Yesterday we discussed making conversations relevant in two main industries. Our examples were Staffing and Software. Today we are discussing two more major industries and how to make your cold calling relevant in advertising and collections.

Example: Advertising

Advertising is a very good example. Typically, what most advertising sales folks start with is an introduction. They talk about their advertising product or services that they offer. But with our problem solving approach, the question becomes, “What does advertising solve for people?” The first thought usually is that it gets people leads. It gets more branding.

Let’s go deeper than that. What do leads do for companies? Leads provide sales, right? So if I sell advertising, I might call and say, “Maybe you can help me out for a second. I’m just calling to see if your company is open to new ideas of generating leads for your business.” From this place, the discussion unfolds around their world, and not your advertising. That’s the real shift in making cold calling relevant to their world.

Example: Collections

Another example is the collections industry. Typically, collection agencies call companies to see if they can be hired to collect invoices that are unpaid. They usually talk about their services as opposed to making their cold calling focus on the problem.

The client is looking to bring in more revenue from invoices that aren’t paid. So an approach might be, “Maybe you can help me out for a second?” The reply is once again, “Sure, how can I help you?” “I’m just calling to see if your company is still having issues with unpaid invoices.” And the response probably will be, “Well, yeah, we are. Who’s this?” You can then respond in a very relaxed tone, “This is John. I’m with XYZ Collection Agency. I’m just calling to see if you’d be open to some new ideas on how to better solve that problem.”

These are some examples of how to make your cold calling relevant to the other person and his or her needs. Practice this, and you’ll find that your cold calling conversations become more relaxed. You’ll no longer have to shift into an artificial “salesperson” role.

Until next time,

Keep calling and keep it conversational…

Ari Galper, founder of Unlock The Cold Calling Game, makes cold calling painless and simple. Learn his cold calling secrets even the sales gurus don’t know. To receive your 10 free audio mini-lessons visit http://www.UnlockTheGame.com

Tags: Cold Calling, cold calling techniques, cold calling tips, cold calling training, sales rejection, sales techniques, Sales Tips, Sales Training

This entry was posted on Monday, February 15th, 2010 at 10:00 am and is filed under Ari's Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.