Cold Calls

best sales script

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Best Sales Script To Get A Buyer’s Attention

You may have heard us talk about our SWIIFTSM Intro before. The idea is for your best sales script to focus on the buyer and add value so they stop typing their emails and start listening to you. When you have it, there is something even more powerful than the SWIIFTSM “ear perk,” and that’s a lever. A lever is a piece of information you have on the company, contact, industry, or history that says:

“Hey man, this isn’t a cold call. I’m important and you practically already know me. Tune in!”

The best lever is a name – preferably one in their company (e.g. their boss! An executive!), but in lieu of this, use some buying history, shared experience, shared external contact, or even events. Here are some examples:

(external name) Looks like we both know John Smith pretty well

(company history) We’ve been providing your security licenses for the past few years

(internal name) I work closely with Kathleen in marketing

(experience) I see we both attended the AA-ISP conference this year

But here is the all-time favorite and most powerful sales script (the name):

Bob! Lauren with Factor 8. I talked to Larry Reeves yesterday. He asked me to give you a call and I promised him that I would. Tell me something, are you guys expanding your sales force this year?

What’s different and powerful about this lever statement is that we leave the “why” to the contact’s imagination. And it’s probably generating something like, “Oh, snap!  What’s going on!?” NOW Bob is paying attention, right? Also notice that I didn’t launch into some big history like:

“I talked to Larry and he said that he isn’t the right contact and that I should call you.”

Yeah, that just screams sales pitch! But it’s what I hear most often. Listen, if Larry gives you the brush-off and Bob’s name, just spin it into the above. OK, Larry, I’ll call him. Boom! You promised him that you would. So don’t fret about the wrong names on your list. They can be powerful levers!

Get your contacts to STOP thinking about how to get you off the phone and START talking to you.

And don’t leave out the SWIIFTSM question at the end of your intro. This is what gets them to STOP thinking about how to get you off the phone and START thinking of the quick and easy answer to your question.  And guess what? Now they’re talking!

Need some help creating the best sales script ever? Download our SWIIFT℠ Intro in a Box Guide below!

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3 Quick and Easy Tips to Craft a Powerful Sales Pitch

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3 Quick and Easy Tips to Craft a Powerful Sales Pitch

IMPORTANT: Your Value Prop (aka Sales Pitch) and your Intro are very different things. If you’re using them together, take a stroll over to my post about the SWIIFT℠ Intro. You’re welcome. 😉

Now, let’s talk about value propositions. Also called your elevator speech (when’s the last time you pitched in an elevator, am I right?), a hook, or a SWIIFT℠ Pitch (if you’re a friend of Factor 8).

It’s the answer to, “Who are you with again?” or “What do you do?”

Most of us grabbed this from our marketing departments. This guarantees our response is about 10 seconds too long and contains at least three five-dollar words.

I’m not sure exactly where this works, but it sure as hell isn’t virtual sales. I mean, even on websites, how often are you half a page in and saying, “Um, WHAT?!”

If you drive a truck, you’re not the ‘Head of Mobile Logistics’. Just say you drive a freaking truck! How totally refreshing, right!?

Here are a few general rules for a great sales pitch:

  1. Make it focused on what you do for other people (So What’s In It For Them? = SWIIFT℠). Because, ”I help people sell their goods online” sounds SO much better than, “I sell services so that I can make more commission.”

    TIP: Try starting with, “We help people” or “We help companies”

  2. If your Grandma wouldn’t understand it, simplify it. Acronyms, jargon, and five-dollar marketing words need to be ditched. Remember, you’re trying to get people to talk to you, not to smile, nod, and vacate. This isn’t about you feeling important, it’s about them feeling comfortable, get it?
  3. If you wouldn’t say it after three drinks at your High School reunion, revise it. Again, if your marketing department wrote your sales pitch, you’re in danger here. Imagine bumping into your old locker mate and them asking, “What are you up to these days?” Sure, you want to feel successful, but they aren’t a potential customer. Just be real, okay?

Finally, pitch until they ask. If your value prop feels like your last name in your delivery, it’s like forcing your business card into strangers’ hands on the subway. The best time to deliver the pitch is when someone says, “Wait, I’m sorry, who is this again?” NOW they’re listening! Lay it on them and then ask a question! 

