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No Chill: The Ultimate Way To Warm Your Cold Call

Sales for Life Admin
Sales for Life Admin

ultimate-way-to-warm-your-cold-call.pngThere’s a time for chill and this is not it. When people say “no chill,” they are often talking about flailing around with undirected energy when you should be calm. There’s more to it than that, though. The “no chill” state of mind can actually be a powerful tool for sales professionals that can channel it into excitement and enthusiasm. Building new relationships is work, there’s no question about that, but there’s no reason it can’t be fun, too.

In the old days, sales leaders would have to pump up their teams before a long day of cold calling. They would blare loud music, lead the team in jumping jacks or try 100 other tricks to get their blood pumping. When cold calling was the only way to generate leads, it took all of a team’s energy to keep making those calls in the face of overwhelming rejection.

The Influence of Millennials on Sales

Sales doesn’t work that way anymore. The top people in sales in the new world are those who are most engaged in learning new skills and adapting to the market as it is. Those who got all “no chill” and did extra coursework ended up doing two times better than their peers in sales performance reviews. The same effect applies to closing. Enthusiastic learners of social selling who finished their training did 55 percent better in revenue generation than those who gave up.

Energetic adoption of social selling techniques has become more important in sales because cold calling just doesn’t work like it did in the old days. 97 percent of cold calls stay cold on average. In some industries and for some sales teams, the outlook for cold calling is even bleaker. They report a 99 percent failure rate and 18 attempts to reach a prospect before they get a single response.

One of the central reasons for this is that millennials tend to live their lives on social networks. Due to their enormous and growing purchasing power, the influence of Millennials is driving they way business is conducted everywhere. Today 75 percent of B2B purchases are influenced by information coming in through social media channels. While a digital transformation of the sales process can be difficult, dwindling returns can be a great motivator.

Preparing for the Call

Warming up the cold call is really a matter of planning and preparation. For example, setting up Google alerts can be instrumental in giving sales professionals enough background on a prospect to spark a warm conversation. Alternately, responding to their blogs and posts is also the perfect way to kick off a new relationship. A little enthusiasm and energy poured into research on the front end prevents a great deal of burnt bridges from unsolicited cold calls.

Consider how much time and effort traditional sales people spend in crafting their pitches. The perfect pitch means nothing when around 90 percent of decision-makers say they will never respond to a cold call in the first place. That’s a perfect example of “no chill” gone bad. Spend your time on what works and be honest about what doesn’t.

The Ultimate Metric

Hitting and exceeding quota is a clear measure of success. By this metric, cold calling can’t compete. 67 percent of sales professionals are missing their quotas, while social sellers are six times more likely to hit their numbers. It takes huge reserves of “no chill” to make 50-75 cold calls per day and not burn out. It just makes better business sense to pour that energy into social interactions that open up a much bigger pipeline with far better results for the bottom line. Then everyone can take a day off and chill as the repeat business and referrals roll in.

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