Let's consider 3 main rude ones that lead to collapse and refusal on the part of the listener:

1. Lack of information about the client to whom the call is made. To offer something to a buyer, you need to know what exactly he wants. Building a conversation on the basis of “finger in the sky” will not lead to anything good.
2. Poor awareness of the caller about the product/service he is offering. If the seller himself is new to his product, does not know its advantages and disadvantages, then how can he tell the client about it?
3. Buyer disinterest. You need to ask as many leading questions as possible, from which you can understand what a person needs. Blatant imposition of a product/service only interferes with the process and will negate all efforts.

Be sensitive and attentive in your conversation with a potential buyer, do not turn into a robot that acts according to a “dry”, established scheme. An individual approach to everyone is the key to successful sales!

Today we will look at one of the common technologies for working with clients and increasing the client base - the so-called. cold calls. I will tell you what cold calling is, what they are for, how to carry them out correctly, and then I will analyze the techniques and cold calling techniques For example. I think this information will be useful both directly to sales managers and their managers, who are faced with the issue of expanding their client base and increasing sales volume.

What are cold calls?

Cold calling is one of the techniques for establishing contact with potential clients, which does not involve making a sale, but serves only for initial acquaintance and planning of some subsequent actions (more substantive telephone conversations, meetings, sending commercial proposals, etc.).

That is, the main goal of cold calling is to form a base of potential clients for further offers and sales.

The term itself is borrowed from in English and in the original it sounds like Cold calling. Such calls got their name “cold” because they are usually perceived by subscribers coldly, without enthusiasm and sometimes even aggressively. Cold calls are made solely on the initiative of the caller, and subscribers on the other end often do not support this initiative for various reasons, for example, even due to employment or workload with other, more important problems.

Interestingly, in some countries the practice of cold calling has serious legal restrictions or is even prohibited altogether!

However, everything depends on how successful the call is. future prospects cooperation with this client: will they exist at all. Therefore, cold calls are a very important link in building the entire marketing chain of a company.

How to make cold calls?

Making cold calls is, in fact, very difficult, and only a few are capable of doing it truly competently, and most importantly, effectively. What is the difficulty? First of all, the fact is that, as I already said, the party receiving the call is almost always not happy about it. And this, even purely psychologically, always has a negative effect on the caller: unsuccessful cold calls reduce his motivation and desire, which makes subsequent ones even more unsuccessful. Even experienced people often cannot cope with such psychological pressure, let alone beginners.

So when thinking about how to make cold calls, there are a few important things to remember:

1. Failures are inevitable. There is simply no person in nature who would be successful in absolutely all cold calls over a long period. You need to be clearly aware of this and be prepared for it. You need to be able to hear and adequately perceive a firm “no,” and in order to learn this, you can practice on someone “your own,” for example, a colleague.
2. Well delivered speech. The success of a cold call simply depends to a huge extent on how confidently, clearly, competently the caller speaks, how he places emphasis in words, what pace he keeps, etc. Not everyone can initially boast of a well-delivered speech, however, this can and should be developed in oneself - it will not hurt in any business. You can practice using a voice recorder - make sure that the recorded sound of your voice suits you completely.
3. Talk about solving problems, benefits, emotions, and not about the product. In general, this rule applies to any sales, and when thinking about how to make cold calls, you also need to adhere to this principle. When trying to interest a client, in no case should you focus his attention on your company and its products. You need to talk about what benefits the client will receive from further cooperation with your company, what problems this will solve, and, ideally, about positive emotions and joy from using your product.
4. Follow the intended goal. The cold calls you make must have a specific goal in mind. As I already wrote, this is usually not a sale, but an appointment for a subsequent, more substantive conversation with a potential client, for example, a meeting. Therefore, before making cold calls, you need to immediately set a goal and outline a call plan that would lead to this goal. It’s absolutely not worth talking about “just about anything” in this case.

Cold calling techniques and methods.

Now let's look at popular techniques and cold calling techniques with examples. Before making cold calls, you must understand that no one is waiting for your call, and the person you are calling is most likely busy with other things that are more important to him than your call. It's quite normal. There will almost certainly be an initial reluctance to engage in dialogue, mistrust, or even aggression. Therefore, you just need to hone your cold calling techniques and techniques to perfection.

Collection of information. Before you make a cold call, you should already have enough information about the person you are calling. It can be collected most in different ways: from social networks, from mutual friends, from his colleagues, from the news, etc.

Making a call plan. Anyone who has ever encountered cold calling themselves knows that they all follow a certain already established pattern. And this is not easy, because it really is more effective. Make your own cold calling plan/template; you can use existing examples from the Internet as a basis. Literally mark down point by point what you will say and in what order.

