What sort of person actually enjoys cold calling?
Is it a different breed of person? Surely there must be a secret to enjoying speaking to someone new every few minutes with the 50/50 chance of rejection on every single call? If you’re in sales of any kind you’ll know that cold calling is the most direct way of speaking and meeting with the people you want to do business with – even if you hate it!  So, if some people can perform this sales function consistently successfully, what is that element that sets them apart?

Most sales people prefer meeting face to face with warm prospects. Most loathe all of the “grunt” work that makes up the pre-sales stage required in order to generate those meetings.  When you consider that there’s generally only around five to eight seconds to build rapport from a cold call and keep that person on the phone, it’s easy to see why! Without the usual face-to-face interaction, callers have to employ strategies such as listening and matching the pitch, words and mood of the prospect, as well as tracking breathing patterns and tonality in order to quickly build rapport. 

First of all, what is cold calling?

Cold calling is simply one component of the three phases of business to business service sales:

• Pre-sales: cold calling, pre-qualification, information sending, relationship building, sales appointment setting;
• Sales: converting a prospect into a client
• Account Management: ongoing service to clients to ensure retention

Is there a way of making cold calling easy?
One company based on the Mornington Peninsula wants cold calling to be easy for all of its clients by taking care of that function for them.  Harvest Management (Australia) Pty Ltd Harvest acts as an extension of its client’s sales team by consistently feeding their sales pipeline with highly qualified sales meetings. In essence, they perform all of the “pre-sales” activity on behalf of its clients’ sales people so that they can return their focus to the part they enjoy most: selling to warm prospects!  It works with clients from a range of different industries such as IT services, Recruitment, Consulting, Commercial Design, Training and many others.   

Harvest’s Business Development Consultants have mastered the technique of being able to comfortably speak with C-Level decision makers in order to uncover a genuine sales opportunity for its clients.  As you can imagine, once these skills are developed and understood, they must be continually honed and refined in to stay sharp.

So what makes Harvest so successful at generating sales meetings by cold calling?

As Ingrid Maynard, CEO of Harvest Management (Australia) Pty Ltd says: “First of all, you’ve got to have the right people in the role, which is why we’re always looking for motivated, experienced people.  Then you’ve got to continually develop these people.  I strongly believe in ongoing professional development whether it is structured, or more informal.  It keeps my team fresh, informed and constantly armed with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to be successful for our clients.  Training is a right and a reward in my business, so I try to match it to each person’s personality and motivation drivers.  What works for some people, won’t necessarily work for others.”

Ashleigh Hoult, a Customer Relationship Manager at Harvest, who also generates new business for several clients, was recently granted the opportunity to participate in Anthony Robbins course ‘Date with Destiny.’

“I found this to be extremely beneficial; it has enhanced my relationships in all areas, particularly in attempting to build instant rapport with prospects over the phone. One thing that Anthony Robbins teaches is how to master NLP techniques, so as well as identifying things like their tonality and speed of delivery, I can also recognize what level of consciousness they may be operating in, and I instantly know what approach to take.” 

Neuro Linguistic Programming is a tool that enables people to taps into their own and others’ “inner game” or thought processes to engender greater communication and understanding.  Essentially, it builds a bridge between one person’s view of the world, and another’s subtley and effectively which is what makes it an excellent sales tool. 

Do you have what it takes to join the successful team at Harvest?

You don’t have to be a Master Practitioner at NLP in order to be successful at generating sales meetings through cold calling though.  Indeed, Harvest’s team is encouraged to draw on their varied business backgrounds and skills to bring their own touch to the process.  Harvest is constantly on the look out for experienced, motivated and enthusiastic individuals to join its team of Busienss Development Consultants.  Think you’ve got what it takes?  See if you’d be willing to try out the following tips for successful cold calling: 

• Be positive with yourself. There must be enthusiasm in your voice that people can feel right away.
• Be genuinely interested! Ask questions that will help you understand what your prospect really wants to discover if there is a strategic fit between your company and theirs. If you can determine a need for your services, you are on your way; you can now only be seen as helpful, and people will appreciate your call.
• Have a well-developed script.  Focus on key features and benefits, including any limitations that people may bring up and any additional information about them that may prove useful.
• Know your script so well that you no longer need to refer to it.  Sounding natural and conversational makes all of the difference.
• Build momentum and keep it.  Starting is always the hardest part, so once you’re on a roll, stay there.  Who wants to keep starting over and over and over….?

If you:

• Have a passion for selling
• Would love the challenge of achieving set outcomes with C-Level Decision Makers,
• Want to work in a fun, supportive team environment
• Love building relationships and rapport with people
• Want to get further develop your communication skills
• Feel you’d be a great asset to the Harvest team

Call Ingrid Maynard at Harvest today on 1300 300 485 and find out when our next group interview is.