ronans cold calling essentials e book

Ronan’s Cold Calling Essentials Guide

Welcome to Ronan’s Essentials for Cold Calling Guide! If you are serious about transforming your results on the phone. If you are serious about generating more leads, more quickly. If you are serious about practice and commitment. Read on.

In truth despite my natural inclination to being an optimist, we are living in an increasing tough economic environment. And it’s not going to improve quickly. You know what. It doesn’t matter, because you can determine the strength of your own economy, your own business. You can do this through direct action. And in my experience there is no more direct action needed than picking up the phone and talking to potential clients. I’m almost loath to use the term cold calling as this tends to strike fear in to the hearts of most people. I use this term here but prefer to call it networking on the phone. Why not? The principles are the same. You want to meet and talk to prospective clients. You want to build your contact base. You want to have meaningful conversations with prospects. So network strategically, but using the phone as your means of communication. As I said the dreaded “cold call” is often maligned because those doing them, do them poorly. And get poor results.

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Picking up a phone and simply blurting out what’s in your mind at the time was never likely to work, yet it’s what most do. Cold Calling is a skill. Skills are developed through practice. Practice takes commitment. If you are committed you’ll become great at cold calling. It will get progressively easier and you’ll get extraordinary results.

I’m going to help you by giving you the tools to enable this transformation. Your job is to take the actions necessary. The actions will ultimately determine your success of failure.

Best regards.

Ronan Kilroy (Certified FocalPoint Business Coach)Possibility, Productivity, Proactivity. .





1.Your Mindset Success is sales is about two things. Mindset and Activity. Mindset when it comes to cold calling is probably 80% of your ability to be successful. When I talk about Mindset I’m really talking about your internal belief system. I’m quite honestly tired of hearing the common mantra “cold calling doesn’t work”. Is this your belief now? Well it’s generally those who’ve tried it ( or haven’t but have an opinion) and have been half hearted, had no clear strategy, no clear techniques and just blurted out an indecipherable message, that make statements like this. If your starting point is that you really don’t believe cold calling works, then it simply won’t. “Nobody wants to be disturbed during a busy day by salespeople”. “People are turned off by unsolicited approaches”. The list is endless of reasons not to. The reality is that with all selling strategies or indeed marketing strategies, the majority of people, will not be interested. That’s just reality. If however you spend time developing a properly targeted list ( most don’t). And if you focus your mind on the fact that there are always prospects who will be interested in your product or service. This is just a fact. They are there and they want to buy. The more you develop your telephone technique, the easier it will be for you to connect to these prospects and ultimately convert them to clients.

So let’s deal with the negative mindsets or indeed your fears and let’s literally argue against these fears. And try to overcome them.

Firstly what do you believe? Do you believe in your product or service. Do you really believe it can enhance your prospects lives or business. That it really can deliver tangible and intangible benefits to them. That it can help them.

If you do great. You are doing them a great service by letting know about what you offer.

Do you have beliefs that will sabotage your success? Do you have fears holding you back? OK that’s normal. But let’s look at these.

Fear of rejection. This is a real fear and legitimate. Or is it?

I’ve been selling for 25 years and nobody has ever rejected me personally on the phone. How could they. They don’t know me. They have rejected my service or product. And that’s fine. That’s life. It’s not personal. That’s the key point here.

Let’s argue with the fear on paper. Is there no precedent of success for others who have used cold calling as a strategy and been successful?





Well there are literally millions of people who have used this strategy and achieved enormous success. Write down just some of them now.

How did they achieve such success if “cold calling doesn’t work”.

Because they have overcome their fears and just got on with it. They took action. Action is the key determinant here. Your Mindset will not be improved by visualising and chanting affirmations and relying on the law of attraction. It will only be improved by taking action. Action will give you momentum. Action will make you realise that your prospects aren’t all demons ready to castigate you. Action will ensure you get more and more comfortable on the phone. Action will eventually lead to a level of comfort on the phone you’d never previously believed possible. Action will ensure that you move from “no one wants to speak to me” to “there are people out there who want to speak to me”.

