Do your
knuckles hurt when you're cold calling door to door? If they do, then you need to learn these five
new practical strategies to increase response rates and close more sales!
by Mr. Cold Call
I remember
when I was a young Mr. Cold Call just starting out making cold calls by
telephone and I overhead another salesperson say, “I went knocking on doors
yesterday.” I immediately turned around
and blurted out, “Knocking on doors?” He
replied, “Yes, I make cold calls in person.”
Wow, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Could this
be true? Knocking on the doors of your sales
prospects? This concept of making cold
calls in person was completely foreign to me.
It was not even in my universe of sales thought. At the time, all I knew about cold calling was the telephone marketing part of it and never knew anything about door to door cold calling?
When I got
home that night, I still couldn’t believe what I had heard. Is this really the best use of this guy’s
time to cold call door to door? It’s one
thing to prospect over the telephone, but another to experience sales rejection
in person. For me, selling door to door
was the worst possible sales scenario. I
was tossing and turning trying to figure out what this guy was thinking and how
he did it.
The next
day, I decided to ask him exactly what he was doing to see if this might be
something I might want to try as well. I
called him up and said, “When cold calling door to door, what are you doing and
how do make this type of cold calling effective?” Based on my conversation with him and through
my experience with cold calling door to door, I’ve included a list of five
“must-do’s” that you can easily apply to increase response rates and close more
sales. These five strategies include the
following:
Know the
name of your sales prospect or the decision-maker
So many
people fail at cold calling door to door because they don’t know the name of
their prospect before they start knocking on doors. Without a name, you are instantly labeled as
a salesperson. However, at least if you
have a name to offer the receptionist this begins the sales call with more
credibility. It makes you look “smarter”
or “trustworthy” in the eyes of the other person. How do you find these names? One way is to visit the company’s website and
check out their management profile section.
Another way, it so visit a free leads website called www.findfreeleads.com that includes not only how
to find leads, but offer various ways on how you can locate the contact names
of executives and business owners.
Dress with success
This one’s
easy: "Always look professional." In most situations, this means a suit and tie
for the men and pant suits and skirt suits for the women. Of course, these suggestions are not set in
stone---just do what you need to do to look professional when you visit prospects
unexpected and without notice.
Smile, smile,
smile and keep smiling
A great
smile is unstoppable. It’s harder for
the receptionist (the one who usually greets the visitors as they walk into the
office) to turn down a person with a confident smile and vibrant personality
than someone with their frown upside down.
If you are looking to create interest in what you and your company has
to offer there is no better place to start then with a nice big SMILE!
A
non-intrusive opening line
What does a
non-intrusive opening line mean? First
of all, you need to realize that for every door that you knock the people on the other end are not expecting your sales call. Your visit is unannounced so that means you
need to use an opening line that offsets the “resistance” that you may
encounter.
Once you have asked for the
decision-maker, one line that always has worked well for me is, “Hi, my name is
(Your name here) from (Your company here) and I’m a neighbor just down the street
from you (this opening line is key here to say because if your prospect knows
that you’re a neighbor then how can they not be friendly to you?) and I (or “we” if you
are joined by another co-worker – it’s much easier to cold call door to door
with another person then just going solo) just wanted to introduce myself and drop off a
sales brochure (if you don’t have one or it looks amateurish then check out this inexpensive sales brochure service
at www.salesflyersthatsing.com)
about what we do? If they seem open to
your visit then try to ask a few qualifying questions to get them talking about what
they like or dislike about their current vendor (your competitor).
Follow up
keeps you in the game
Most
sales prospects will not buy on the first contact and because of this it’s
important to consistently follow up with prospects. Being aware that sales is a process and not a
one-time shot will help you to consistently stay in touch. When speaking with your prospect ask them
when is a good time to follow up? Try to
get some kind of commitment from them (i.e. specific date and time for a meeting or telephone conversation). Even if your prospect is not interested in a
follow up call then you could say, “(First name of prospect), I realize that
you're happy with (Name of their vendor), but nothing is set in stone and you
just never know what could happen tomorrow.
Here’s my card and if that’s ok, how about I give you a friendly follow
up call in one month?”
Copyright 2008 Mr. Cold Call, Inc. - All rights reserved.
Behind The Scenes With Mr. Cold Call
Mr. Cold Call™, author,
cold calling pioneer, speaker, sales trainer and sales software
inventor has made over 80,000 cold calls over his sales career--this
number continues to grow exponentially. He is one of the most
famous names in cold calling and sales prospecting. Inside and Outside
Sales Professionals have visited his website, subscribed to his FREE weekly newsletter and ordered his brand name of products and services from
every corner of the globe. Mr. Cold Call™
has been quoted by numerous national publications such as Selling Power
Magazine and Investor's Business Daily and was recently featured by
Selling Power Live! in a CD audio program called "Turn Cold Calls Into
Gold Calls." Other accomplishments include his more than 50 published articles on cold calling
topics from A to Z, his infamous sales tracking sheet that automatically calculates your daily, weekly, monthly
and yearly sales ratios, his custom sales script service called "The Script Responder" and finally, his best-selling Book Series that include the following titles:
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