Jul 5, 2024
12 B2B Cold Calling Tips to Boost Your Success Rate
Empower your sales team with these B2B cold calling tips. Unveil the secrets of high response rates and conversions.
Helpful Summary
Overview: We discuss effective B2B cold calling strategies and techniques for sales teams, including leveraging modern tools like ServiceBell's AI Parallel Dialer.
Why Trust Us: At ServiceBell, we've helped numerous sales teams improve their cold calling efficiency. Our solutions have consistently led to more conversations and reduced rejection rates.
Why It Matters: Implementing these strategies can significantly increase response rates and conversions. Effectual cold calling builds long-term relationships, provides market insights, and offers immediate feedback, making it a crucial part of a comprehensive sales strategy.
Action Points: Practice these actionable tips for an increased response rate and improved conversions.
Further Research: Explore additional resources on our website to refine your cold calling techniques and integrate these strategies into your sales process.
Want to Learn the Best B2B Cold Calling Tips for Successful Sales?
Have you heard that the average response rate of cold calls is 4.8%? Not very encouraging.
But here’s some good news – the same study shows you can increase your B2B cold calling rate to 10% and close more deals with the right strategies and tools. You can see a major difference – all because of the right approach and actions.
And that’s why we’re here. The B2B cold calling tips in this guide, alongside the tools available on ServiceBell will catapult you from the class of 4.8% to that of 10%. Plus you’ll get more conversions from the leads.
Are you ready? Let’s get started.
Why Listen to Us?
At ServiceBell, we understand the challenges sales teams face with cold calling. We’re the world's first allbound platform linking sales and marketing through first-party intent. And we’ve helped numerous teams generate leads and drive conversions.
For example, in just 60 days of adding the ServiceBell widget to DemandZEN’s website, Amanda Phelps, the senior account executive, sourced and closed two deals totaling $480k.
Sales reps have praised our techniques for improving engagement and reducing rejection rates. By using our solutions, sales teams build stronger relationships and efficiently close more deals.
What is B2B Cold Calling?
B2B cold calling is a sales technique where a company sales rep contacts a representative of another business. This call is made without prior interaction with the recipient and is focused on establishing a connection. It is also made to get information or set up future meetings, all in a bid to create sales opportunities.
While cold calling techniques are standard to all businesses, B2B is different. Business-to-consumer (B2C) cold calling targets individual customers, while B2B cold calling is directed at business decision-makers.
Moreover, B2B cold calling techniques highlight logic, data, and ROI by showcasing how your offering can address business challenges and enhance long-term efficiency. On the flip side, B2C revolves around swift transactions, tapping into personal desires and emotions through storytelling and emphasizing benefits that enrich people's lives.
Benefits of B2B Cold Calling
B2B cold calling comes with numerous benefits. No wonder 53% of B2B companies say phone calls are the most effective for cold outreaches. Let’s take a look at some of these advantages.
Lead Generation
When you practice effective cold calling in your organization, you can generate new leads. This works perfectly for prospects who may be unreachable through other marketing channels. Cold calling also helps your team qualify leads. With this, you ensure that time and resources are allocated to prospects with the potential to buy from you.
Long-Term Business Relationships
The personal connections you can make through cold calling, contribute greatly to building long-term business relationships. There’s a way you connect with someone over a call that doesn't happen via email or other lead-generation methods. Over time, this personalized approach helps build a good rapport, trust and credibility.
Market Insights
Cold calling potential clients gives you access to information you might not get elsewhere. It opens your eyes first-hand to the challenges, needs and priorities of your target businesses. These valuable insights can help you improve your offering and compete more favorably.
Immediate Feedback
Unlike emails and other lead-generation techniques, cold calling lets you get instant feedback from potential clients. This feedback then becomes useful for refining your products or services and adjusting your market strategies accordingly.
12 B2B Cold Calling Tips That Generate Leads Effectively
The B2B market, especially SaaS, is too competitive for any sales team to stick to old and ineffective tactics. This isn't 1998 anymore. We now have modern tips and strategies for more result-oriented cold calling.
Set Goals and Stick to Them
Be clear on the reason you’re making the call. Is it to book an appointment, qualify prospects or close a sale? Define your purpose and stick to it. Don’t jump from one point to the other–you may confuse the prospect. It’s best to stay on point for the best results.
Also, ensure your goals follow a systematic process that sends your prospects down the sales funnel. You can follow this method:
Start by sending more information about your products or services.
Next, schedule an appointment or a demo.
Follow up by asking for the sale.
Call at the Best Time
A tip as simple as knowing the best time to cold call a prospect can be the difference between a 4.8% and 10% response rate.
The best days to make cold calls are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. And the best times? From 9:30am to 11am, and from 4pm to 5pm. Just make sure it’s in the time zone of the prospect.
On the flip side, there are also the worst times to cold call a potential client. Avoid Mondays, especially mornings, as your prospect is likely to be busy with meetings and other business activities. Friday is next on this list, as people are generally in a weekend mood and might not want to pick cold calls.
Do Your Research
Learn about who you want to cold call. While creating an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is standard, you should go beyond that and research the business you’re calling. Dig deep into their LinkedIn page and the company website and read their articles and reports, if any.