Performance. Naturally, a cold call should begin with an introduction. It is best to state your name, position and the company you represent. Also here you can briefly describe the company’s field of activity, especially if it is little known, and this must be done in the most attractive form, however, excluding deception in any form.

For example, there is no need to say “we are a reliable Forex broker.” Instead, it is better to say “we are a leading company specializing in investments in global markets.”

Collection additional information, Control questions. Next, you should try to find out information about the potential client that is necessary for further conversation, which you could not find in open sources in order to build further dialogue on this basis.

For example: Tell me, have you ever invested money in global financial companies?

We don’t sell right away, but only interest the client. You have a cold calling goal that is not a sale, so work towards that goal. For example, you need to make an appointment or send. Try to interest your interlocutor as much as possible so that he gives his consent to the action you need.

For example: I can give you statistics showing how much our investors made over the previous year, and you can see for yourself how profitable it is.

Work with objections. As I already said, when cold calling, objections are inevitable, and sometimes even in a very harsh form. Working with objections is a separate topic, which I will discuss in one of the following articles. But you must be fluent in handling objections - only then will your cold calls be effective. Therefore, be sure to study this point.

For example: – Thank you, I’m not interested.
– Perhaps you will change your mind when you see the real results of cooperation with our company regular customers. Tell me how can I send you this information?

Respect for the client's choice. Whatever final decision your interlocutor makes, you must treat him with respect and demonstrate this, even if it is a refusal. Do not put pressure on your interlocutor under any circumstances - in this case, the path to him will be closed to you forever.

For example: – Thank you, but I have already invested money in another company X.
– Undoubtedly, X is also a very worthy company, I wish you to receive high investment income there. If you don't mind, I will periodically update you when we have offers that might interest you.

You are an expert and professional. Any cold calling technique requires that you have an expert level of knowledge in the area related to the topic of your conversation. Because if the interlocutor asks you questions (and this is quite likely), you should, without hesitation, give a professional and competent answer. But even if you cannot answer right away - in no case do you need to invent something (perhaps the question is actually a test of your competence) - it is better to say that you will clarify this information and call back.

Regularity. One of the most important rules for the success of cold calls is that they must be made regularly, thereby gaining experience and honing your skills literally to the point of automaticity. The more cold calls you make, the more ready-made answers to tricky questions and objections you will have prepared, because in general they will answer you in approximately the same way.

Smile. And finally, the last important rule of any cold calling technique is to smile during a conversation - this way your voice will sound more friendly and relaxed, which, of course, will be positively assessed by your interlocutor, and will give you a better chance of achieving your goal.

Now you have an idea of ​​what cold calling is, what it is for, and what cold calling techniques and methods look like. Practice, gain experience, improve your skills, and you will certainly achieve the desired success.

I wish you great results from your work! See you again at !

Don't be robotic when communicating with your potential clients. You know everything about the product, but what do you know about those you are calling? A cold call is a call that your potential client is not expecting and without prior preparation the chances of establishing contact with him are very low. Therefore, you should forget about a simple “calling the list”, because everyone with whom you communicate is a real person with their own problems and concerns. Try to collect as much information about it as possible before contacting the company. Talk to someone in the customer service department and find out what they offer their customers. The more you know about the company, the better: if the other day company X you are calling closed a profitable deal and wrote about it in the press, you can start the conversation with congratulations. Although the knowledge itself about what the company does will not be superfluous.

Rule 2. Get to the decision maker

The purpose of the call is not to sell, but to set up a meeting. Many sellers forget about this. How seriously do you take telephone “spam” that takes you away from important tasks in the middle of the workday in order to “push” something? It's never very pleasant. The main thing in a telephone conversation is your voice and attitude. Even a smile can be felt over the phone. But don't overdo it.

If you realize that you are talking to a person who is not competent in making decisions about a meeting, ask to connect you to the one who is responsible for this - the decision maker (DM). Remember that you are not selling, but asking if the company is interested in the product or service you offer.

It is important that the phrase be said: “If you generally like the proposal, we can continue the discussion, if not, then no, okay?” As a rule, this clear position will find a positive response on the other end of the line. The main thing in this matter is how you control yourself and how you control your voice. When used correctly, this cold calling technique is very effective.

Rule 3. Respect yourself and your competitors

As a rule, the company you are calling not only has established relationships with suppliers of goods or services from among your competitors, but also periodically receives calls of this kind from dozens of organizations. You shouldn’t question the choice, try to denigrate your competitor, or turn the conversation into “but we have it better, we have it cheaper.” Never speak badly about your competitors! Praise them for their “beautiful eyes” and yourself for your professionalism: “Are you served by company X? Yes, they have a beautiful logo, but what about the quality of service? Are you satisfied with it?

