Advantages and disadvantages of phoning

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Phoning (also called Cold call or Cold Calling), is a sales technique to create contact by telephone with an interlocutor who was previously completely unknown. We will see that there is several phoning approaches :

• For simple solutions, it is possible to sell directly during a first call
• For more complex solutions, we will mainly try to plan a “demo” and to retrieve information (e.g. decision-makers).

In any case, it is an essential commercial skill that makes it possible to obtain significant results, with method and elbow grease. It is of course a central part of our Bootcamp to become a Business Developer or of our coaching for businesses.

Why do teleprospecting?

Definition of phoning

Phoning is a telephone canvassing technique during which a seller seeks to convince potential customers (prospects) to be interested in his products or services. This commercial prospecting (Outbound Call) developed with the generalization of the telephone as a communication channel, and remains very popular today.

What is the point of prospecting?

The benefits of this commercial practice are multiple:

• It allows to explore a new market Potential and do Increase the influence of business ;
• It is the best way to fully understand the expectations and needs customers, and to bring a human and social relationship to the sales process;
• It allows you to differentiate yourself commercially, especially if your competitors abandon it.

Prospecting is an integral part of a sales representative's missions and makes it possible to create new business opportunities. The Cold Calling may not be a spam call but a thoughtful contact with topics and goals defined in advance.

Why use telephone prospecting?

As a result of the COVID crisis, teleworking, but also to the sustained rhythms of life, new sales methods and techniques have emerged.

In this sense, phoning allows you to get in touch with your prospects remotely, taking only a few minutes for them. It therefore makes it possible to get in touch with a prospect and to capture their attention in order to create a commercial relationship.

Phoning allows to hear directly from your prospect and not to give him imaginary intentions or thoughts. It is the test of truth: no one can hide.

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What are the advantages of telephone prospecting?

The main advantage of phoning is its speed of execution: a cold calling campaign allows, when it is well carried out, to be impacting via a tool as common and basic as a telephone. This exercise is based only onsales pitch And her perseverance. In addition to saving time, selecting and targeting the prospects you contact allows for faster qualification and feedback.

Fast and inexpensive launch

Launching a cold calling operation is relatively quick, requiring only a few resources. If phoning does not require advertising costs or major marketing materials, a good database and CRM is however necessary to guide and feed the presentation. Most of the work is done in creating the database and targeting the profiles to be contacted.

In other words, the speed of execution of this commercial technique implies a high volume of calls per day and therefore optimal organization.

Targeting and qualifying your interlocutor

Upstream, it is easy to do targeting work based on business CRM, database or Linkedin. The diversity of sources and technological tools make it possible to obtain the best information on the profile sought and the content to be offered.

After thepreliminary analysis from the base of potential customers, feedback and experience will help refine the search for the profile of the interlocutor receptive to proposals as well as the correct way to obtain his contact details or to talk to him.

Therefore, this telemarketing method maximizes the chances of success by reaching out to the right people on the right topic.

Targeting example:

• Consumers of competing products
• Individuals who have expressed a certain need (response to questionnaires, announcements)

Personalize your approach

Thanks to targeting, it is possible to personalize your approach by adjusting the sales pitch according to the profile of customers encountered: the seller knows who he is dealing with, not the potential consumer.

The individual chosen for this initiative must know the company and its products/services while maintaining the flexibility to adapt according to the context. As the exchanges progress and depending on the subject, salespeople will gain confidence, speaking fluency and professional experience.

The telephone channel allows the maintenance of a human connection and create a social bond that exceeds the purely professional threshold. The aim here is to bring added value to the simple economic transaction by showing a form of particular interest in the situation of the prospect to whom he has the answer. The seller makes it clear to the customer that he is advising him as aintelligent and emotional human and not as a slot machine.

Example of telephone personalization:

• Start the conversation with a personal connection “I also studied at University X, what did you study there?” “I also worked at Company A, do you know Mr H?”
• Identify needs: “I noticed that you mentioned the need to be trained in digital technology in a professional context, it so happens that our Y platform offers this type of service”

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Get the full attention of your prospect

For only a few minutes, you have all the attention of your prospect, it is up to you to know how to use this moment well to show your strength of proposal.

Contrary to Mailing And at By Selling, this approach favors a privileged direct exchange, at a distance. It is necessary to give the right amount of information concerning the product/service and the company so that the customer knows perfectly well whether he is in the project or not, and thus avoid wasting time with erroneous retractions or returns.

