Tweet

How to Get a Call Back From Your Cold Calls

Guest post by: Ari Galper

Article Overview: What’s the most common reason prospects stop communicating with you? They think your going to pressure them. They’re afraid that, even if it’s subtle, we’ll apply pressure to close the sale. So how do we reassure them we aren’t going to pressure them? By staying focused on the truth of the situation rather than on getting the sale. And by using language that clearly reflects this.

How to Get a Call Back From Your Cold Calls

What’s the most common reason prospects stop communicating with you? They think your going to pressure them. They’re afraid that, even if it’s subtle, we’ll apply pressure to close the sale.

So how do we reassure them we aren’t going to pressure them? By staying focused on the truth of the situation rather than on getting the sale. And by using language that clearly reflects this.

Here are 5 steps to take when your preparing to call prospects that have stopped communicating with you:

1. Get Clear.

Review any notes on past calls and bring yourself up to date regarding the person and the situation

2. Let Go.

You may find it useful to just sit silently for a few minutes with your eyes closed, breathing deeply and consciously, accepting that this sale is probably gone.

Let it go, so that when you call, there’s no part of you hoping or pushing for it. You need to decide that it’s really not about the sale – it’s about learning for next time. And that’s a big leap, isn’t it?

3. Offer an apology

An apology is a very good way to eliminate any appearance of sales pressure. You’re calling to apologize for something that went wrong along the way that’s caused them to stop communicating with you.

Basically, you can’t do anything but start with yourself. Because if you go anywhere else, they’re going to think that you’re focused on just getting the sale.

4. Decide what to say

When you reach them (or if you have to use voicemail or email), you can say something like this:

• “Hi, Jim, it’s Kristen. I just wanted, first of all, to call and apologize. I’m not calling about the sale, or about the proposal or product. I’m only calling to try to get some feedback as to where we went wrong along the way that might have caused some drop-off in communication.”

• “Hi Bob, It’s Tom. I’m calling, not to move the sale ahead, but to apologize that we ended up not being able to connect. I’m assuming that you’ve probably moved forward with somebody else or decided not to move ahead with the project. And that’s fine, but I wanted to see if you could just help me learn, for the future, how we could have approached this, or your problem, in a different manner.”

5. Act as You Would in Your Personal Life

Remember to use a very natural tone of voice that shows you’re not hungry for the sale. Very simply, we’re talking about the kind of communication that most of us use in our personal life, and applying it to the people we deal with in our business life.

If you approach them in a natural, human way, they’ll probably explain the situation. Prospects will most likely respond with something like, “Well, let me explain what’s going on.”

When you’re not pressuring them to move the sale forward, they feel comfortable revealing to you what’s happening.

You may want to spend a little extra time letting them know that you really are okay with whatever happens. You can’t probe for the truth or force it to appear, any more than you can force a tree to grow faster. All you can do is create a safe space that allows trust and truth to emerge.

These 5 steps remove the focus on getting the sale entirely. This lets you re-build a bridge of trust so that you can reconnect at the level of human beings – not in the artificial roles of buyer and seller.

Related Articles
  Part Five - Prospecting for More Sales
  Your Customers Can Help You Make More Sales
  Cold Calling Tip: Turn a Cold Call Into a Warm Call
  Cold Calling
  Cold Calling Does Work – Have You Tired It Lately?

Article Tags: 5 steps, apology, appearance, few minutes, leap, proposal, prospects, truth, using language



Related Forum Posts
Re: I'm Back - Welcome Back! Hope you are doing great and looking forward to hearing from you.. Jude
Re: Cold Calling - Cold calling is an extremely difficult job to do and unless one learns that being told no by people is not a direct refusal aimed at the cold caller but at whatever is being sold, it can be very soul destroying work to do. One needs to have absolute confidence in themselves and a pretty thick skin. MichelleJ
Re: $8 website turns into a million-dollar empire - This is great inspiration for all of us. I would love for Ashley to come to the forum as well. Maybe give us the scoop on why she started and how she made it successful. Back to StumbleUpon. I also use it and find that I'm getting a decent amount of traffic from it. Alan
Show the Benefits - Offer a free test drive of the Product or Service with a Money Back Guarantee - Take the Risk out. This will help them make the decision but you have to work with them to realize it by explicitly state the benefits they are receiving.
I answer my phone - when I worked in the Call Center we had to say "Good XXXXXX, Andy speaking, How may I help you?" imagine saying that over and over again. It kind of sticks with you. It's been a few years now but I've kicked off "How may I help you?" part.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Marketing & Sales tools – going back to basics

Build Corporate Credit for Your Small Business

Why Use an Advertising Agency

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.