Relationship Building From Cold Calls

It would seem highly unlikely that anyone would be able to build a relationship from a cold call – but this is a fallacy. Every day businesses are finding their clients through cold calling – building profitable relationships that last for years.

Rapport building

Rapport building is the cornerstone of how to build a close and successful relationship over the telephone. By nature though you would think it impossible because you don’t know the person and you have very little time in order to establish a rapport, but with practice and know-how it can be done.

The secret of rapport building is for the recipient of a cold call to feel comfortable within the telephone conversation. For it to feel familiar enough not to notice the differences between you, like the feeling you have when you call a friend.

Think about calling a person you know – a close friend or relative. Now think about how often you use their name when in a telephone conversation. Surprisingly little. Once perhaps at the beginning of a conversation, but unlikely that it would be used again. Telephone sales people in general often regard it as good practice to generously sprinkle a persons name throughout a conversation – they feel it creates a friendly environment. What isn’t realised is that the opposite is true and it can sow mistrust and sound artificial.

What’s in a name?

Rapport can be broken very quickly by how people are addressed by name during a cold call. As well as overusing names, telemarketers often think that by using a person’s first name it will evoke a friendly environment – but how often would you greet someone who you have never been introduced to, met or spoken to before, by their first name? It would be disrespectful to do this, but some cold callers do it all the time.

First name use should strictly be by invitation only or if the person announces themselves by their first name on answering the call. Don’t assume familiarity until you have earned it.

The cold caller – first name only or both names?

Rapport is all about building trust between the caller and the recipient of the call. By using both names, a cold caller is showing transparency as to who they are. Subliminally this says ‘I have nothing to hide’ and helps to build both trust and rapport right from the first seconds of the call.

Helping to keep rapport going

To develop and stay in rapport the cold caller needs to adapt to the tempo of the other person. Speaking too quickly will result in the recipient of the call feeling that the cold caller is too aggressive or too pushy. Speaking too slowly will irritate the recipient – the trick is to match the tempo of the person you are calling.

Breaking The Myths About Cold Calling…

There’s no doubt that cold calling has not enjoyed the best of reputations over the years. A badly executed cold call, at best can be irritating to the recipient. At worst, it can end in an abusive interaction by both parties and a slamming down of the telephone.

Done correctly though, cold calling is without doubt one of the most cost effective and profitable ways to find new business – fast.

You can build excellent relationships and find companies who are looking for your products or services every day. It is perfectly possible to speak with 25 decision makers in one day and make qualified appointments with up to 10% of them. Imagine what that could do for your business?

Scripts

Scripts don’t work and that’s a fact. A robotic set of words spewed out to anyone who will listen – and then expecting to get a ‘yes’ at the end, is the practice that gave cold calling a bad name years ago. A bad script works on the principal that – ‘A stopped clock tells the right time twice a day’ and cold calling is just a ‘numbers game’.

By contrast, you know an approach that’s working when someone says “I’m really glad you called”, or “thanks for your call” at the end of a conversation.

The alternative to a script is a call guide that allows the person placing the cold call to have a logical conversation with the receiver, allowing them to participate fully. It is vital to gain rapport quickly and to ask pertinent questions that the recipient recognises may help solve problems that they have. When a call goes in this direction, very profitable relationships can begin to develop, which then turns into very profitable business for you.

Objection handling

‘Objection handling’ is a term that is used to describe how a cold caller deals with an objection raised by the recipient of a cold call.

This practice involves argumentative exchanges of views between the cold caller and recipient – usually ending in the recipient becoming annoyed and putting the phone down.

Objections happen when a cold call has been made using a rigid script or a poor approach. The recipient raises an objection because he/she cannot see that they have a use for the product of services that is being pitched on the call or they are not finding the call interesting enough to listen to.

An interesting approach with the call guide, which involves highlighting the unique selling points of your companies’ products or services plus asking the right questions to unearth needs and provide solutions will win hands down and create the right environment for the recipient of the call to say – ‘ you called at just the right time’.