Why cold calls done right are your ticket to tech sales success

Cold calling is a misunderstood craft, but it’s the most effective way to sell tech when you get it right. Let’s find out more.

We’ve all been there. You’re watching a show or engrossed in your work when your phone rings. It’s not a number you recognise, so you’re intrigued…

‘We believe you’ve recently been in an accident…’

Your heart sinks and you do whatever you can to get off the phone as fast as possible!

It’s things like this that give cold calling a bad reputation. It’s why the US banking giant Merrill Lynch decided to end the entire practice of cold calling in their sales teams. However, the problem isn’t the medium – you get just as many useless cold intros over email and LinkedIn DM – it’s the message. Many salespeople are just not good at cold calling, making their organisations think it doesn’t work.

If other companies are abandoning cold calling, it’s good news for those who do cold calling well. When you get cold calling right, particularly in tech, you can reap spectacular rewards. In this article, we’ll find out why cold calling works so well in tech, and what you can do to make your cold calls end with a smile rather than the sounds of someone hanging up.

Why cold calling and tech work well together

There are several reasons why cold calling isn’t dead in the world of tech.

From the organisation’s point of view, cold calling is the fastest, most efficient, and most effective way to reach a new prospect and get them interested in what you sell. Often, a tech product will solve a problem your prospect doesn’t even realise they have; it may be an extremely niche problem and quite complex to explain. It’s much easier to get the job done over the phone than on an email, LinkedIn message or any other way. Also, a cold call is a way to start a relationship with a prospect. When you’re selling products with a high price and often a subscription (rather than a one-off payment), a cold call will help you build the trust you need.

From the tech buyer’s point of view, providing they’re targeted correctly and carried out well, buyers like cold calls. Research by the RAIN Group found that 54% of tech buyers prefer to connect with sellers over the phone. Furthermore, 70% of buyers said they’ve made connections will sellers on the phone. During the COVID-19 pandemic, while most of us are at home on our own without the buzz of the office, buyers are more likely to pick up the phone just to have someone to talk to. If you’re abandoning cold calls in favour of other channels, you could be leaving money on the table.

How to get cold calling right

The secret to success with cold calls is making the call ‘warm’ as quickly as possible. The more work you do before you make the call, the more likely you are to achieve success:

• Make sure your list of prospects is well-targeted towards people your product can help
• Research as much as you can about your prospect before you call them. Is there a connection you can leverage?
• Plan your call before you make it – Think of the questions you’re going to ask. How will you position your product as the solution to the prospect’s pain?

Once you’re on the call, don’t go in for the kill straight away like the car accident people, have a genuine two-way conversation:

• Use your first call to learn more about your prospect, not make a sale. Ask questions, listen to the answers and react to them
• Plant the seed in the prospect’s mind that you can fix their problem, which will have a significant positive impact on their lives
• Personalise your approach – if you’re using a script, make sure it doesn’t sound like you are. No one wants to have a conversation with a robot!

Finally, when it’s time to end the call, make the next steps clear so you and your prospect can agree on how to move forward. In most cases, this will be another call, a meeting or a demo. Work around the way they want to buy, not how you want to sell.

When you follow this sequence, your prospect will appreciate your considered, thoughtful approach to cold calling, and you’re more likely to achieve your goal.

Voicemail

One final thing to think about, sometimes (OK, a lot of the time), you’re not going to be able to get through to your prospect, and you’ll want to leave a voicemail. 

Here are some tips for effective voicemail prospecting:

• Remember why you’re there – you want them to hear your message then call you back
• Be prepared to leave a voicemail – if not, you’ll sound flustered
• Keep it short – less than 20 seconds. No one wants to listen to a rambling voicemail
• Sound friendly, enthusiastic and professional
• Don’t sell; just say something that will intrigue your prospect enough to call you back

The SaaSLeads solution

At SaaSLeads.io, we recruit, train and deliver sales development professionals into the heart of your organisation. During our three-month sales development training programme, cold calling is one of the things we focus on the most. The SDRs we develop know how to prepare and conduct cold calls that achieve the results you need.

Our SDRs are trained and coached to build rapport, ask the right questions and tie your product to the prospect’s pain. When it’s time to get on the phone with your potential customers, they have every skill they need to perform.

Find out more from SaaSLeads.io

If you would like to build your SDR team with talented graduates from SaaSLeads, or you just want to find out more, visit our site – https://saasleads.io/.