Warming Up Cold Calls

Are you going to the school of hard knocks with cold call telemarketing?

When it’s cold outside, those cold calls would be more effective if you “warmed” them up.

As the ole saying goes, “you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.” In today’s day and age, a cold call telemarketing call is about as smooth as vinegar. To warm up your approach and improve the effectiveness, use a little honey in a warm cup of tea and it will go much farther, and be more effective. Yes, I clearly recognize that honey and tea are more expensive than vinegar but the value of a new client is well worth the extra shekels. Yes, I also know that you don’t like to part with your hard earned dinero.

Here are a few steps to catch more flies with your lead generation program:

1. Two-step marketing – generate interest before you call
2. Establish yourself as a “trusted” advisor
3. Know exactly what to say
4. Focus on their needs

In today’s day and age, it’s getting much more difficult and expensive to sell products and services (especially intangible services) using traditional direct response marketing. That’s because it’s hard to provide enough information and create any trust from a cold call telemarketing pitch.

With the proliferation of marketing messages, you will get a much higher conversion ratio and lower cost per new client by breaking down your lead generation process into baby steps.

Two-Step Marketing

The first step is to educate your prospects about better ways to alleviate their pain. For our clients, this initial step is a well constructed direct mail letter. This initial step is designed to address their pain and establish your service as the solution to their problem.
Also, the direct mail letter will start to position your “rain maker” as a “trusted” advisor. This is done by providing credentials, demonstrating expertise with a niche audience, and using testimonials. For those that are curious and interested, provide your website address at the bottom of your direct mail letter so they can learn more about your practice and expertise. If your website is done properly, it should act as a silent salesperson for your practice.

After warming up your prospect with a honey flavored direct mail letter, the second step is an outbound phone call which references the first step. Following up a direct mail letter with a outbound phone call shows that you care about their business and elevates their perception of your firm. It also adds creditability to your offer and provides a window to quickly address their objection. While this window of opportunity may be brief, it provides your telemarketer with the opportunity to expand on your capabilities and/or cross-sell into an adjunct service.

So if your lead generation is suffering from the school of hard knocks, warm up your approach with a little honey first.


Warming Up Cold Calls - To learn more about this author, visit Hugh Duffy's Website.

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