Thomas, I have used two methods in several small businesses, and actually thought about writing an ebook on this subject.
Anyway, here are the basics of the two methods. I am going to assume that you are starting completely cold, and having to generate outgoing leads from scratch.
Below this, I will get into the actual steps I use during the cold call and follow up process. If you just want specific tips, skip the first section.
1. Spray/Pray (will be successful with grind and organization)
- typically start with this, and do it yourself (will give you a better idea for future if you want to hire/train/pay people)
- you cast the widest net possible because you are not sure of market response and psychographics yet
- basically pick an industry in the phone book and start calling everyone
- keep track of everything in the simplest or cheapest CRM or spreadsheet to start
- you will need a solid two weeks (try to set aside at least a month) to do proper follow-ups to sales (for most prospects)
- combo of phone and email
2. Targeted / Qualified Prospecting
- from method 1 you should have made a few sales, seen who is easy/hard to deal with, figured out a bit about demo and psychographics, learned times of day when prospects are most receptive, and learned the hierarchies of your industry (how to deal with gatekeepers if they exist, if people expect a call/email/in-person meeting to close the deal, etc etc)
- to give you an example, I have a side business right now that targets local family-run auto vendors like tinting and windshield replacement. When we first started cold calling, my partner and I thought it was best to try to figure out the owner and talk to them off the first call. Lots of these little auto shops have the owner answering phones and doing the brunt of the work. Super easy to book calls with them and get decisions! But the problem, we learned, is that for the service we are selling, it only works with the most organized shops that have a dedicated receptionist to handle incoming calls. So in our prospecting step, we directly target places that have a receptionist. It took over a month of prospecting, sales, and delivery of service to figure this out.
- now that you have more specific targets, you can use online sources to get more qualified leads (BBB typically shows owner's name and sometimes contact details, LinkedIn can be used to get warm leads, review sites like Yelp show you who is a trustworthy vendor, Facebook pages show you typical response times, etc etc).
- you are now at the stage where you will be prospecting and qualifying almost as much as you actually spend calling (or you will train someone to do the prospecting for you, since you have identified where it is valuable)
- in the future you want to move towards a split between incoming referrals and the targeted method
***
Specific Cold Call & Follow Up Steps
You can go direct right off the bat and even get people's credit card over the phone after 5 minutes, but for most personalities this leads to burnout and it's not a good long term model, especially if you want to scale and train people for the future.
Here is a model that is boring but I have seen work over and over.
1st Contact - Cold Call
- ask to speak to Decision Maker (optional)
- briefly say who you are, where you are calling from, and a very simple benefit you are offering
- pause for a second... let them object or just take a moment to process it (doesn't matter if they tell you to fuck off even, you can proceed to the next step anyway)
- ask for permission to send a short email about your offer, get "the best email address to reach you" and get the proper spelling of their first name
- unless they want to know more about your service/product, get the fuck off the call
- on your way out, casually drop "I'll send you this email as soon as I hang up, it will come from [YourName]@[YourDomain.com], and will follow up next week"
2nd Contact - Send Email
- use a signifier in the subject line (something they would remember from the call, so they instantly recognize who the email is from)
- minimize all fluff wording; re-write and re-write until the email is basically just solid copy benefits and use "you" instead of "we" or "I" (eg. instead of "we do this" use "you will get this")... but there is room for one fluff sentence near the top that says something like "like I said on the phone" or "we spoke briefly on the phone about getting you more widget sales"... just something to remind them yet again who you are and how they know you (people forget most things instantly after they are said, unless you remind them a few times)
- end email with an easy way for them to get in touch with you if they really want to know more, but reiterate that you will call back next week
- schedule this shit like clockwork to make sure you follow up next week like you said
3rd Contact - Book Meeting / Pitch
- now that they know you and have agreed they would benefit from your offer, it depends on the industry and person... some people will only make decisions face to face so you have to book a proper in person meeting, and that would be your only priority from here. Some people can be pitched over the phone, or sent to a video online, or whatever.