Nothing devalues ​​a product more than the desire to sell it immediately. As a rule, the desire to give yourself more significance and phrases like “I will make you an offer that you cannot refuse” are alarming and cause the opposite effect of what was expected. It's just annoying.

People love to talk about themselves and share their problems. Be prepared to listen to them. Ask the question: “Are you completely satisfied with the quality of the services (products) that X provides you, or is there still a need to improve something?” By establishing contact and arousing interest, you can understand whether everything is really so perfect.

Rule 4. No doesn’t always mean “no”

In the case of potential clients, the reason for “no” may be a simple lack of time or workload with other, higher priority tasks at the moment. This is fine. For example, when they answer you on that line: “I don’t have time for this,” this is an objection, and not a refusal at all. And you can use this as an opportunity to make an appointment and instead of “okay, I won’t bother you,” offer to meet to talk in more detail. Do not forget to specify the time and place of the meeting. Make an appointment in person: “I understand, it’s inconvenient over the phone. At a wrong time. Let's do this: I'll come to you to tell you everything. Will Wednesday at 11 o'clock suit you?

The line between importunity and persistence is very thin. When they tell you a categorical “no”, this is already a refusal. Do not cause a flurry of negative emotions on yourself, because all the negativity that pours on you will leave an unpleasant aftertaste and discourage you from working.

This is stress from which you will not be able to be effective and will have to recover. In such a situation, it is better to end the conversation and not cause damage to your psyche. Call again after some time if you are sure that there is potential interest in your products or services. The situation in the company may change and, most likely, after a series of refusals they will tell you: “Okay, let me listen to what you have there.” As the Chinese say, a drop wears away a stone not with its force, but with the frequency of its fall, so that over time the cold call ceases to be cold, which increases your chances of success.

Rule 5. Don't sell

Once again: the purpose of the call is not to sell. The purpose of the call is to set up a meeting. Make the person on the other end of the line want to meet you in person. Try to be different from everyone else who, just like you, calls and wants to sell something. To do this, you just need to be competent, evoke a pleasant impression on your interlocutor, and dilute the conversation with humor (but in moderation). During the conversation, it’s better to forget about money altogether. Think not about how much you will earn when you sell something to someone, but about your goal - why you want to earn money.

If you have chosen the profession of a sales manager, then “cold” calls will become part of your work. What are cold calls? You will learn diagrams, examples and technology for their implementation from this article.

Call assignment

Cold calling has a specific goal - to expand your existing customer base. The strange name is explained by a metaphor - you are calling a complete stranger who treats you coldly and distrustfully. You do this solely on your own initiative, without prior agreement. If you know the person, you can refer to a recommender or a mutual friend, then this is already a “warm” call.

For a manager, such a call becomes a serious test of strength. Not every person is capable of doing such work. The complexity of the work is primarily due to psychological factor- very high number of failures. Even managers with good experience Regularly receive refusals, and even more so for newcomers.

Books have been written and trainings have been developed on the topic of cold calling.

Basic rules of cold calling

During a cold call, a manager must adhere to three rules:

Following these rules will help you make your calls more effective.

Difficulties faced

In each more or less large company Secretaries answer incoming calls. They have learned to recognize the standard cold calling script even at the moment of greeting, so they will hang up faster than you can say anything about your wonderful company.

The next point is that at the stage of a “cold” call the client does not yet have a desire to work with you, he needs to be called in somehow, and for this you need a conversation. But the client does not want to talk, because there is no topic for communication, you are strangers and he is not going to buy anything, since the budget is planned for the year in advance and is bursting at the seams. According to statistics, 90% of cold calls last less than a minute.

Even if you heard a request to send Commercial offer- this also doesn’t mean anything. Offers from unfamiliar companies are thrown into the trash.

How to deal with difficulties?

Cold calling techniques have been developed for this purpose. There are many of them and there are no universal ones; you will have to look for what will work best in your case. Let's consider one of the options.

What are cold calls? These are conversations in which the first minute is extremely important, so it is advisable that the person who receives the call does not immediately recognize you as the person making the cold call. A clear sign of a “cold call” is a detailed introduction and a detailed story about the company; shorten and simplify the beginning of the dialogue.

Don't assume that anyone is interested in your proposal at this stage. To attract attention, offer something for free.

How to reduce the likelihood of failures?

Develop a question that you can use to immediately, without wasting time on presentations and so on, find out whether this company is your target audience. Let's say if you are a computer company and you are not interested in a company that has only five jobs for service, then ask about it.

