Power Phone Scripts

Chapter 2Better, Smarter Prospecting TechniquesNew Cold Calling Techniques That Work

Learning how to effectively pick up the phone and make an effective cold (or prospecting) call is the most important sales skill you can learn. Every other part of the sale follows this essential skill. If you are not closing sales the way you want to be, then it can invariably be traced back to a poor job of qualifying a lead during the prospecting phase of the sale. If you put in the time to learn and perfect the art of cold calling, your results can quickly change. Once you get good at prospecting, you grow in confidence, your sales improve dramatically, and you truly put your career and future in your own hands. No other skill is more important than learning how to effectively call a prospect, build rapport, and then know how to deal with and bypass their initial resistance. No skill is more important than knowing how to truly qualify a sales prospect.

I say this is the most important skill, yet I know some of you will want to argue that closing is the most important skill. This is not true. “You can't close an unqualified lead” is the most important tenet in sales. Unfortunately, that's what entire sales teams are attempting to do every day: close leads that are not qualified and therefore will never close. Managers spend much of their day monitoring and measuring what goes into the sales funnel, and new software is developed (and purchased) to measure the top of the funnel, the middle, ...