Turning a Cold Call into a Warm Call

Doing this is fairly easy, if you do your homework. This means finding out as much as you can ahead of either an in-person meeting or phone call to your prospect. If you know who the individual is you are trying to reach, all the better.

Go to the company website and learn as much as you can about the company there, as well as on other Google searched sites. Once you learn who the executives are at the company you are going to want to reach, check them out on Linkedin, and again, if limited information is there, Google them as well. You’ll be amazed at the information that can help turn that cold call to warm.

If you know the background of a company or individual, you are bound to be connected in some way, shape or form. It may be through another individual who knows this person. It may be because you worked at the same company, or went to the same college, or had a common client in the past.

The next step is how to quickly intertwine the information you discovered into the conversation. Now you really need to prepare. Even down to the line you will say when the person comes on the phone or comes out to greet you in their place of business. Once you establish commonality with your prospect, the wall of resistance to giving you an opportunity to develop a relationship is minimized by at least 50%, if not more! I say it is easy to do this, tongue-in-cheek. You have to practice this over and over and over again. Once it becomes a common thing you do, you will come off that way to your prospect and they won’t mind talking about the college they went to, or the major they had in school, or the town they lived in growing up, etc.

Sounds like a lot of work, but it really isn't, when you consider how easy it is today for your target customers to ignore you by never responding to emails or calls. If they do get on the phone or come out of their office to greet you in person, how easy it is for them to turn you away by not being interested.

You know they are interested in making more money and selling more widgets. First you have to make the conversation interesting so they give you a chance to talk, and listen to what they need. Once you cross that bridge, it is a matter of moving through the sales process before it moves toward the close.

What are your challenges when it comes to turning your cold calls into warm calls? I look forward to hearing your comments. Until next time...