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Quick Tips for Better Cold Call Openings [“Sales Shot” Workshop Recording]

Quick Tips for Better Cold Call Openings

[“Sales Shot” Workshop Recording]

HOW TO KEEP PROSPECTS WANTING TO KNOW MORE

You’ve got mere seconds to capture the attention of a prospect once they pick up the phone. It’s critical you get the information you need as quickly as possible. That’s why you need great cold call openings.

In this 30-minute session, you’ll learn how to craft your SWIIFT Intro to quickly entice prospects, plus ways to overcome the dreaded “I’m not interested” brush-off to salvage the opportunity and keep the lead alive.

Bonus Feature: 5 tips for staying positive and keeping energy and confidence high while making cold calls from Factor 8’s own SDR.

Watch the video replay!

HOW TO KEEP PROSPECTS WANTING TO KNOW MORE

You’ve got mere seconds to capture the attention of a prospect once they pick up the phone. It’s critical you get the information you need as quickly as possible. That’s why you need great cold call openings.

In this 30-minute session, you’ll learn how to craft your SWIIFT Intro to quickly entice prospects, plus ways to overcome the dreaded “I’m not interested” brush-off to salvage the opportunity and keep the lead alive.

Bonus Feature: 5 tips for staying positive and keeping energy and confidence high while making cold calls from Factor 8’s own SDR.

Watch the video replay!

Learn more about the sponsor of this event!

Outreach

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cold call tips

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Top Cold Call Tips and Techniques

People love to ask, “Is Cold Calling Dead?” It’s probably for the controversy effect more than anything, right? My answer (like all great consultants) is, “It depends.” Marketing has come a long way indeed to ensure our brand is recognized before the call. Maybe content has been consumed, landing pages visited, social posts engaged. But if they’ve never talked to us before, is it still cold? Nah, let’s call that warm.

Not all companies are as fortunate. Start-up sellers may not have marketing support and the customer’s first impression is the first call. Even if they may recognize a little something from LinkedIn, it’s not enough to call it warm. Marketing tells us it takes at least 4 touches to actually leave an impression, and 6-8 to get to the point of purchasing. 

But can we be honest for a second? Sellers don’t give a damn. An outbound call to someone who isn’t expecting the call feels cold. Frigid below-zero kind of cold to today’s sellers. Why? Most of them haven’t grown up using the phone. My kid was shocked to learn his phone dialed out. “What!? It’s not just for texting!?”

Your millennial sales force wants to email and send LinkedIn messages. I know this because I get 30 a day. Want to differentiate? Immediately… 

Ban the spam and get on the phone! 

New to “cold” calling? Here are some tips to help the water feel a bit warmer:

  1. You’re immediately differentiating yourself by calling vs. emailing. This is a very good thing. I get 30 messages a day and about one voicemail per week. 
  2. It will take about six calls for you to get a hold of most of your prospects and most sellers give up after two. This is the game, my friends, do NOT give up. Do NOT take it personally. Cheerfully make your tally mark and know you are one call closer to a sale. Remember from above that it takes 6-8 touches to buy? Each time you leave a message it’s a touch. Sales is math.
  3. Yes, leave a voicemail! About every two days is great. No voicemail = no touch. You’ve made the dial but forgotten the return. Read more about voicemails that actually get returned here.
  4. Intersperse written messages. Use your outreach tool to help you send a series of voicemails, emails, and social messages over a period of 2-6 weeks. Close enough to be recognized from the last touch but not so close to being considered a stalker. You and your sales leaders can determine this.
  5. Design your outreach cadence based on client potential. If you’re doing account-based marketing and this is a top prospect, you’re going to touch more often and for longer. We recommend A, B, C, D lead qualifications. Read more on that here.

OK, now let’s move from strategy to psychology.

How do I beat cold call rejection? Rejection sucks. Be very clear that cold call dodging is not rejection! Imagine a stranger calling you just to tell you that they don’t want to talk with you anymore. Um, OK. I’m cool with that. Feels different if it’s your best friend or your brother, right? Now THAT is rejection. They know you. They don’t like you. Ouch.

A stranger saying they have no time, they’re not interested, or simply launching a call is not rejection. It’s a busy life. They don’t know your name, your company, your face, or your annoying habits yet. 🙂 It’s called call dodging, not YOU dodging.