- the pitch should still be benefit heavy, but now you want to focus on two things: specific parts of the process (so they get a vision in their mind of the pain removal and future benefits) and to ferret out any objections they might have to buying immediately. Most people will lie (not out of spite), and often when they say things like "can't afford it" they really mean "I don't trust you enough". You have to get these objections out on the table so you can address them. Let them ask as many questions as they want; the more or the harsher the questions, the more they are interested (generally). Of course if someone just wants to get started, get out of your own way and sign them up. Take first payment right then if you can, to make it more real in their mind.
4th Contact - Close
- sometimes you can close them right after the pitch, often they will want to think about it a little more but if you are organized and have a simple enough offer you can email them 1-3 days later to close. Again, feel out your industry. You might have to take them to lunch to close them.
- unless you want to follow up forever, endlessly asking them for the sale and boring each other to death, it helps to have some urgency steps built in. One form of urgency could be a free trial period that must be taken advantage of in the next X days (or a special reduced introductory rate). Another could be exclusivity of service area or distribution ("lock down the sole spot to be X distributor in Y area, but I am talking to two other guys who are making decision by end of week"). Yet another could be pre-booking ("we have 5 slots available for next month, get penciled in").
- depending on your industry and service, you can close and seamlessly start onboarding by just asking them what options they want or getting their decision on the next steps in the process (eg. "you can get notifications by text or email, which do you prefer?", or "the next step is to pick a delivery date each week, we can do Wednesday or Thursday...").
Basically these 4 steps are the same type of open/rapport/comfort/close steps from game. Rush them at your peril.
Remember that serious people are busy and have a lot of their plate, and following up in a week and having to remind them of who you are is normal.
Unless you are super hurting for money, avoid one-night-stand type sales where you sell as fast as possible, because they typically are bigger pains to deal with as customers, don't understand the benefits and limitations of your offer, and don't end up referring more people in the future.
This is rambly but feel free to PM me if you want to chat about this more.
EDIT: I want to add that I have done prospecting/sales exclusively over the phone/email for years without ever actually meeting people. But lately I have started doing more in-person meetings for my side biz. So these steps above can work for both. I would avoid ever stopping in unannounced and cold in-person as the first step though. You can cover more ground at the start by calling/emailing.
Anyway, here are the basics of the two methods. I am going to assume that you are starting completely cold, and having to generate outgoing leads from scratch.
Below this, I will get into the actual steps I use during the cold call and follow up process. If you just want specific tips, skip the first section.
1. Spray/Pray (will be successful with grind and organization)
- typically start with this, and do it yourself (will give you a better idea for future if you want to hire/train/pay people)
- you cast the widest net possible because you are not sure of market response and psychographics yet
- basically pick an industry in the phone book and start calling everyone
- keep track of everything in the simplest or cheapest CRM or spreadsheet to start
- you will need a solid two weeks (try to set aside at least a month) to do proper follow-ups to sales (for most prospects)
- combo of phone and email
2. Targeted / Qualified Prospecting
- from method 1 you should have made a few sales, seen who is easy/hard to deal with, figured out a bit about demo and psychographics, learned times of day when prospects are most receptive, and learned the hierarchies of your industry (how to deal with gatekeepers if they exist, if people expect a call/email/in-person meeting to close the deal, etc etc)
- to give you an example, I have a side business right now that targets local family-run auto vendors like tinting and windshield replacement. When we first started cold calling, my partner and I thought it was best to try to figure out the owner and talk to them off the first call. Lots of these little auto shops have the owner answering phones and doing the brunt of the work. Super easy to book calls with them and get decisions! But the problem, we learned, is that for the service we are selling, it only works with the most organized shops that have a dedicated receptionist to handle incoming calls. So in our prospecting step, we directly target places that have a receptionist. It took over a month of prospecting, sales, and delivery of service to figure this out.
- now that you have more specific targets, you can use online sources to get more qualified leads (BBB typically shows owner's name and sometimes contact details, LinkedIn can be used to get warm leads, review sites like Yelp show you who is a trustworthy vendor, Facebook pages show you typical response times, etc etc).