The reason for the call should not be related to sales. Otherwise, they will stop talking to you or offer to send you a commercial offer. And if you invite them to a free training seminar, offer a free audit or a month of service, then the chances of the conversation continuing increase significantly.

Don't be afraid of failures, they are inevitable. But this is the only way to gain the necessary experience.

Enter cold calling into the system. One-time promotions will not give anything. Only if you work systematically and purposefully will cold calling bring you new clients.

Cold calling technology

It is more convenient to start any task by preparing in advance. What are cold calls? These are telephone conversations, so you can put cheat sheets, leaflets and diagrams near you, the interlocutor will not see it. Therefore for more efficient work It's better to use a cold calling script. In this case, the speech sounds more convincing, there is less fear, which means more confidence and a better result.

So, a cold calling script based on what we discussed above:

• "Presentation" block.“Good afternoon, my name is A, company B. Is it convenient for you to talk now?” Or: “Good afternoon, my name is A, company B. Please connect me with department C (or the person who is involved in the area of ​​interest to us).”
• Block "Acquaintance".“Tell me how I can contact you? It’s very nice to meet you.”
• "Presentation" block.“We are company B, engaged in such and such services. Actually, why am I calling?”
• Block "Offer".“We have a promotion, we will serve you for free for a month.”
• Block “Test for belonging to target audience» . “The promotion has a limit of no more than 15 jobs.”
• Block “Working with objections”.
• Block "Final". Ideally, an appointment would be made.

This cold calling diagram is approximate; the dialogue can unfold in any, most unexpected way.

Why do they hate cold calling so much?

The phenomenon of this phenomenon is that neither side of the process likes such calls. Managers are afraid of them and avoid them in every possible way; clients cannot stand them, hundreds of times a day they listen to the stupid offers that “cold” calls bring. Hundreds of examples can be given.

All this can be corrected if you learn how to conduct high-quality telephone conversations, stop blindly using the “cold calling” script or work without it at all, and create a high-quality base for calling.

The great news is that a good manager, after just a year of work, stops making “cold” calls, as he accumulates a sufficient number of regular clients and useful contacts. Therefore, “cold” calling for the most part is the fate of young professionals, but from a psychological point of view this is the most difficult part of the job!

How to make friends with a secretary?

Quite often in a company, incoming calls are received by a secretary. To prevent this from becoming an obstacle to making cold calls, the conversation outline should include a question that is easy for the secretary to answer and the information will be useful to you. For example, the question of who in the company purchases raw materials.

However, this will not always work; most often you will hear “On what issue?” The idea of ​​making “cold calls” is often frustrated by this question; there are already examples of how to get around this.

Ideas for "bypassing" the secretary

Options:

• “Ivanov is calling, connect to the manager.”
• “They’re calling from Ivanov’s reception, connect me to the manager.”
• “Anya, it’s very nice to meet you. Please advise who is best to talk to in your company on such and such an issue.”
• “Anya, it’s very nice to meet you. Only you can help me; none of the employees of your company can tell me with whom it’s better to discuss such and such an issue.”
• “Good afternoon, is this the sales department? No, this is the advertising department. Please switch to sales.”
• "Good afternoon, Anya! Please tell me which version software Do you use it in your company to keep track of working hours? I need to include this information in the project."
• “Good afternoon, Petrov, company A, please connect with purchasing.”
• “I need to discuss the details... (meetings, exhibition visits, price analysis, etc.).”

The most important thing in this technique is not to lie, you just need to convey the idea to the secretary that you are a person in whom the manager is interested. After all, what are “cold calls”? This is an opportunity to establish contact with the client, so starting with a lie means failing the business.

What are scripts needed for?

When you make cold calls, you don't always need a conversation plan to follow. This is, rather, a guideline, something to build on.

It is advisable to learn the answers to the most FAQ in order to quickly be able to give an answer. It is important that the script is written by the manager himself, and not by a manager, trainer or super expert in the field of sales. The solution here is simple. If the text is “non-native”, the phrases in it are foreign and uncharacteristic for a particular manager, the dialogue will never become natural. The interlocutor senses falsehood very well. Therefore, even the coolest script needs to be rewritten in your own words. The script is only the basis on which your own creativity will be strung.

Here are some tips for working with scripts:

• Create as many of them as possible, find them in books and websites, rewrite them during training, and look at your competitors.
• Test them with friends and colleagues, find out how effective they really are.
• Choose those that are most comfortable for you personally.
• In a conversation, do not follow the script, but keep the essence of it in your head.

Transform cold calling from a task that causes nausea and disgust into an activity that is much more enjoyable and effective for any manager. Good luck and great sales!