Improve your outbound calling strategy with these 7 steps!

Abe Dearmer

Feb 24, 2020

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6 min read

Marketing

Outbound calling is a popular choice for companies to reach new prospects and leads who have shown interest in their company, or maybe making cold calls to generate leads. While making a call seems simple enough, many people get nervous and get a dry mouth just thinking about it! Hopefully, your sales reps are not in that category and know how to handle every situation thrown at them during a call.

Outbound calling requires practice and patience, along with the skill to handle several different kinds of clients. Whether this is your first call to your prospect or a follow up one, keep a few things in mind when you start planning your outbound calling strategy.

Here are 7 tips that can help you keep your prospects engaged and turn them into paying customers!

Do your research before calling

Before you even make a call, it is important to ensure you do your research well. This wouldn't take more than a few minutes of your time and just requires you to go over the previous notes, the prospect's LinkedIn page, company website, and other social media pages. Gathering relevant information about the prospect and their business can help you tailor your pitch specifically to them.

Be sure to incorporate particular pain points for their business or industry to show them that you've done your homework and have taken the time to research them. Just because it is a cold call, it doesn't mean you need to go into it completely blind. Show your prospect you care about their problems and want to tailor your products and services to their needs.

Make every call count

Do not expect to make a sale on the first call itself. Nurturing your prospect and turning them into a lead takes time and requires a process to be followed. Expect the sale or closure of the deal to go through over at least a couple of calls, where the first one works as an introductory one. Use each call to understand them and listen carefully to ensure you incorporate points in your pitch based on their responses every time.

Once you understand what the person at the other end of the line wants, it will be easy to create a process and reel them in for a final pull when the time to make a deal comes! Even if the prospect is not interested, you can use the opportunity to ask them if they have anyone else in mind who would benefit from your services.

Get them interested and engaged

A very important aspect of making sure you make a sale is keeping your prospect engaged during the conversation period. Boasting about your services and not taking into consideration what the prospect wants will make them lose interest very soon. Instead, pay attention and make them feel valued. Show them that you're here to help them as well and not just sell a product.

Building trust is important as it helps the prospect understand your intentions. Creating this trust in the beginning and initial conversation is important to keep them interested throughout. Make sure to not promise something you can't deliver later and try to cater your products and services to them in a way that it seems customised just for them.

Be flexible in your approach

Every client is different and that's why you must be flexible in the way you handle every one you work with. There is no one-size-fits-all formula here and you must adapt the way you do business to your client's needs. This is the best way to create a give-and-take relationship where everyone gets what they want!

Making sure that the right steps are taken at the right time is essential in making sure your calls have been a success. Change the process depending on your client's needs as a little flexibility can go a long way in doing business with others.

Make sure to always follow up

The first call is often not enough to get the full attention of your prospect and the best way to keep the conversation going is to always follow up. Persistence is a good way to keep you on your prospect's mind, but don't be so persistent that it gets annoying. A follow up could be in the form of an email and doesn't always have to be a call.

Getting back in touch on the telephone is always better when the prospect has given you a certain time, as you can't keep calling them again and again unscheduled. What you can do instead is send an email reminding them to schedule the next conversation. Be persistent in a way that it adds a meaningful step in your sales process, but know when to pull back when you can see the prospect is not interested at all.

Be prepared to be rejected

This is a necessity when it comes to outbound calling because the chances of prospects becoming paying customers is usually quite small. It takes time and you have to sort through many prospects to find a few good, loyal customers. It is important to know how to handle rejection with grace and not feel put down by it.

It may make you feel disheartened to hear a "no" in the beginning, but you can take it as an opportunity to learn what to say and what not to say and use your new learnings in future outbound calls. You should also know that sometimes it may not be you at all for the rejection and could be that the product isn't for them or it just wasn't a good time to talk.

Training makes perfect

A well-trained team is the biggest factor that contributes to the success of any outbound calling strategy. Ensuring that your team is up to date on the best practices for calling prospects and clients and have the tools they need to do so is important.

Apart from training, companies can also focus on incentives as that is a great way to motivate the team and help them do their best. Encourage them to do better with the help of gamification and help them reach their full potential. A well informed and educated team will make sure to do better and apply their skills.

Outbound calling can be extremely beneficial for any business when done the right way. It is not just about randomly calling people and seeing who seems interested, but more about using a well thought out process that adds value to your prospect's business and helps you turn prospects into customers!

Michael King says...

"I can’t think of a time where a client has requested something that we weren’t able to do with FiveCRM. Unlike most systems, it has a lot of flexibility."

Managing Director, Senior Response

JANE HUSBANDS SAYS...

“Each client, and each of their campaigns, has its own unique specifications. We essentially needed to set up mini CRMs on one platform to meet those requirements.”