I’m not an advocate of the common training theories that we need to get through the NO’s to get to the Yes. This in itself is a negative mindset approach. How the hell are you supposed to motivate yourself everyday when your trained that your job is all about handling the No’s. That’s hardly going to inspire you is it?

You are now hardwired to expect the NO’s and you are so tensed up thinking of the ways you need to overcome the NO’s, that you can’t relax and literally have a conversation. Network on your phone.

You can’t perform with a mindset predisposed to only negatives. You need to focus on the facts.

- You need to reach out to more prospects- You will make a call - You will either make a connection or you won’t. - When you reach your prospect you will have a conversation.

Here’s the thing to remember. You don’t have to love cold calling. You just have to learn to tolerate it. It’s neither going to inspire you or deflate you. It’s just something you need to do, to tolerate to become more successful. And you want to become more successful.





2.Define your Ideal ClientSpray And Pray. Is this your general strategy when it comes to prospecting. Blast as many people as possible and hope that some of them will respond?

The reality is that we need to balance the desire to take action, with the need to take SMART action. The temptation as a leader or business owner is to focus more on getting your team to be active on the phone, than to stand back and think of a better and more effective way to reach prospects.

I work and have worked with a huge number of clients who have fallen victim to this approach and their results have reflected this. Why would any prospect want to talk to you if you haven’t even bothered to qualify them in some way first.

You must put together a targeted and qualified list of prospects and this takes time. But remember you don’t have to do it all at once. Let’s look at your existing clients first and see if there is a pattern. Focus on your best customers and try to define some key characteristics. Answer a few of the basics first

- Who is my ideal client? - Where are they based? - What are the problems they typically need to solve?- How do they buy? - When do they buy? (is there business seasonal for example)- What size business are they (how many employees, what turnover etc.)- What industries are they in? - What is their title? Remember my key success tip. Always start at the top, and work

down. Not the other way around. - What is their name? You must research this. There are a huge number of resources

available to find this out. You can buy from companies such as Kompass, Bill Moss, Hoover’s. You can use Linked In. You can leverage some of your own contacts who may be targeting the same prospects. You can Google and search their websites for contacts. Obviously you can call and ask..

This is a CRITICAL step and you must answer all of these questions. No exceptions.





3.When you make the callYou can like most sales people, wing it. It’s certainly quick. And it’s a completely useless strategy. Useless full stop.

You need a script. Now I once held a workshop for a large group of sales people and I suggested that all top performers use scripts. One of the sales people responded with “ I’m not a f.....g parrot”

Funny yes but also quite telling. This is the internal response I believe most people have to scripting. They’ve been at the mercy of the phone script themselves and it sounds robotic and unnatural. But that’s not what we’re talking about here.

Scripting simply makes you more successful. Scripting done well simply gives you a framework for you to hang your personality on. It allows you to have structure but retain the ability to be natural. Done properly you can have two people with the same script but with a completely different style of delivery. Both more successful. Both sounding entirely natural.

Here are the essentials for an appointment setting script.

Introduction ; you firstly need to focus on your product or services impact or results for prospects. How do solve prospects problem? What is the main impact you can have. What is the No. 1 result of using your product or service. In other words you need to address the “What’s In It For Me” (WIIFM - everyone’s favourite station)

You also need to anticipate any questions you may be asked. You’ll instinctively know a lot of the types of questions you’ll be asked. And as you develop you can record the types of questions you are asked. The key point is that you have some scripted answers. They allow you to retain control and to give cohesive and clear answers that elicit positive responses.

Or what is the number one problem the company has historically solvedfor customers? Or what is the number one outcome the company historically achievesfor customers? If you’re an entrepreneur, starting your own business, then how doyou plan on helping your customers? Or what problem do you plan to solve for yourcustomers? Or what outcome do you plan to achieve for your customers? That really isthe key for your introduction—how do you help. That’s what’s going to get a prospect’s





attention and their willingness to engage.Remember you are not alone. Talk to colleagues, clients and ask them what the main problems you address are. And how you help solve them.

This is the most important part of your script. And you need to be able to get the prospects attention. You can only achieve this if you have something of interest for them.

Simply blurting out “ Mr. Prospect we are an accountancy firm based in your area and we work with companies just like yours, producing monthly accounts, financial reports....etc

Sorry I’m already asleep. Who cares? Seriously. This is not solving a problem for me.

