July 30th, 2008 by Barry Caponi
UCLA did a study on the components of effective communications a number of years ago. The result of that study was the following:
55% - Body language
38% - Tonality
07% - Content
On a Cold Call, we can’t read each other’s facial expressions or body language, so the biggest component left to us is tonality.
And what impacts that? It is how our passion comes through in our voice. Do we sound like we believe in what we’re selling? Do we sound confident? You’d be surprised how often people will agree to see us just because of how we said what we said, not what we said.
And how do we easily do that?
- Use a script that has been internalized
- Know how you’ll answer the most common questions suspects ask
- Know how we’re going to handle those ‘nos’ we’re going to hear
Preparing for these most common occurrences in cold calling will give us confidence and allow us to concentrate on how we come across on the phone.
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July 23rd, 2008 by Barry Caponi
Last week we talked about how many Cold Calls we need to make each week in order to hit our goal. This week we’ll talk about how to figure out if we need to do more than we first planned.
If you’re seeing a downturn in your sales, you’ll first see it in your closing ratio. It will be taking you more opportunities to close a deal, so you’ve got to figure out by how much and ‘turn up the dial’ (number of dials you make) appropriately to get more Initial Meetings in order to make up the difference.
If your closing ratios are getting worse right now than you’re used to, do something about it now. Don’t wait too long where you can’t make up the difference with a little more in the funnel.
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July 15th, 2008 by Barry Caponi
Very few of us like to cold call, so how do we figure out if we need to cold call at all?
It’s really a pretty simple process as there are basically only four ways to get an Initial Meeting with a suspect. They are:
- Marketing campaigns that get people to call us to ask for a meeting
- Networking
- Referrals
- Cold Calling
To figure out if we need to cold call (and how much if we do), follow this formula:
- How many Initial Meetings (IMs) do I need in a year? (You can use our Activity Calculator (free on our website www.caponipg.com/books-info.htm)
- From that number, subtract the following:
- The number of IMs we get from marketing programs
- The number of IMs we get from networking activities
- The number of IMs we get from referrals
- Whatever gap there is between the number we figured in step 2 subtracted from the result in step 1 is the number you’ll need to fill with cold calling. There is no other alternative.
Two last caveats –
- Cold calling works best when you do it on a consistent basis, so figure out how many you need on average and do some EVERY week
- Marketing, networking and referrals can sometimes not generate what we expected, or an economic downturn can cause us to need more. Make sure you’re looking at your results each week to see if you need open the Cold Calling spigot to make up the difference – did I mention there is no other alternative?
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July 9th, 2008 by Barry Caponi
Why does standing up when making cold calls make a difference?
Every once and a while I catch myself making calls sitting down again. Call it lazy or perhaps I’m just forgetful. When I do catch myself doing that though, I can truly tell the difference in my approach.
Remember, the law of effective communication says that the biggest percentage we’ve got going for us when using the phone is the 38% that comes from tonality, passion, and energy. And who am I to argue with UCLA’s study?
So how do we get that energy, tonality and passion? First of all, it is more difficult to rely on our written crutches when standing so we’ve got to have internalized our scripts and counters to the typical responses we hear. (No that’s not an excuse to going back to winging it.)
Secondly, we tend to get more animated when we talk standing up, and if we’re using a headset, even better, as we’ll get our hands and arms going as well.
Lastly, nervous energy is dissipated better when we’re standing and moving so it comes across less in the voice.
Try it. You’ll like your results!
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July 2nd, 2008 by Barry Caponi
When calling high and you’re uncomfortable as to when to use your target’s first name versus last name, here’s a tip that might help you. First of all, remember back to my May 21st, 2008 Blog where I recommended that we use our target’s first name whenever possible. I still believe that. However, if you’re still uncomfortable with those special situations where you’re calling higher than you usually do (or the person you’re calling is much older than you are) and you just don’t know what to do, here’s a tip. The higher we call within an organization, the more likely we’ll hit a gatekeeper instead of voicemail. But even when we do encounter voicemail, it is probably been recorded by the gatekeeper and not the individual we’re calling. Take a hint from the gatekeeper, whether live, or on the outgoing voicemail message. If he or she refers to Barry Caponi as Mr. Caponi, then take the hint and refer to him as Mr. Caponi. It’s as simple as that!
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