Do you still have a traditional phone at home, you know, the hard-wired type? If so, then you’re probably all too familiar with the dreaded cold call. Dinner time, or trying to relax after a long day, the phone rings and you answer it.
Notwithstanding many governments “do not call” lists, and other various mechanisms like call display, it’s almost inevitable that from time to time you’ll screw up and answer the phone. What awaits? A litany of annoying and sometimes abrasive people. People you know don’t give a rat’s $% about your time or, your privacy, and frankly, could care less as to whether you need the product or service they’re pitching.
Most people will take extreme measures to avoid these pesky calls. The proliferation of those making cold calls has reached such a level that it has impacted and restricted what once was a bastion for enjoyable and expected communication.
What’s the difference between a cold call and a call made to a prospect in a B2B environment? Plenty.
Let’s start with the dictionary. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a cold call as follows:
An unsolicited call
- hard sell
- sales call
- spam
- spit
And finally, a telephone call made to someone who is not known or expecting contact, often in order to sell something.
Let’s say you just received a cold call from a company selling windows. Do you need new windows? Have you put anything out into the public domain that would solicit or suggest that you are in the market for new windows? Do you even own any windows, perhaps you rent? Of course, the answer would be no.
Simply, cold calls are calls made by people that have no reasonable expectation or information that would suggest the one receiving the call will have a need or interest in the product or service they’re pitching.
Cold calls are an invasion of privacy. They are an affront and disrespectful as they fail to respect the reasonable expectation that one should be able to enjoy some level of privacy in their home.
Now let’s look at the B2B prospecting call. Who are you calling?
Are you calling someone with a publicly declared area of need or responsibility? Are you calling someone that you know uses or consumes your product or service?
What about accountability? Does your target prospect have someone they report to that would expect they are open to ideas or solicitations that could lead to better or more effective solutions within their department?
Within the B2B environment and assuming you’ve done your homework, you have a right to believe the person you’re calling could or should be expecting your call. You have the right to assume that this person could or should be interested in what you have to say and offer. At the very least, you can probably assume that the person who oversees them will expect them to do the best job possible. And that means keeping an open ear, being approachable for those who offer potential ways and means to drive efficiencies or possibly better results.
All this is not to say that you can expect to be treated with hugs and kisses every time you do reach a busy target prospect on the phone, and it doesn’t mean that getting people to pick up the phone will be any easier.
What it does mean though is that you have the right to reach out and be heard by an appropriate person in an appropriate department within an organization that is known to consume your product or service.
There is a fine line between a cold call and a B2B prospecting call but the difference is distinct.
If you sell windows for industrial buildings, and you have identified the organizations and the people within those organizations who are responsible for maintenance or operations of industrial buildings, then you have the right to assume that a phone call to those individuals should not be treated as an invasion of their privacy. You have the right to assume that they could or should be interested in your “window offering” because, in advance, you have verified that windows fall within their job description.
How then, do you differentiate your call from that of a cold call? Easy, just remember what you find so disagreeable about them and steer clear of the usual cliché cold call claims.
For instance:
- “I can save you money” How in the world could you know that unless you knew what they were currently paying?
- “I have something I know you’ll be interested in” Again, how can you “know” what someone will have an interest in before you talk with them and determine there is an existing need? May be they have other needs that are more time sensitive,
- “The reason I am calling is because we have determined” I think this one is pretty obvious. In-appropriate supposition.
There are many, many more, but the key is to be professional. Stay away from canned scripts that you don’t believe in because you’ll never be able to deliver them with authenticity.
Never, and I mean never, attempt to sell a product or service on the initial phone call.
Declare, up front, that you may not have a better or more desirable solution to the one they already employ.
Next time you pick up the phone, remember how it feels to be the target of a cold call, and then make sure you don’t partake in any of those same calling tactics.