Here’s a template you can use:

“Working with ( name a client you’ve achieved success with) we were able to improve their (state a benefit) by X% whilst reducing their (state a benefit) by X% over the course of 90 days. If you can’t specify a client name try a more generalised approach always focusing on the outcomes. “We work with companies like yours and have helped them improve their ( benefit) by X% whilst also improving or reducing their (benefit) by X% over 90 days

Ideally we use what is called a balanced equation. We outline a key benefit for example we helped them improve their sales by 20% . And we include a balancing benefit, for example whilst reducing their sales costs by 5%. And if possible put in a timeline. This is a very powerful opening statement. And will elicit responses.

Clearly the goal is to get an appointment. Remember we don’t sell on the phone. We sell the appointment ONLY. And you have to ask for the appointment in order to get it. The prospect won’t volunteer to meet you.

All of this needs to be scripted to give you the confidence to feel completely at ease and natural.

A Note of Caution. You need to write for yourself, in the way you speak yourself. I’ve read scripts that when spoken sound so stunted and unnatural because people don’t speak like that in real life. Also NO JARGON. Keep it simple and natural sounding.

Objections; Learn to love them. There are essentially only four anyway. Budget, Timing, Need and Relationship ( I don’t know you).There is only one strategy for dealing with objections. Practice. Practice and more Practice. They are inevitable, and therefore easy to handle. When you know with certainty they’ll come up, you can plan with certainty to handle them. Get writing your responses now...You have no excuse to be thrown by objections. They are predictable as night and day. If you are under prepared. You will under perform.





4.Repetition is the mother of all skillI’m a keen guitar player. It’s a passion. When you look at players like Stevie Ray Vaughan a huge hero of mine, well he just looks like he has such a raw talent, that he’s a natural. He’s just gifted. And to some extent this is true. You need some raw talent to be gifted as a guitar player. But top guitar players? They practice. Stevie practiced or played for up to 8 hours a day. A minimum of 4 hours everyday. When I stop practicing for even a week, my performance wanes. I lose speed speed and accuracy. In just a week. And so too with cold calling.

You must be consistently practicing your craft (and it is a craft) in order to be at the top of your game. If you can you should make calls everyday. If you can you should record some of your calls and be honest in your assessment of your performance. Do you sound natural. Was your prospect at ease. Were you comfortable in handling questions and / or objections. Were you communicating in a simple and effective way?

Why not role play with a colleague or someone you will feel comfortable with. Why not call a colleague and role play. They can be the awkward prospect. They can throw out the curved balls. And all in a low pressure environment. You’ll quickly uncover areas to improve and you’ll be thankful for the honest feedback. There is no substitute for practice, and with the help of a great script practice is made easy for you. Remember also that having memorised and practiced your script you’ll move to a level of unconscious knowledge. In other words the script through repetition will simply become embedded in your mind. The benefits are enormous as it allows you to focus on listening to your prospect. The ability to truly listen without distraction will transform your ability to build rapport on the phone.

Practicing your script helps on another level. When you practice, you become secureand confident in what you’re doing. It will help you feel ready to make your calls. It willalso help you listen to your prospect once you start making calls. You won’t have toworry about what you’re going to say because you’ve already written your script andyou’ve practiced it.





5. Action please!Everything we learned above was easy. Developing a winning mindset. Developing a target list of prospects. Developing a script to get the appointment. Practicing to achieve competence. Success in life is always about action. There is an abundance of strategy in most businesses and corporations. There is often a dearth of action, which inevitably leads to failure to implement the strategy. And guess where most time is spent? You guessed it in dreaming up strategy. Sales is always about action. Not mindless activity as we’ve outlined above. It’s about directed SMART action. If you want to a have a consistent pipeline of new opportunities then you have to develop a consistent habit of taking the actions everyday. Experience has shown that most of us procrastinate on our most important actions, and focus on the trivial stuff by justifying to ourselves that we’ll get to the calls “once this is out of the way”. And the trivial stuff has this habit of building up endlessly. If you want to be successful and fill your schedule with quality appointments then you have to “make daily appointments with yourself” to take the actions and make the calls. If you’re starting out then you should be selling for 60% of your time. If you are an established sales person with existing clients then plan to spend at least 20% of your time selling. Remember that’s at least 8 hours a week setting up appointments. Thats roughly 90 minutes a day. That is by the way the most important 90 minutes of your day. So “make an appointment with yourself” everyday. And stick to it. You need a quiet place, with no interruptions. You need to switch off your mobile, your blackberry, your email. All potential reasons to be distracted. You need to let your colleagues know that this time is sacrosanct (I’ve deliberately chosen this word which means regarded as too important or valuable to be interfered with: the individual's right to work has been upheld as sacrosanct.) You are not to be disturbed.

