Liane Carmi

Okay.  Some people are amazing at prospecting and making cold calls.  Others, like me, are rather bad at it.  So I was pretty excited when my wife called me from her conference in California to tell me that part of her training for her new position was on making cold calls (in person) and closing sales.

I recently began offering my web promotion services to local businesses in my area, and making cold calls is a huge part of that.

So I stayed on the phone with my wife for over an hour getting all the juicy details, and finding out that I wasn’t as bad as I thought – some of the things she mentioned I was already doing. But there was a LOT I didn’t know.

Anyway, here goes.

Here’s the down-low on how to make cold calls and prospect, business to business, in person.

Start with your pitch.

Come up with a 30-second pitch.  Introduce yourself, say 3 things about your company, and 3 benefits for the potential client.  To hear the pitch I came up with, click play:

Next, ask the business owner if he is interested in learning more.

If not, it’s no big deal.  You just lost 30 seconds of your day.  Leave in a way that allows you to come back some other time.  You can say something like, “Maybe it’s not the right time for you right now.  Have a great day!”

If he is interested, schedule a second meeting.

Come to that meeting prepared to educate him on what you do, and how it can help him.  Bring lots of screen shots, examples, and so on.  Show him what you’ve done for other clients.  Also tell him what your fees are. Answer all his questions. If he’s doing 80% of the talking, you’re doing well.

After that, you need to find out if he wants to work with you.  So ask!  “Now that you’ve seen what I have to offer you, let’s move forward!  Are you willing to invest in (your service here) to increase your profits?

If the answer is yes, BE CAREFUL!  Don’t just ask for payment. First, go back & review all the benefits he’s going to receive.  Justify the purchase and make him feel really good about it. Then, tell him how you work – how you accept payment…and have him sign a contract.  Better yet, if you can accept credit cards, get his credit card information right then and there.

But he might say something else…

If he’s not sure he wants to move forward, he probably has some concerns.  You can say something like, “sounds like you still have some questions.”  Let him talk and tell you his concerns.  Then, respond.  Make him feel better.  At that point, ask for the close again.

Or he might say he needs to speak with someone else.  If so, you can ask him about the process.  “What does it take to make this happen?”  Get a time when you can follow up with him.  And follow up to ask for the sale again.

He could also say he’s not interested at all.  If that happens, you go back to the original response – maybe it’s just not the right time for him at the moment.

Anyway, the teacher in me got crazy and created this:

workflow for cold calling / prospecting

Prospecting Cold Calling Workflow

Okay…all you natural sales types…does this sound similar to what you do? What do you do differently that’s worked?