Research in advance what your products or services can do for your prospect’s business. This foreknowledge puts you in an advantageous position and arms you with a strong opening line.
Plan Your Conversation Ahead
When you see cold calling as a project that has to be properly managed and executed, your approach will change. Map out a plan ahead of your calls. And this is beyond just scripting what you will say line by line.
Organize your thoughts and develop a blueprint that shows the structure of the call. Structuring the call ahead and preparing for possible outcomes help boost your confidence and increase the chances of a higher response rate.
Keep it Short and Sweet
Another way to warm up your cold call and increase your response rate is by keeping the call short and straightforward. It’s not the best idea to overwhelm a prospect with too much information and industry jargon. Get straight to the point and be brief, unless of course the prospect asks for more details.
Create a Script
Craft a solid cold-calling script that contains the key points of your call. Make sure it contains a good introduction, a value proposition, and a call to action. However, ensure it is flexible. Make room for natural interactions so you don't sound robotic.
Plan for the Gatekeeper
A plan B exists so you don't get destabilized when your plan A flops. Sometimes, you may plan to speak with the decision-maker in a company and the secretary or personal assistant picks up the call. What do you do in such a situation?
Stay calm and try not to sound superior or disappointed. Slowly and confidently explain why you would like to speak to your prospect. Don’t gloss over the conversation like you’re in a hurry to get past them. Treat them with respect and dignity and they could be instrumental to the success of your call.
Personalize Your Pitch
You’ve already done your homework by researching your prospect, so put it to good use. Address the prospect by their name, mention the company or reference something they care about. This helps you build rapport and trust fast.
Leverage Cold Calling Tools
One of the perks of living in these times is digital transformation. We now have many tools to make business processes easier and faster. Cold calling is not left out of the equation. There are tools that make cold calling a walk in the park. ServiceBell is one of those valuable tools.
ServiceBell is your one-stop allbound shop that improves engagement and communication with leads, prospects. And customers. First of its kind, it helps you link sales and marketing through first-party intent. For cold calling, ServiceBell Outbound is the perfect solution..
ServiceBell Outbound is the first inbound-aware dialer. It’s all you need to simplify your cold calling processes. With our tool you get the flexibility you deserve as it allows you to toggle between power and parallel dialing modes.
Our solution can help you improve real-time engagement, save time, increase your response rate, and close more deals.
Here’s a breakdown of some of our valuable features:
Parallel Dialer: Our AI parallel dialer lets you dial up to nine prospects at once, allowing you to have more conversations in less time.
Power Dialer: Quickly connect with prospects with our power dialer and save valuable time on manual dialing.
Inbound-Aware: Connect with high-intent accounts who engage with your website and jump on a video call to drive the pipeline.
Automated Voicemail: Pre-record voicemails and instantly drop them into voicemail boxes, increasing your call volume and efficiency.
Virtual Salesfloor: Let your team learn and grow together as they collaborate and monitor calls in real-time.
Integration Options: Easily integrate ServiceBell Outbound with your existing CRM and lead management tools.
With ServiceBell Outbound, you can bid farewell to days of frustration as a result of endless calls without concrete results. Say hello to days of automated dialing, higher response rates and increased conversions.
Prepare a Strong Opening Line
You only have a few seconds to show your prospect that speaking with you would be worth their while. Make good use of those seconds. Come up with a strong opening line that would motivate your prospect to keep listening.
As a B2B SaaS sales rep, you can approach this from various angles. For example, from the angle of personal connection and relevance, you can say:
“Hi (prospect’s name). I saw your recent post on LinkedIn about having an allbound strategy for sales teams. It got me thinking about how our solutions could help. Do you mind if we discuss this further?”
The angle of industry insights also works. You can say something like:
“Hello (prospect’s name). I’m (your name) from (your company). We heard about the new policy on (name of policy). How is your company adapting to this policy?”
Whichever angle you choose, ensure it’s one that will captivate your prospective client and make them want to continue the conversation.
Ask Open-Ended Questions
Open-ended questions encourage dialogue, allowing the prospect to share more about their business needs and challenges. The answers to these questions give you valuable insights that could help you improve your pitch.
Here are some examples of open-ended questions for cold calling:
Can you describe your process for (task your company has a product for)?
How much time do you spend dealing with (a problem your product solves)?
What are your top priorities for the next quarter?
How would solving (a problem you have a solution for) impact your business?
Would you be available next Wednesday at 10am for a discussion on how we can help?
These questions let your prospect speak in more detail, giving you an opportunity to get the information you need to close the deal.
Take Notes
Note-taking is essential before, during, and after a cold call. Some reps only make notes to prepare for the call, and they move on. This approach doesn't give the best results. Make a habit of taking notes during and after the call. By doing this, you will have information you can build the next calls on.
Increase Your Response Rate and Close More Deals with ServiceBell
With the multitude of competitors out there, B2B businesses can't afford to handle cold calling with kid’s gloves. That’s why every trick in the book must be applied to increase your response rate and land more deals. Why use outdated methods and tools when your competitors are using modern tools like ServiceBell?
Reach five times more prospects with our AI-assisted dialing. Schedule a demo to get started.
