Chances are your Salespeople are Failing at this Critical Skill

As a Telemarketing company, we hear it over and over – “Cold calling is dead.”

“No one cold calls anymore.”

“Cold calling is a waste of time.”

It’s hard for us to understand why the average success rate for cold calling is 1.48%.*

If that’s true, how has MarketReach, a company built on cold calling, been able to thrive for all these years?

Here’s why – Most salespeople are horribly failing at cold calling.  They don’t know how to do it correctly, and because of this, no number of dials will make them successful.

However – The small portion of those who know how to cold call effectively are enjoying a crazy amount of success.

What sets the two groups apart? To help us understand the divide, we extracted some data from a study performed by Gong.io.

Gong.io used their database of over 1 million sales call recordings to analyze what makes an effective sales call, and alternatively what makes so many salespeople fall flat on their face when cold calling.

Here are the insights that they gathered:

1. The Longer, The Better

Gong.io found that calls that resulted in an appointment were almost twice as long as unsuccessful cold calls. Using the average call duration, they observed that:

Unsuccessful calls averaged 3 minutes 14 seconds
Successful calls averaged 5 minutes 50 seconds

Basically, the longer you draw out the conversation, the more likely you are to get an appointment. And no, this is not done by filling the conversation with meaningless speak;  and ad-libbing rarely works.

Successful cold callers have a script that allows them to stretch out the conversation. It acts as a roadmap for predicting all the routes that the conversation could go down and gives you things to say at each point.

A compelling script will contain questions, rebuttals, features, and benefits. Which brings me to my next point –

2. Take the Time to Inform & Educate

From an early age, we’re taught to listen more than we speak. However, with cold calling, you should take this lesson with a grain of salt. Gong.io found that:

 “the talk-to-listen ratio for successful cold calls is actually higher (more talking, less listening) than unsuccessful ones.”

In successful cold calls, the average salesperson’s monologue is 37 seconds, while for unsuccessful cold calls it is 27 seconds.

While listening to your prospect is a crucial element, you must remember that your purpose is to sell the meeting. To get a meeting, you must take the time to inform and educate your prospect about why you are worth their time.

Make sure your purpose for calling is clear and don’t be afraid to expand on your company’s features and benefits.

3. Make Sure You have a Great Opening Line

Your opening line can drastically make or break the outcome of the call.

For example, compared to the baseline, using:

“Did I catch you at a bad time?”

makes you 40% less likely to book the meeting. Cold calls with this opening line had a 0.9% success rate (compared to the 1.5% baseline).

Alternatively, asking the prospect:

“How are you?”

has 3.4X higher likelihood of booking the meeting compared to the baseline (a 5.2% success rate).

This one surprises many salespeople. They avoid this term because it seems to be ingenuine and a waste of time. However, how are you asking this question? Are you asking it hastily, or are you taking the time to make sure your tone is genuine?

The more rapport you can build, the better. Convince your prospect that you are interested in their well-being and the odds of an appointment are in your favor.

Still struggling with cold calling? Check out our Appointment Setting & Telemarketing services.