11 Cold Calling Techniques That Really Work

There is an art to using cold calling to generate leads, but this article will start you with the framework and show you how to do cold calling successfully.

Cold calling lead acquisition is a numbers game. One out of every fifty-nine cold calls ends with a meeting or a referral for more business (sellingsignals.com). You’re going to experience a lot of rejection, but the opportunity for success outweighs failure when you are strategic.

1. Be strategic by planning.

A cold calling best practice is to start off with your goals and a list. Your list will most likely come from a third-party lead generation business. It’s good to have a minimum number of leads to call to meet your conversion quota.

You want to map out your cold call strategy by knowing how many hours you plan to commit per week or how many calls you want to make per week. Just remember, cold calling is a numbers game.

2. The power of the cold call script.

Most people dread sales calls. The first inclination is to hang up on a salesperson. Some people will politely listen to you before rejecting your offer. We’re a cynical culture when it comes to sales, which Is why the opening of your call is the most important part of the call. This is the greeting portion.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is not planning your script ahead of time. When you know what you’re going to say you increase your confidence. It’s important that you sound casual and friendly during your call. You don’t want to sound robotic like a call center employee reading from a call center script.

Using a script allows you to have control of the call. A simple script outline you can use is:

• Greeting
• Introduction
• Description of your services
• Ask for the appointment
• Plan for objections

Don’t sound like a robot while using your script with a prospect. Practice memorizing your script and record yourself so that you can hear how you sound and learn how to modify your tone and pace.

3. Practice makes perfect.

Practice your script out loud until you’re comfortable with the outline. You will have different scripts for different lead types. When you practice your script, you sound professional, confident, and knowledgeable.

Record your script rehearsal and listen to the way you sound. Adjust your tone where needed. Keep practicing until the words come out conversational and natural.

4. It’s all about them, not you.

You need to make sure the call is all about your lead. The introduction and description should be framed in a way to inform your lead how you can solve their problem and the benefits of staying on the phone with you.

5. Assume the sale.

You don’t want to come off like a pushy salesperson. However, you want to be assertive without being aggressive. You can do this by using assumptive language. Assumptive language sounds confident, and people respond more positively to being led by a confident person. Self-conscious and insecure-sounding salespeople have a higher rate of rejection.

6. Always communicate the benefits.

Every call you make needs to be about your lead and not about closing the sale. If all you’re thinking about is your bottom line, your lead will be less interested in working with you. You want to show the caller that you are working with them in their favor. Every deal is a team effort.

Always lead with how you will solve their problem and the benefits they will experience.

7. Ask for the next step.

Always ask for the appointment using assertive language.

Questioning (you are giving the power to the lead)

• "Would you like to schedule an appointment with me now?"

Assumptive (you take ownership of your power)

• "Let’s prequalify you for that mortgage loan that you’re interested in so that we can find you the best rate. What does your schedule look like this week?"

8. Provide follow-up actions.

You want the lead to feel engaged by being involved in the process. Let your lead know that you will send them a follow-up email with the confirmation details of the appointment. This is the best time to send them through your sales funnel to prequalify them before you meet for the scheduled appointment.

A great sales funnel automation that can help prequalify your lead is the Unfair Advantage. Our automated marketing funnel will help you filter out leads who won’t qualify and send them to an appropriate funnel for later lead conversion.

9. Rejection is inevitable.

Cold calling has a high rejection rate. Don’t take it personally. Accept rejection. It’s going to happen a lot.

Remember that you are calling with a valuable offer for someone interested in the outcome your service will provide them with. If they aren’t interested, then assume you didn’t have the right offer. In sales, “no” means “next one.” Just make your next call.

10. Automate as much as possible.

Calling fifty or more cold leads is a lot of work. Imagine emailing every prospect individually after a call. Time is a valuable resource which is why you need to automate as much as possible.

The Unfair Advantage is an example of an automated process. The automated marketing funnels are developed around the loan acquisition process. The system has automated emails and workflows to engage leads and take them through a personal home-buying process based on individual borrowers’ needs.

If you need help evaluating your current process, you can schedule a free Fastrack call to map it out and get started with automating your system.

11. Leave a voicemail.

Who listens to voicemail these days? A lot of people do when they don’t recognize your number, so always leave a voicemail. Your voicemail should be scripted just like your call for the best impact.

When you leave a voicemail, be sure to include the following details:

• Greeting (use their name and your own)
• Introduction
• Benefit (Reason for the call)
• Contact info

Make sure your message sounds friendly and confident. Communicate a beneficial urgency, but do not rush your message.

Using effective cold calling techniques creates opportunities

Cold calling can be a lot of work, but the rewards outweigh the challenges. It is still a great way to generate leads because it works. It allows you to connect to a live person and establish trust. When you have a plan and a script in place, you have an opportunity to use another tool to close more deals.

11 Cold Calling Techniques That Really Work was originally published on: goodvibesquad.com

Original post here: 11 Cold Calling Techniques That Really Work

The Art of Cold Calling to Generate Leads

In today’s age of text messaging and social media marketing, cold calling to generate leads may seem old-school. It’s important to remember that leads are still human beings and not resources. Direct interaction allows you to build immediate rapport and establish a relationship upfront.

This article will help you understand the process of cold calling and how to implement cold calling into your mortgage business to generate leads.

What is a cold calling?

Cold calling is defined as making a sales call to an unknown lead or lead. Typically, the loan officer obtains leads through third-party lead acquisition methods such as a lead generation provider.

