Today there are dozens of devices and techniques used by gatekeepers to screen out sales representatives. Even the smallest firms employ answering machines and voice mail. To make appointments with decision-makers today in many businesses or professional organizations, requires a creative approach that will bypass the screening systems and give your sales representatives an edge in setting up meetings. Cold calling can be that creative approach for many business-to-business selling groups, if you know how to employ this proven prospecting tool effectively.

First and foremost, cold calling should be used to find out who the true decision-maker is in a company and to also obtain a gatekeeper’s name. Yes, your sales staff can do this over the telephone, but the chance of being screened out, is at an all time high. By being inside the company, your sales professional can qualify the organization. Qualifying a company on the telephone is impossible today. The minute your staff starts asking qualifying questions, the roadblocks immediately go up. By setting an appointment and then making a wasted trip to a company, that, for a variety of reasons, cannot use what you have to sell, your staff may spend more time than if they had cold called to assess a business in the first place. If your staff members do nothing more on a cold call than find the name of the decision-maker, qualify the prospect, and obtain a gatekeeper’s name, they have succeeded in their cold calling activity.

When cold calling, if the decision-maker is in, your representative should ask for two, no more than three minutes of the decision-maker’s time to set up an appointment for a short presentation. From my experience in setting up telemarketing centers across the country, I’ve found that setting one blind appointment on the telephone, takes a little over an hour for a seasoned telemarketer of representative. Setting one qualified appointment cold calling (depending on the industry) can take, on average, from one to three hours. However, my research also shows that appointments set in person, rather than on the telephone, have a much higher probability of being successful, due to the rapport factor that an initial meeting can generate.

If you’ve been reading from the beginning of this manual, you already know my feelings about selling your products or services while cold calling (Myth 24). If the decision-maker is not available, the second objective for your staff member is to obtain the name of the gatekeeper to use when calling back for an appointment. Dropping a gatekeeper’s name is a vital tool in overcoming electronic screening devices and getting to the decision-maker. When cold calling, your representative may also be able to obtain information about competitive vendors and determine if the opportunity exists to replace them.

One of the major complaints about cold calling is that it is time consuming. This is true if the technique is the only prospecting tool that your sales team uses to attract prospects. However, in combination with a drive by assessment plan, softening letters, emails, faxes and flyers, telesales calls, tip clubs, association activities and trade shows, cold calling can be a key element in attracting new business, by breaking down the barriers that today’s screening technology creates for your sales team members.

The average sales representative makes less than five sales presentations weekly. With a prospecting system like the one outlined above, custom-tailored to your organization, you can include cold calling as a key element in the process and double or even triple the number of presentations each of your sales team members conduct weekly. Custom-tailoring a prospecting system for your organization with cold calling and telesales scripts and a series of unique prospecting activities is easy, if you use The $elling Edge®, Inc.’s advisory services or our telephone coaching programs for sales managers. You can check both services out at: http://www.TheSellingEdge.com/personalCoaching.htm.