So What? The Question Behind Every Successful Cold Call

Now, is cold calling dead? Great question.

I have lots of conversations with clients, business owners, sales leaders, and let's face it, cold outreach, reaching out to contacts that maybe don't know you or your team members individually or your business or the work that you do.

is often a big part of an overarching lead generation strategy.

It's not the ideal.

It's not the most pleasant.

It's not the best feeling.

But if we really think about this mantra that I've said before for the last 20 years, and I will continue to say, if it ain't coming in, we're going out to get it.

So yes, we really want to maximize referrals.

Yes, we really want to make sure that our marketing funnel, our marketing tab is turned on.

And we also need to be really proactive in making sure that our salespeople aren't being lazy or avoiding that cold outreach.

And so I thought for the topic for today, we could talk about cold calling with confidence because this is something that's requested a lot for training sessions with teams when we're looking at what's the capability lift that's required.

So this may be relevant.

I mean, you're listening to this episode, so I imagine that it is relevant.

in terms of building that confidence, think about this from the point of view of a cold contact, a cold reach out.

You know, if you're doing cold calls, the numbers game absolutely matters.

The more calls you make, the more chance you have of converting to an appointment.

But at the same time, there's things that we can do to A, build confidence in our team and in ourselves, and also to make sure that the action that we're taking, the tasks and the things that we're doing are perhaps a little bit more effective than if we wing it or we don't think about it before we take that action, whether that's picking up the phone, walking in to meet somebody in a business.

Again, these strategies will depend on how your team is set up, your sales team, the regions that you're in.

But even if you don't do cold reach out, maybe you do lumpy mail or reach out in different ways, you can still use this framework that I'm going to take you through because I guess the key thing I want from this is for you to think about for what purpose are we doing this reach out and also really think about the so what factor.

so what.

Whenever we're reaching out to somebody, also whether it's a referral, so it's a warm introduction, whether it's a cold contact, whether it's a marketing lead that has come through, there's always the so what factor.

Of course, it's more prevalent and we need to think about it more when it's a cold contact because we are going into their world.

But you know, for marketing, we need to think about the so what factor.

And by the so what factor, I mean, the other person that is picking up the phone, having that conversation with you or reading that marketing is thinking, so what? Why should I listen to this person? Why does this matter? Why should I care? That might sound harsh, but it's the reality because in this overloaded world of information and noise, that's ultimately what we're thinking about.

A, do I trust this person? And B, why should I care? And so there's a formula that is called the cold call formula.

Now, is cold calling dead? Great question.

I have lots of conversations with clients, business owners, sales leaders, and let's face it, cold outreach, reaching out to contacts that maybe don't know you or your team members individually or your business or the work that you do.

is often a big part of an overarching lead generation strategy.

It's not the ideal.

It's not the most pleasant.

It's not the best feeling.

But if we really think about this mantra that I've said before for the last 20 years, and I will continue to say, if it ain't coming in, we're going out to get it.

So yes, we really want to maximize referrals.

Yes, we really want to make sure that our marketing funnel, our marketing tab is turned on.

And we also need to be really proactive in making sure that our salespeople aren't being lazy or avoiding that cold outreach.

And so I thought for the topic for today, we could talk about cold calling with confidence because this is something that's requested a lot for training sessions with teams when we're looking at what's the capability lift that's required.

So this may be relevant.

I mean, you're listening to this episode, so I imagine that it is relevant.

in terms of building that confidence, think about this from the point of view of a cold contact, a cold reach out.

You know, if you're doing cold calls, the numbers game absolutely matters.

The more calls you make, the more chance you have of converting to an appointment.

But at the same time, there's things that we can do to A, build confidence in our team and in ourselves, and also to make sure that the action that we're taking, the tasks and the things that we're doing are perhaps a little bit more effective than if we wing it or we don't think about it before we take that action, whether that's picking up the phone, walking in to meet somebody in a business.

Again, these strategies will depend on how your team is set up, your sales team, the regions that you're in.

But even if you don't do cold reach out, maybe you do lumpy mail or reach out in different ways, you can still use this framework that I'm going to take you through because I guess the key thing I want from this is for you to think about for what purpose are we doing this reach out and also really think about the so what factor.

so what.

Whenever we're reaching out to somebody, also whether it's a referral, so it's a warm introduction, whether it's a cold contact, whether it's a marketing lead that has come through, there's always the so what factor.

Of course, it's more prevalent and we need to think about it more when it's a cold contact because we are going into their world.

But you know, for marketing, we need to think about the so what factor.

And by the so what factor, I mean, the other person that is picking up the phone, having that conversation with you or reading that marketing is thinking, so what? Why should I listen to this person? Why does this matter? Why should I care? That might sound harsh, but it's the reality because in this overloaded world of information and noise, that's ultimately what we're thinking about.

A, do I trust this person? And B, why should I care? And so there's a formula that is called the cold call formula.