Let’s also focus on sales as a helping profession. I recommend you spend a good four hours immersed in customer testimonials and case studies before picking up the phone for the first time. Learn why people love your product and your company. Learn about the problems you’ve solved and the situations you’ve bailed them out of at work! Your job is to find people struggling with these situations and save them. Your job is to educate them on a solution. What would they do without you? What if they don’t even know a solution exists!? What if they’re searching for a solution right now and are about to make a big mistake!? I want you to really dig in and picture this scenario and then picture this stranger thanking you for helping them. See it clearly and then see it every time before you pick up the phone.

In a cold call rut? Try picturing your best friend next time you hit “send.” Get a smile on your face and really imagine it. Your entire energy will change and you’ll be shocked how you’ll come off better.

Need more cold call inspiration? I want you to imagine that this outbound calling job is actually your business degree. Hell, your MBA program. Your job on every single call is to learn something about their business, their industry, their company, and their job role. It’s called genuine curiosity my friends, and nobody displays it in sales anymore. Be fascinated. Be inspired. Seek to truly learn and grow. Your prospect will be so flattered and surprised, you’ll learn everything you need to know to qualify or uncover a need. You may even find your future perfect job situation!

Finally, a few skills to help. The most important skills to turn dials into actual leads or opportunities are:

  1. Voicemails. Yeah, we covered this before. If you leave 10-15 voicemails a day using our techniques, you’ll get at least 2 returned. That’s 10 conversations a week. Folks, that’s like a bonus day of the week. You get 6 days to hit your goal while everyone else gets five. 
  2. Call Introductions. 90% of them suck. Yeah, sorry about that. If you’ve not spent a few hours training and perfecting your intro, it probably sounds like your value prop and is about 10 seconds too long. Learn the SWIIFT℠ Intro that perks their ear and gets them talking. You’ll be shocked at how many conversations happen instead of rejections.
  3. Overcoming the Brush-Off. Even with a better intro, you’ll get some brush-offs. Remember, this isn’t rejection – they don’t even know you! Most of us either hang up or answer it like an objection, and that’s wrong. How do you overcome “I don’t have time” or overcome “I’m not interested?” By moving around it. 
  4. A Better Value Prop. If marketing wrote it for you, it won’t work in phone sales. Sorry marketing. Value props need to answer who you are and why they care in a way that your grandmother could understand. The best ones use “The rule of three” to get their brain accidentally picturing your services. 

In summary, no matter the temperature of your outbound calls, when you make them a game, adjust your mindset, and layer in some skills, then you and your team can harness the incredible power that most of your competition has left behind. Sure, it’s easier to pop an email but remember:

“Nobody ever bought anything over email.”

Choose to be in sales instead of marketing. Pick up the phone and have some fun!

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sales prospecting tips

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How to Keep Prospects on the Phone

Everyone loves to talk about how many calls it takes to get someone on the phone (me included), but not enough of us talk about how to KEEP them on the phone!

If you’re making cold calls or even cold-ish calls, and you FINALLY get someone to answer, you feel a bit like…

Now, don’t blow it. The number one mistake at this stage is to begin a full-on sales vomit.

We give the elevator pitch,

We give the value prop,

We ask a question,

Then we answer the question for them…

All the while we’re still actually tuning in to the fact we are getting a chance to do our jobs and someone is on live with us. And as soon as our brains catch up with our mouths, the prospect is saying:

“This isn’t a good time.” or  “I’m not actually in the market right now.”

We call this an “Early Dismissal” as opposed to an objection (where they have a relevant reason or question based on our actual offering). You might call it, “getting blown off, rejected, turned down, shut down”, or “blown out” if you’re a friend from the UK.

So what do you do when you’re getting shut down in the first 30 seconds of the call? We got you.

#1 Stop Talking Sooner. The best way to stop the sales word vomit is to never start it. Get a SWIIFT℠ intro down pat. This is a 10-second intro that is designed to get prospects talking FAST.

#2 Save the Value Prop for Minute Two. Lots of folks think their elevator speech (what I do and why you care) is the same as their intro and that’s exactly wrong. Save this for when they say, “Wait, who are you with again?” Now they’re listening! Another smart reason to save it: Your intro should be as much about them as possible and as little about you as possible. This way we don’t sound like desperate salespeople.

Desperate salespeople consistently get shut down with early dismissals.

