Our mission at Virtual Sales Lab is to provide an online 3D product configuration platform that helps our customers to acquire and follow-up zero-effort, high-quality leads with a clear intent to buy.

As our mantra is to provide as much value as possible, while requiring the least amount of effort, we also applied this principle to our whole customer journey, which includes our own cold-calling process.

Being purpose-driven turns the exhausting grind from cold-calling into a win-win for you and your prospects; here are 10 tips to get you started:

1/ Good qualification can save you days of cold calling

Don't just go out and start calling on a random list, but think about your true target audience and persona.

High quality leads are more likely to convert.

2/ Pets, not cattle

Every prospect is unique.

As calls cost you precious time, treat every single lead as a gem; this implies you need to properly research your prospect's specific context, think about potential use cases etc before you contact them.

3/ Respect your prospect

Be short, concise and honest.

If they prefer not to be contacted in a certain way, don't push through...

4/ Be prepared

You only have about 1 or 2 minutes to grab their attention.

Have an obvious call-to-action they can answer to.

5/ Multi-channel, multi-person

When reaching out to big organizations, find the the top 3 contacts and figure out the best way to contact them.

Once you have contact with one, defer the rest and inform them about your follow-up.

Also, introductions are a huge asset.

6/ Respect your gatekeepers

When cold-calling, they are the bread and butter of your journey; don't try to bypass them, but leverage gatekeepers to reach out to those hard to reach contacts.

7/ Follow up, but don't overdo it

People tend to be busy and forget things; gentle reminders can help.

But don't become a nuisance, know when to stop or postpone.

8/ Take away the workload for your prospect

As your prospect does not know you, it's highly unlikely that he is willing to invest any effort in your value prop in the beginning.

Make the first steps as easy as possible for them.

9/ Timing is important

Prospects are not sitting there, waiting by the phone to answer your call.

You are most likely interrupting something, so be prepared to defer and ask for a better time to call back.

10/ Good things happen to good people

Rejection is hard, especially if you put in a lot of effort.

Avoid getting into a negative spiral, always provide value and look at classical sales techniques like BANT to keep your moral up.

In closing

We are highly convinced that sales and delivery is all about bringing value to people; remember this and everything else will follow.

Happy cold calling!