Whether you are an experienced small business owner or a first-time entrepreneur, cold prospecting is likely part of your sales process. As most startups start with one person or a small team, the founder is usually the one who is selling. But if your skillset doesn’t include experience with selling to new prospects, how can you learn to connect?
The first step is to understand the definition of cold prospecting: Cold prospecting is the process of reaching out to prospects you don’t know, and who aren’t actively expressing interest in your services, to generate an initial meeting (and hopefully a sale).
Now that you know exactly what cold prospecting entails, let’s dive into how you can start. Two of the most common methods of cold prospecting are cold emailing and cold calling. Each of these techniques have pros and cons. Each, when used correctly, can turn into sales. We’ll explain some of the pros and cons of each, to help inform your decision about whether to use just cold calling, just cold emailing, or a combination of both.
But before you get into the nitty-gritty work of writing emails and dialing numbers, you have to do your research. Ensure you’re targeting the right audience for your product or service, or your phone calls and emails will get little to no responses. No matter what techniques you use, if you’re targeting the wrong audience, your prospecting efforts will not bear any fruit.
So how do you decide between which method of prospecting to pursue for your business? It’s important to understand some of the pros and cons of each approach.
Last year, research found that 60% of cold calls went right to voicemail. While this statistic may seem discouraging, cold calling can still be an effective way to reach customers. After all, this means that there’s the potential for nearly 1 in 2 cold calls to get answered. If you keep the call short, focus on listening, and have patience when you meet rejection, cold calling can be successful for you.
Cold prospecting over the phone can land you meetings, but to do that, you need to refine your over-the-phone sales techniques. For example, don’t read off a call script word for word.
Cold calling, and before that, door-to-door selling, used to be the main methods of finding new leads. However, with the onset of global digitization, founders and salespeople have found a new way to reach out.
With modern caller ID filters creating new struggles for cold calling, many salespeople have shifted to cold emailing. Younger generations often prefer communicating over email, and with so many email addresses available, it can be easier to gather cold prospecting data.
Using these three tips and your own research, whether from LinkedIn or elsewhere, you’ll be in a great position to start your cold outreach.
Cold calling and emailing take time; warm prospects don’t appear out of thin air. You have to do the research, find the email addresses to build an Excel or database of prospects, and then verify the information. You often won’t get a reply on the first email, either - that’s why persistence is crucial.
This is all why email lookup tools paired with automation are the future for cold prospecting. They save you time, and give you accurate data to test different cold prospecting formats and styles. Once you have mastered these cold selling basics, try using a web extension to create your list of prospects. Many free email lookup tools can find and verify email addresses to help curate your email list.
Are you tired of spending time on LinkedIn trying to find potential prospects, only to realize you can’t access their contact information? Try using Skrapp.io’s email lookup Chrome extension, and with the click of a button you can find your next lead’s contact information.