How to Be Better at Cold Calling

Cold calling is dead. It’s outdated. Who even does that anymore? These are some of the common responses you get when someone asks, “why not use cold calling for sales?”

But Dale Dupree of Sales Rebellion begs to differ, and he is on a mission to change the way that people sell. He starts off our interview saying, “Cold calling is no different than meeting your best friend for the first time. They were a stranger at one point, and now you have a wonderful relationship with them.”

Humanised way of selling

Dale then breaks this concept down further. A lot of sales folks and people from the SDR teams are scared to call the CEOs or CxOs for a sale. The key to overcoming this fear is to flip the switch when it comes to cold calling.

The trick is to not start too strong by immediately launching into your product, your company, and who you are. More often than not, sales people try to find pain points, talk about product fit, and dig a little too deep, too quickly.

“You need to nurture the cold call. You need to recognize that when you call somebody for the first time, it is a little awkward,” says Dupree.
While it may have its benefits, a cold call is usually a hindrance to the daily job of the person on the receiving end. To overcome this, use simple techniques that have been known to work on the human psyche, like kindling a person’s curiosity, or striking a genuine conversation that will interest the person.

Flip the funnel

Dupree’s most trusted maxim is, don’t start about who you are, your accolades, and all those details. Try and interrupt the normal pattern, and be proactive in a sales call. The mindset should be along the lines of thinking proactively about what the person is used to hearing.

Let’s not forget that it is a real human on the other end of your phone line, and not a mechanized robot.

For instance, you go to someone's cubicle, you find all kinds of instances of objects, paintings, and stuff that talks volumes about their character and their interests. Ever wondered why these elements are always around in plain sight? “Because we long to be ourselves on a daily basis," says Dupree. That hits the nail right on the head. At the end of the day, selling is just a byproduct of great conversations.