- you are now at the stage where you will be prospecting and qualifying almost as much as you actually spend calling (or you will train someone to do the prospecting for you, since you have identified where it is valuable)
- in the future you want to move towards a split between incoming referrals and the targeted method
***
Specific Cold Call & Follow Up Steps
You can go direct right off the bat and even get people's credit card over the phone after 5 minutes, but for most personalities this leads to burnout and it's not a good long term model, especially if you want to scale and train people for the future.
Here is a model that is boring but I have seen work over and over.
1st Contact - Cold Call
- ask to speak to Decision Maker (optional)
- briefly say who you are, where you are calling from, and a very simple benefit you are offering
- pause for a second... let them object or just take a moment to process it (doesn't matter if they tell you to fuck off even, you can proceed to the next step anyway)
- ask for permission to send a short email about your offer, get "the best email address to reach you" and get the proper spelling of their first name
- unless they want to know more about your service/product, get the fuck off the call
- on your way out, casually drop "I'll send you this email as soon as I hang up, it will come from [YourName]@[YourDomain.com], and will follow up next week"
2nd Contact - Send Email
- use a signifier in the subject line (something they would remember from the call, so they instantly recognize who the email is from)
- minimize all fluff wording; re-write and re-write until the email is basically just solid copy benefits and use "you" instead of "we" or "I" (eg. instead of "we do this" use "you will get this")... but there is room for one fluff sentence near the top that says something like "like I said on the phone" or "we spoke briefly on the phone about getting you more widget sales"... just something to remind them yet again who you are and how they know you (people forget most things instantly after they are said, unless you remind them a few times)
- end email with an easy way for them to get in touch with you if they really want to know more, but reiterate that you will call back next week
- schedule this shit like clockwork to make sure you follow up next week like you said
3rd Contact - Book Meeting / Pitch
- now that they know you and have agreed they would benefit from your offer, it depends on the industry and person... some people will only make decisions face to face so you have to book a proper in person meeting, and that would be your only priority from here. Some people can be pitched over the phone, or sent to a video online, or whatever.
- the pitch should still be benefit heavy, but now you want to focus on two things: specific parts of the process (so they get a vision in their mind of the pain removal and future benefits) and to ferret out any objections they might have to buying immediately. Most people will lie (not out of spite), and often when they say things like "can't afford it" they really mean "I don't trust you enough". You have to get these objections out on the table so you can address them. Let them ask as many questions as they want; the more or the harsher the questions, the more they are interested (generally). Of course if someone just wants to get started, get out of your own way and sign them up. Take first payment right then if you can, to make it more real in their mind.
4th Contact - Close
- sometimes you can close them right after the pitch, often they will want to think about it a little more but if you are organized and have a simple enough offer you can email them 1-3 days later to close. Again, feel out your industry. You might have to take them to lunch to close them.
- unless you want to follow up forever, endlessly asking them for the sale and boring each other to death, it helps to have some urgency steps built in. One form of urgency could be a free trial period that must be taken advantage of in the next X days (or a special reduced introductory rate). Another could be exclusivity of service area or distribution ("lock down the sole spot to be X distributor in Y area, but I am talking to two other guys who are making decision by end of week"). Yet another could be pre-booking ("we have 5 slots available for next month, get penciled in").
- depending on your industry and service, you can close and seamlessly start onboarding by just asking them what options they want or getting their decision on the next steps in the process (eg. "you can get notifications by text or email, which do you prefer?", or "the next step is to pick a delivery date each week, we can do Wednesday or Thursday...").
Basically these 4 steps are the same type of open/rapport/comfort/close steps from game. Rush them at your peril.
Remember that serious people are busy and have a lot of their plate, and following up in a week and having to remind them of who you are is normal.
Unless you are super hurting for money, avoid one-night-stand type sales where you sell as fast as possible, because they typically are bigger pains to deal with as customers, don't understand the benefits and limitations of your offer, and don't end up referring more people in the future.
This is rambly but feel free to PM me if you want to chat about this more.
EDIT: I want to add that I have done prospecting/sales exclusively over the phone/email for years without ever actually meeting people. But lately I have started doing more in-person meetings for my side biz. So these steps above can work for both. I would avoid ever stopping in unannounced and cold in-person as the first step though. You can cover more ground at the start by calling/emailing.