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Sales Skills  >  1-Day Courses

Cold Calling Fundamentals

Training course in making unsoliticed sales calls

How to learn the art of selling on the telephone

One-Day Course

Course Brochure Download
Cold Calling Fundamentals brochure
  • Using Value Propositions to grab attention
  • Exercises for developing a strong voice
  • Appreciate the importance of targets and call ratios

Overview

This programme provides practical help to enable Account Executives and Telesales Professionals to generate new sales (or schedule appointments) by making unsolicited calls (i.e. by Cold Calling prospective customers).

The training is based on applying Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques to the cold calling process, and during the course discoveries will be made as to how to consistently achieve a rapport on the phone and to gain the decision maker’s interest and attention. The course will give those attending a competitive edge in making sales (or booking appointments) through using the phone.

Learning objectives

By attending this highly interactive one-day course you will:

  • Build the mental toughness needed for Cold Calling
  • Learn an elegant 4-step call process
  • Master skills for developing rapport on the phone
  • Discover objection handling techniques
  • Appreciate the value of a good script

Who should attend?

People with some experience of telephone work who wish to further develop their skills.




Day 1

Sixty-Second Cold Calling Seminar

Appreciating the key success factors involved when selling on the phone.

  • Common Telesales Errors
  • Best Practices in Cold Calling

Pairs exercise: applying best practice techniques

Planning Cold Calling Campaigns

In telesales work the ‘campaign mindset’ is important. A campaign is about action that is intended to achieve a particular objective. So, in undertaking new business calling it is helpful to break down our efforts into a number of distinct chunks or campaigns. This part of the course focuses on how to develop, implement and control a plan of action for a specific prospecting campaign using four key documents; (i) Campaign Scope Document, (ii) Call Schedule, (iii) Daily Call Logs, and (iv) Assessment of Results.

  • Setting SMART goals
  • Targeting a segment
  • Call List Acquisition
  • Value Proposition Development

Group exercise: planning a campaign

Voicework

One of the keys to being an effective telesales person is to have a strong, flexible voice. A voice that all the prospects will want to engage with because it has enough variation in tone and tempo to be interesting to listen to. To develop such a voice, it is necessary to practise exercises that are designed to enhance vocal power.

  • Posture and relaxation
  • Diaphragmatic breathing
  • Projection
  • Diction
  • Resonance

Voice exercise: developing a strong voice

Building energy and confidence

Working on the telephone takes energy and commitment, so an important step before picking up the phone is to mentally adopt a resolute, purposeful frame of mind. Approaching a prospect in a half-hearted manner seldom gives good results, so it is helpful to decide to have a strong intent to ‘do the job well.’ One way of doing this is to use a technique called ‘resource anchoring.’

  • Understanding classical conditioning theory
  • Triggers
  • Developing an ‘anchor’

Pairs exercise: creating a positive ‘anchor’

Creating Rapport on the Phone

Building a sense of trust and partnership with prospective clients is a vital element in successful cold calling. Here we cover three key skills for gaining a psychological ‘connection’ with other people when talking on the phone.

  • Matching and leading voice qualities
  • Matching and leading values
  • Summarising

Pairs exercise: practising the matching and leading technique (including objection handling)

The Telesales Process

Effective telesales professionals follow a four-stage process…

  1. Greeting & Alignment (Establishing a sense of understanding and ‘common purpose’ with the customer or prospect.)
  2. Collect Information (Uncovering relevant information about the prospect’s current situation and understanding what ‘problems’ they have and what issues they need our help with.)
  3. Present a Solution (Listing the ‘needs’ that the prospect has and matching them to our service or product.)
  4. Close (Asking the prospect to make a commitment. E.g. to place an order, to agree to a ‘face to face’ meeting etc.)

Pairs exercise: Role Plays – cold calling using the 4-stage telesales process

Getting past gatekeepers

Gatekeepers are (i) receptionists and (ii) PA’s, and their goal is to limit or screen the access that people have to the decision makers, plus (iii) voice mail, which obviously means that you are not in direct conversation with the target person.

  • The role of voice quality
  • The business person versus the sales person

Pairs exercise: discussing how to apply the tools to ‘real life’ issues.

 


Customisation

All our programmes are run on an in-house basis and (where appropriate) we conduct interviews and facilitate focus groups to gather information with which to write bespoke case studies that precisely reflect the culture and work environment of the participants.

Feedback

Feedback is based upon peer review using a BMC assessment checklist. Completing the BMC assessment checklists is not only valuable to the people involved in a given case study, it also helps those completing them to gain an in-depth understanding of the building blocks that make up an excellent cold call.

Course structure

There is an option of following the workshop with a three month long Action Learning project to link the lessons from the training back into the workplace. If this option is selected there is a closure workshop at the end of the project phase where delegates present how they have applied the techniques learned on the course into their daily work routines.

Remote Training

All of our workshops can be delivered as Remote Training via e-learning modules plus Zoom based virtual workshops. Please see our Virtual Training page for more information.


Contact

To talk to us about our range of courses contact
Boulden Management Consultants:
via our Contact form
Tel: 0844 394 8877