From Cold Calling and Social Selling!
Is Cold Calling Dead? Has it gone “Zombie”?
No, but it's certainly morphing…
Strike the right cord with the right people as quickly as possible!
It's increasingly important for sales professionals to make contact with new prospects, but success will depend on
how they can immediately begin thawing the ice and warming up the conversation. If this doesn't happen the cold
call will go “Zombie”. Cold calls can walk aimlessly like the living dead with no result other than that of ravenously
eaten time. So, how do you kill the Zombie, thaw the ice and warm the "Contact"?
Morphing cold calling and social
selling to work together will increase
business opportunities for the sales
professional.
Key Considerations:
• Pre-warming
• Using 2-Way Relevance
• Moving from Association to Engagement
• Morphing into Social Selling
Pre-Warming
Strike a relevant cord with the contact. From experience , and most of us know this, influencers rarely "pick
up" and almost NEVER call you back. That's from traditional “cold calling”. Pre-warming the call is the
answer. There are various things you can do, such as pinging the contact through your acquaintances via
social media. As well, one can use some sort of e-message, e-flier referencing people/concepts that you
know about the contact. Even leaving a pertinent voice mail message with some social network connection
could have a positive impact. Caveat: Remember all of these can fail miserably if you don't strike a relevant
cord with the contact.
2-Way Relevance
BE relevant! Being relevant, in this case refers to, first identifying points of probable interest to the contact,
and then pairing that interest with some value you have to offer. Even if that is simply showing your genuine
interest in the contact's interest. This can be done with a little web research and social networking. At that
point, you may call it loose "Association".
Moving from Association to Engagement
Show relevance and value to the contact! Once you have this loose "Association", be careful not to “Pitch
and Pounce”. It's important to request an exploratory discussion based on the 2-way relevance mentioned
above. Crafting the wording for this “call to engagement” through phone or some form of mail is quite
important such that you effectively illustrate the relevance while showing potential value to the contact.
Morphing into Social Selling
Incorporate social selling into your business practice!
What we’re talking about is the effectively the morphing of Cold Calling to Social Selling, and it’s a transformation
that sales professionals are considering, NOW, in order to build and protect their business. There is so much more
that goes into social selling with tools from LinkedIn to Twitter, to Facebook, and even Instagram. Who knows where
Social Selling will be in a few years from now, but there are some trends from which great advantage can be taken.
And this is one, for sure!