You have to be impacting very quickly, both orally and in writing (for the rest of the process) and provide customers with what is closest to their needs.

Example:

• Make sure you don't contact them in a Bad timing : the seller should be in a quiet place to facilitate understanding.
• Raise catchphrases or relevant information like Icebreaker in order to guide and facilitate the conversation.
• Adopt a convincing and dynamic speech in order to capture attention.

→ If the correspondent is absent: leave a clear message and find out about the best time to contact them again.

Get a quick response from your prospect

Under the condition of having a powerful argument, phoning is the most effective way to get quick feedback from your prospect on a possible collaboration. Even if this tool does not give you time to understand all the needs of your interlocutor, you can quickly get an idea of the Business potential of this in the short and medium term by identifying the priorities to be addressed.

Very quickly, the seller will realize whether or not the potential customer feels interest in the offer and if it corresponds to him. Either he expresses it radically, or the exchange makes it appear. In both cases, the seller is fixed on the situation of the prospect and will decide based on whether to continue the call or not and thus avoid wasting time.

Example:

• Have you already spent money to fix this problem?
• Are you already in contract with one of our competitors? Do you aim to continue this collaboration?
• What characteristics do you think are important in this product search?

→ In general, short or too refractory answers indicate a lack of adherence.

Possibility to get results quickly

Faster than an email exchange, if the project is pleasant and validated, the main information is discussed during the call and Accelerate the next steps of the sales process. Targeting and executing the call leave little time for arguments and allows you to focus your energy on the essential elements of the project. So it's a faster process, with a shorter sales cycle allowing you to create turnover more quickly through sales and thus multiply your initiatives.

What are the disadvantages of phoning?

Cold calling is a delicate exercise. The salesperson only has a short period of time to attract the attention of a person who does not no previous knowledge of his existence, or even no desire to know him. Even if the aim of the targeting work is to limit the incompatibility of the exchange, the character unexpected and intrusive of the call coupled to the low receptivity of customers with regard to this practice can make it less impacting and more difficult.

Nobody is waiting for you

The challenge of cold calling is to succeed in convincing a person who does not know you and who did not try to get to know you that you are the solution to his needs, better than the businesses that she would have potentially already identified and with which she would already feel more familiar.

Each call in itself lasts on average only a few minutes and buyers expect an impacting and attractive novelty proposal from the seller because while it is easy to pick up the phone, it is just as easy to hang up.

What to avoid:

• Choosing a seller who lacks knowledge of offers and tact,
• Call at certain times of the day that are less conducive to discussion (too early in the morning or late in the evening, at the weekend, during meal times...),
• Give an impersonal and messy presentation.
  

How to limit this impression of intrusion:

• Encourage calls to certain niches: according to the 2022 report of the Keller Center Research 2022, the best period for phoning is from 10 am to 2 pm (where we have the most social energy),
• Prepare a short presentation framework with the key elements to be addressed,
• Personalize your approach according to the profile encountered.
  

An intrusive prospecting method

Admittedly, most people don't like calls that are unexpected, sometimes repeated. It is therefore all the more difficult toswap And of Capturing attention of the individual if he finds this approach too intrusive or anxiety-provoking. With a relatively short attention span and a predisposition to want to hang up Quickly, tired of being disturbed, you must quickly contextualize the call and capture the attention of the prospect.

What to avoid:

• A low quality of exchanges with an approach that is too general,
• Ask questions that are too personal.
  

How to limit this impression of intrusion: 

• Show your desire to exchange and not to impose,
• Anticipate that your potential customer has little time to devote and that you will have to be fast as a result.”I promise to be brief””I'm asking for two minutes of your time”,
• Find a catchphrase to capture the attention of the prospect (ice-breaker) as soon as they pick up the phone and present key information about the reason for your call from the first seconds.
  
  

A time-consuming method

Cold calling is played on one question at a time quantity and quality of exchanges because a lot of calls are made but few lead to a meeting and even less to the final signing of a contract or a sale. According to the Keller Center Research 2022 report, only 1 call out of 59 finally leads to a meeting.