In the case of the mortgage industry, a cold lead may be someone who submitted an opt-in inquiry on a house listing website. Since you’ve never had any interaction, you don’t know if they are interested in buying or just browsing. Cold calling is beneficial in this instance because you can call the lead to determine their interest.

Benefits of cold calling

Is cold calling effective? According to studies conducted by RAIN Group, 82% of buyers agreed to meet with salespeople who contacted them by cold calling. One out of every 59 cold calls ends with a meeting or a referral (sellingsignals.com).

Cold calling works to generate leads

Once you master the art of cold calling, you can convert cold leads into warm leads and send them through the right sales funnel based on their interest. You can optimize your loan acquisition process with our proprietary automated marketing funnel system called Unfair Advantage. The Unfair Advantage system is made to simplify the mortgage loan qualification process by taking your clients through a personalized homebuyer journey while pre-qualifying them.

Cold calling structure

Once you have access to contact information for a cold lead, it’s best to make the call immediately or as soon as reasonably possible.

Before you begin cold calling, you need to have a script in place. You want to make sure you know what you’re going to say before getting on the phone with a cold lead. Consumers are always on the defense when it comes to getting calls from salespeople. Therefore it helps to have a cold calling script in place.

Another thing that can help you before the call is made is doing a little research on the lead. We are in a digital era, and social media is a great way to know your lead before making a cold call.

Greeting

The first ten seconds are the most important time you must convince a cold lead not to hang up on you. The best way to do this is to have a greeting in place that establishes trust by making the call all about the lead instead of you.

Introduction of yourself

Don’t rush the greeting, and don’t rush into introducing yourself. Otherwise, you will sound like a salesperson. Your introduction should be friendly and allow the lead to engage with you. Your introduction needs to communicate:

• Who you are
• Your business
• The reason you called concerning the client’s needs

Description of your service

After you introduce yourself and explain why you called, you can elaborate by providing the lead with a description of your services. When you describe your service, you need to phrase it so that it tells what problem you can help them solve.

This is the opportunity to ask more questions of the lead to identify their exact interest. You can ask questions like:

• Are you looking to purchase a home or refinance your current home?
• What is the timeframe you are interested in purchasing your home?
• Have you already started speaking to other real estate professionals?
• Have you already been pre-qualified for a loan

Asking for appointments

Once you establish the specific interest of your lead, you can move to the next step. Suppose they are not interested in buying now, or they’ve confessed that they are not qualified for a loan due to their current credit or income situation. In that case, you offer to send them an informative email with information that will benefit them. This allows you to send them through the correct sales funnel.

If the lead meets all your criteria for an immediate opportunity, you can ask for an appointment.

Answer for the objection

Although a cold lead may be interested in moving forward with buying a home, some of them may be hesitant to schedule an appointment.

Don’t be intimidated. Ask them when they think they’ll be ready to move forward with the next step. Your response is always to get them to opt into your funnel so that you can guide them through the automated process. With the Unfair Advantage, even if they are not ready for an appointment yet, you can still send them through the funnel to qualify the borrower on their own schedule.

The Unfair Advantage will take your lead through an automated homebuyer’s journey to educate them and build trust so that they can gain the confidence to move to the next step.

Once you qualify the lead through our automated system, the qualified lead can schedule an appointment on your calendar.

Cold calling scripts

Now that you know the outline of an effective cold calling script, let’s check out an example. In this instance, the cold lead John Smith submitted a form online at Zillow while looking at a home.

Greeting

"Hello John, this is [your name]. My associate partner from Zillow sent me your contact information to see if I can help answer any questions. I see you were looking at [specify based on information available] on Zillow. Tell me more about what kind of home you’re looking at buying."

Introduction

"You [goals] sound exciting! I’m a Loan Officer from [company], and I help homebuyers with a key part of the buying process. I wanted to see how I can help answer any questions you have."

Description of your service

You describe your services here, but you also want to ask your preliminary qualification questions here as well to personalize your offer.

"I help homebuyers get qualified for mortgage financing while ensuring they get the best rates. Have you completed the loan prequalification steps yet?"

Asking for appointments

Be assumptive when scheduling an appointment.

"I’d like to send you an email with some vital information that will prepare you for the loan approval process and get you prequalified. I can send that over to you after our call. When is a good time for us to schedule a follow up meeting to see how to get you qualified for the best rate?"

Answer for the objection

If the lead rejects your appointment, you can still send them through your sales funnel and turn them into a warm lead that you can follow up with later.

"No worries, I understand you have a busy schedule. I will just send you an email after our call so that you can have access to valuable information that can help you prepare for your upcoming home purchase. You can also schedule an appointment with me once you’ve cleared up some time on your calendar."

Is cold calling effective?

When you have an automated marketing process to support your pipeline workflows, a cold lead can always become a warm lead that is led through the qualification and client onboarding processes. If you need help analyzing your current marketing process, schedule your free Fastrack marketing growth strategy session with us.

Cold calling gets appointments

Cold calling is effective because you are connecting directly with your target client on a personalized platform- verbally. Cold calling allows you to introduce yourself as a warm human and establish a relationship with a cold lead. You can ask direct questions that can allow you to adjust your offer to meet a specific need. Establishing trust is the first step to converting leads into clients.

The article The Art of Cold Calling to Generate Leads is courtesy of: Good Vibe Squad

Original post here: The Art of Cold Calling to Generate Leads