A Note Of Caution;Don’t try to schedule the sales blitz day. I’ve seen this happen over and over again. And I have fallen victim to this also in the past. You are much better doing a little and often. So for example making 10 phone calls everyday is better than planning to to 100 in one day. For two reasons. 1) Psychologically the larger numbers can be a turn off. A demotivator2) Scheduling a full day is often impractical as other stuff will arise during the day that

may need to be dealt with. And will inevitable lead to a break in flow.

The old principle of eating an elephant one mouthful at a time, holds true here as always.





Experience has also shown me that we often need support in the form of accountability. It’s hard to hold ourselves accountable. And many business owners with great intentions get sidetracked for this simple reason. Who holds them accountable to their 90 minute a day commitment.

Find someone who can act as an accountability partner. A coach. A colleague. A friend. A spouse.

Those of you who work with me know that we start every session with your week’s WINS. Your successes. And this is important. Human beings seem to be hard wired to beat themselves up rather than recognise when they’ve made progress.

You must celebrate your WINS and successes. This is central to keeping yourself motivated and engaged. When you make an appointment. Celebrate. When you reach your goal, celebrate. When you get new clients, celebrate.

Now I’m not talking about big stuff here. Small rewards can mean a lot. If you are a business owner, why not buy the team a coffee when they have some successes. Why not let the whole team know about their successes. Why not take a little break. In other words create a momentum based on positive actions, and reward positive results. Once those appointments start rolling in you’ll reap the rewards of your efforts. But remember this key point. You must always strive to get better. Strive to improve your conversion rates by another 5% this month. Strive to improve your connection rates by 5% this month. Strive to improve your scripts. Constantly push yourself and your team to higher performance. It’s what we all love to do.





6.The follow up (and exhell)

If there is one skill that can transform your results it’s the ability to focus and be efficient. Having great systems is key to your success. The follow up for me is one of the most important sales strategies you can employ. And you need to have a system that enables follow up in an efficient manner. So many salespeople or businesses use Excel to manage their pipelines. I refer to this as EXHELL. Because it is the closest thing to hell I can imagine when your selling. It’s completely inefficient. It just doesn’t work for me. You need to embrace technology and buy a CRM system to manage your sales and your sales pipeline. It just takes all of the guesswork out of the follow up. Manages your activities and gives you full visibility of your business sales effectiveness. I am a keen proponent of technology in helping you generate more sales. And you will generate more sales. I guarantee it.

7.Become a personal development junkyIt is a constant source of bemusement to me that so many salespeople start their careers with no training. And never attempt to upgrade their skills. Never read books, attend training seminars or read in their area. Solicitors and accountants among many other professions are compelled to upgrade their skills, salespeople aren’t. And it is a travesty. If you seriously believe that you be effective without constant learning and development, then you are delusional. And the unfortunate fact for many is that they will simply be passed by as the market changes.

If you want to be a top performing sales person then ditch the myth that you were born to sell. Top performers are developing, growing and learning to become better continuously. They are investing in themselves continuously because they have developed a love of learning, but also because they want to become more valuable to the marketplace. Ultimately we never plateau, there is always something to be learned and improved on. I’m 25 years in sales and I’m still learning. And loving it.





You are at the beginning of a journey. Embrace it. Sales is an amazing profession on so many levels. Strive to be the best always.

Best regards.

Ronan Kilroy (Certified FocalPoint Business Coach)Possibility, Productivity, Proactivity. .





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