Faced with the time and energy that phoning requires, the question of the real productivity of this method arises. The telephone channel includes not only technical obstacles (change of telephone numbers, voicemail...) but also human (lack of time, customers not receptive or not available). The interlocutor must be patient with the number of calls made during the day, many of which were unsuccessful, while being ready to make a case if an opportunity arises.

What to avoid:

• Make hundreds of calls blindly without knowing the particularities of each contact,
• Give this mission to a person who would not know how to highlight your products and services or who would not be experienced enough orally.
  

How do you save time?

• Have a good database and CRM and do good analyses to be sure to target the right audience and reach the right audience,
• Have prepared a typical sales pitch while knowing how to adapt to prospects,
• Have a good knowledge of call techniques, technical terms and characteristics of offers in order to anticipate questions from potential customers,
• Aim for certain periods of the day that are said to be conducive to business,
• Always ask for a Follow-up of the exchange or ask whether future consideration is still possible.
  
  

Phoning is not always the solution

The specificity of this type of exchange makes phoning unsuitable for certain situations. Targeting makes it possible to identify certain prospects who will not be receptive to the call.

This is the case for example of many VSEs (Very Small Businesses), their structure makes the cold calling process too time-consuming for the lack of ROI (Return On Investment) in the medium term.

Likewise, this sales technique will not prove convincing for very important players for whom non-knowledge of the business is an obstacle to exchange. In this case, it will be preferable to use other contacts who can provide information internally and thus make your existence and your offers known.

What to avoid:

• Interviewing any player in any structure without knowing the target of your offer as well as the organization and needs of your customers
• Seek to contact important personalities directly as potential customers with whom contact may be reduced (lack of availability) or even vain (not interested)
  

How to limit the risk of failure:

• Find out about the type of customers you can and want to reach (typically, phoning is more likely to obtain positive results with ETIs for example)
• Know the missions and objectives of the person you are going to contact (do not contact the HR department to sell new gloves but rather seek to know the lead buyers)
• In a company where the organization is complex, make sure to leave your contact details at the end of the call and maintain a commercial relationship by planning another meeting or by continuing the exchange by email.

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How to succeed in a phoning campaign?

Choosing quality over quantity, this call is not advertising spam from your company, it is an initiative of your business at the service of your potential customer. Phoning requires a good sales technique (good relationships, knowledge and trust) and a careful preparation to convince him that your proposal is the one he needs.

What are the goals of your phoning campaign?

A telemarketing campaign requires salespeople to put in place a defined strategy with clear objectives. For customers, you're not just selling a product or a service but a change, a solution to their needs that they haven't even thought of yet.

You have to ask yourself the right questions: What to offer and to whom?

When negotiating by telephone, it is important to understand that each prospect will pursue different objectives or outcomes such as turnover, the acquisition of a new market or the establishment of a commercial relationship, in accordance with both the wishes of the company and those of the customer. Deciding objectives in advance results in better preparation and allows the seller to be more comfortable, confident and precise in his words.

Setting up an effective sales pitch

The CAB method (Characteristics-Benefits-Benefits) allows you to select the arguments to be highlighted during the call.

• specifications : As the prospect is unaware of the existence of the business, the aim is to highlight the reason for this call (facts about the company, characteristics of the product or service offered)
• Benefits : Make the prospect's need appear and convince him that we can help him find a solution. We must justify our proposal, be able to answer questions, all this in a framework of advice and not of forcing sales (comparative advantages, comparative statistics)
• Benefits : prove that the motivation of this campaign is an objective of gain and satisfaction for both parties (ROI statistics, customer feedback)

How to improve sales with B2B phoning?

According to a LinkedIn study, 82% of BtoB experts believe that cold calling salespeople are not prepared enough. Hence the need to understand and control this strategy: false information and poor BtoB preparation have the effect of wasting 27.3% of the time spent in the campaign.

• Know how to identify your audience: Conduct software surveys and data files in order to identify potential customers who are receptive to our offer in order to reach an agreement (being sure to contact the right people has the advantage of initiating a conversation more easily and with a greater chance of success).
• Define your goals: working and exchanging with the target audience concerned by the object of prospecting in order to achieve sales and results, but also for commercial and marketing relationships.
• Establish a clear action plan: using the software and information available, establish a prospecting file with all important data and contacts and update them as needed.
• Preparing an argument: if we can have a guideline or a presentation pitch. You have to know how to adapt to the profile contacted and to the turn of the discussion.

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