I've been talking to a lot of marketing people recently about the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of cold calling. I've heard a lot of people say they'd rather have a root canal than make a cold call.
One person told me he and his partner once made over 2,000 cold calls without getting a project
Ouch. Now that's cold.
Everyone agrees that getting referrals from a personal connection is the best way to develop prospects, but that's not always possible. You can go to networking events, ask your existing contacts for help and you can mine your clients for additional projects, but at some point you're going to want to reach out to someone who has no idea who you are.
Photo by Sophie
Believe.
You can do your homework in advance. You can name drop some of your big clients. You can talk about your expertise and do your elevator speech without taking a breath. But mostly you should try to connect with someone on a personal and non-sales-ey level if you can. And I think you've got to BELIEVE. If you don't believe it's worth doing, it isnt.
Don't make getting a project the goal of the call.
Adjust your measure of success. This is the start of a relationship. You've got to establish a connection, i.e. trust. The prospect needs to know that you're legit and a potentially good fit before they'll even consider asking you for a quote. They've also got to be in the market to buy. Your goal here is to spread the word about your company and start a dialogue.
Regarding the actual call, I've had the best results by being blatantly direct. "I know you don't know who we are. I'm calling you because of x. I'm making some cold calls today to people I'd like to work with. Here's who we are and what we do and I'd like to e-mail you a link and follow up with you next week."
I've gotten zero projects from that first call, but I don't consider that a failure because my goal for the call is to connect with a person not with a project.
Be patient and persistent.
Over the years, I've told countless students to stay in touch and be persistent. Don't be a pest, but stay in touch. I almost never hear from them again and the ones that do follow up really stand out. That same lesson applies with cold calls. Start a relationship and stay in touch.