#3 Be Confident and Conversational. If you sound like their neighbor or like they’re lucky to even be talking to you, you’ll have more luck keeping them on! Again, the key to this is a go-to introduction and practice. Yes, write it down if you need to for the first few calls. Then ditch it because reading it sounds neither conversational nor confident!

#4 Master the Brush-Off! We teach 2 ways to overcome the dismissal and neither is anywhere close to how we overcome an objection. When we overcome objections, we dig into the why and address concerns. An early dismissal is not based on fact. It’s another way to say:

“Leave me alone, I’m busy.”

“I don’t like salespeople.”

“I can’t deal right now.”

So don’t dig in, drive around! The key to keeping prospects on the phone is to get them talking! Do this by bringing up a random subject or even digging into their BS excuse with a question.

For example: 

Dismissal: “I’m not the right person.”

Rep: “So how are things going over there?” (unrelated question), or

Rep: “So there are more folks in your department?”

The key is to not stop! Now ask another question. And another. And before you know it, you’re getting the information out of them you called to get!

Second key: Prevent sounding defensive at all costs! Here’s an example of what sometimes happens that doesn’t work:

Dismissal: “I’m not the right person.”

Rep: “So, you aren’t interested in saving money?”

Prospect: “No you little turd and now I will never buy from you ever.”

Get the difference? I’m not saying to strong-arm, I’m telling you to deaf ear. Keep it sweet and light and go right on past them with another question and before they even realize it, you’ve gotten two qualifying questions answered and the name of the right person to call (or a better time to call them).

It doesn’t work every time, but we see a good 70% plus success rate!

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SWIIFT℠ Intro Training In A Box [Guide]

SWIIFT℠ Intro Training In A Box

[Guide]

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO FIX YOUR COLD CALL INTROS

This full guide gives you step-by-step instructions to implement the Factor 8 SWIIFT℠ Intro on your sales calls, including:

  • Recorded webinars 
  • Articles with actionable, how-to tactical tips
  • Cheat sheets straight out of The Sales Bar
  • Grading forms to see how well you’re doing
  • “Touch-base” montage for fun 

Download your guide below!

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO FIX YOUR COLD CALL INTROS

This full guide gives you step-by-step instructions to implement the Factor 8 SWIIFT℠ Intro on your sales calls, including:

  • Recorded webinars 
  • Articles with actionable, how-to tactical tips
  • Cheat sheets straight out of The Sales Bar
  • Grading forms to see how well you’re doing
  • “Touch-base” montage for fun 

Download your guide below!

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6 Ways To Kill Your Sales Call Intros

Our Factor 8 trainers hear a lot of sales call intros. Thousands of them. And, the bad news is that there are a lot of bad intros out there. Really, I mean a lot of horrendous intros. The good news? They’re easily fixed and your reps can begin to see an immediate impact by implementing a few tips.

I shared with Sales Hacker how reps can fix their intros. Read about it here. Got a comment or call intro successes to share? I want to hear them! Share them with me on LinkedIn.

6 Horrendous Ways To Begin Your Sales Call (And What To Do Instead)

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You got hung up on? Congratulations!

Let me just bottom line this bad-ass blog post for you guys. When reps are “scared” on the phone, this is what they’re scared of. Seriously. It is literally the very worst that can happen to them when selling on the phone. (Actually it would be a funny post to see what WAS the worst thing that ever happened to you when selling on the phone…let’s do that next!).

So my advice is, help this happen to them as soon as possible. In fact, put a contest around it and reward it.

It’s not EXACTLY like falling off a horse or throwing someone fully clothed into the deep end of the pool. . .but it’s the Factor 8 phone sales training equivalent. The rep who emerges on the other side? Total. Bad. Ass.

Watch the video for more details. Thanks for promoting bad-assery!

LB

PS – Last week I talked at the SalesHacker / SalesForce conference in New York City (holy humid you guys. I didn’t even sight see!). I talked a lot about the benefits of focusing on your reps’ introductions and helping them get on first base.

We’ve built our first Factor 8 “Training in a box” and I’d love you to check it out. It’s free, and it has step by step instructions on how to use all our free training tools to roll out training on better intros to your whole team. Give it to your trainer or a sales manager and send us your results! Here’s the link to get it: https://factor8.com/fix-your-sales-intros.

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