When used correctly, the phone is a powerful way to start and develop relationships.
Peter Davidson at the BeConnected blog pointed me to Kevin Stirtz’s post on cold calling. Thanks Peter.
Kevin Stirtz’s post, How to Make Cold Calling Work for Your Business, has some good points but – there is a better way.
Peter explains that we can use a bit of marketing ESP by combining our shared knowledge from various mediums such as email newsletters.
He writes, “One of the best ways to pre-qualify your leads is to work off a list of those contacts that have subscribed and clicked thru on the content of your email newsletter marketing efforts. Properly written and distributed an email marketing campaign can provide incredibly detailed information and customer intuition that will help your sales staff know what your customers are interested in.”
Absolutely – we just need to be judicious with how we use that information. Don’t say, “I wanted to speak to you about [topic they clicked on] because you our system indicated you clicked that link a dozens times.” I’ve received those kinds of calls that that’s a bit creepy.
If you must cold call, than how do make each call relevant? How can your phone call be plus in that person’s day rather than another unwanted distration?
I did a webcast with Jeff Thull on how to have relevant conversations with executives in mid-size to Fortune 500 companies. Jeff is the author Mastering the Complex Sale and The Prime Solution.
The challenge of cold calling is make sure each converstion we have is relevant and meaningful. That’s what this webcast is about.
My company uses Jeff’s approach for many of our lead generation programs and it works. Why? There’s no manipulation, pitches or trickery – it is simply about authentic communication.
Watch the webcast How to have relevant conversations with top executives (Executive Level Selling)
Brian Carroll is the CEO of InTouch Inc. InTouch is a 50-person company focused on delivering effective lead generation solutions for “the complex sale.”
Brian authors the very interesting B2B Lead Generation Blog which focuses on B2B lead generation, sales leads, and marketing for the complex sale.
