Business E Suites held its first-ever Lunch & Learn workshop on February 4th. This is something that we will be held each month on the 1st Thursday of the month. The topic for our first event was Cold Calling & Sales hosted by our very own David Fisher of Western Aviation.
Mr. Fisher has been in Sales for over 20 years and has experience selling all types of products from cars, jets, software, telecom, and more. He shared with our members some great tips for how to use cold calling to help make your small business more profitable.
We won’t give away all of his secrets, but here are a few tips he had:
- Be prepared: Have a list of contacts you are calling and be sure to know as much about them as possible. Do some quick research so you know who you are calling and what their interests are how your business can help. Download lists of industry professionals you are targeting, or create your own list using excel and googling the business you are targeting. The more information you have the easier it will be to get past the gatekeeper.
- Get past the gatekeeper: Every business or executive is going to have a receptionist or gatekeeper that you must get through before speaking to your actual target. There are many different strategies for getting past them. Ask for the person by name, sound familiar. Don’t start off with a sales pitch, you will get shut down right away. Be polite but assertive, be vague but intentional. Keep it as simple as “is Jim there? I need to speak with him.” And see where that gets you.
- Get an email address: Even if you can’t get past the gatekeeper, get the email of the person you were trying to reach. Usually, the gatekeeper or receptionist will give it to you or let you leave a voicemail. Getting the email lets you at the very least send a follow-up message and add them to your marketing list, which is valuable. If they are unwilling to give it to you, a simple way to figure it out is just to find out the naming conventions of the email (ex: CThomas@CompanyName.co) and plug in the name of your contact to see if it works.
- Put in the time: Even if you only have a success rate of 3% where your calls turn into deals, but it the time to make it worth it. If you can hammer out 100 calls in a day, that would net you 3 new deals! If you don’t put in the work, you won’t get the return you are looking for. You must ignore the rejections and just keep pushing till you get that one new deal you have been waiting for.
Cold Calling is far from the most enjoyable aspect of the business, but if you work hard it can be a valuable tool for growing your company and landing deals you otherwise would have missed.
