The more you know and understand about prospects’ businesses and headaches, the more credible you become during warm and cold calls of all types – whether your approach is at an industry event, on the phone, via email or social media.

So, do your research and follow these keys to making effective calls:

Warm Calls

Warm calling has the advantage of comfort. Your call, intent, and interaction are at least somewhat expected and wanted.

• Warm up the warm call. Send something valuable before you make the warm call. A white paper, industry trend report or link to a relevant story will give you a connecting point.
• Call or email, introducing yourself and asking if they received what you sent. Ask: “How was it helpful?” “I found X interesting. What did you take away?” or “What more would’ve you liked to see?” Any of these questions will help open a dialogue about what’s important to them – and how you might be able to help.
• Connect. Ask questions that allow prospects to open up about an unfulfilled need: “I know a lot of people in your industry struggle with X. How’s that going for you?” “I saw you retweeted a story on X. How has that situation affected you?”
• Keep your cool. Stay calm and engaged. You don’t want to offer solutions now – or the warm call may feel very much like a hard sell, and prospects will resent it and push back.
• End it. Try to limit warm calls to five minutes. Say, “If you have a few more minutes, I can share some information that would be helpful. If not, when can we talk again about what’s going on?”

Cold Calls

Cold calling is more of a shot in the dark – which makes it understandable that some salespeople dread or fear it. By one estimate out of a Baylor University study, just 2% of cold calls result in a meeting. However, other research from The Rain Group shows that 70% of customers want to hear from salespeople early in their buying process. That means there’s a percentage of prospects who are willing to listen to someone who can promise a better solution.

Cold calling can pay off (get the Cold Calling Cheat Sheet) – it’s one of the only ways for salespeople to uncover new, previously unsuspecting prospects, people who are unhappy with their current situation, or at least willing to listen to a better offer. You just can’t give up easily: It usually takes eight cold call attempts to get through to a prospect, according to research from Telenet and Ovations Sales Group.

So, approach a call or visit like this:

• Be confident. You need to sound confident when you identify yourself and your company. Then pause. You might be tempted to jump into a pitch, but you want to give prospects a moment to make a connection to them in some way.
• Connect. Now that prospects are trying to figure out how they know you, make a real connection. Mention an award the person or organization received: “Congratulations on the promotion. How’s it going so far?” Bring up an alma mater. “I see you went to X University. How did you like it?” Recognize tenure: “You’ve been at X company for more than a decade. How’d you get started there?”
• Respond. Prospects will likely answer your personable question before asking, “So why are you calling?” Keep the mood light with something like, “I’m glad you asked.” Or, “I almost forgot.”
• Be honest. Now’s the time to lay it out there. Explain in three or fewer sentences what you do and who you help. For instance, “I work with managers in X industry who do X. They typically want to improve X.” Then ask, “Does that sound like you?”
• Open it up. Prospects will likely say yes to that question. And now that you’ve managed to get them to open up about a concern, you can say, “Tell me more about that.”

Resource: Adapted from Internet