How to Improve Your Cold Calling and Prospecting Techniques (AllBusiness.com's Chris Bjorklund interviews Keith Rosen, one of today's leading experts on cold calling and prospecting. )

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Chris Bjorklund: An effective prospecting system is an absolute necessity in order for today's top sales professionals to bring in more sales and maintain their competitive edge, which is what you're going to learn from one of today's leading experts.

Keith Rosen is the president of Profit Builders and an executive sales coach. He's also an expert sales adviser here on AllBusiness.com. His boOKs are "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Cold Calling" and "Time Management for Sales Professionals".

Keith, the burning question most often asked is, "Is cold calling really dead?" I mean, why is cold calling not dead? And how can you help sales people to understand the importance of cold calling to their success?

Keith Rosen: Bottom line, Chris, I will show this with all sales people. Do not abandon cold calling. Here's why. LoOK at the majority of all Fortune 500 companies. They all utilize some form of telephone selling, some marketing, some cold calling to complement their overall strategic sales goals. Now, if it didn't work, they wouldn't be continually building out this arm of their overall strategy to attract and retain more customers. So cold calling is far from dead and I see evidence of this everyday.

What is dead are the traditional and poorly developed cold calling efforts that salespeople still use in an attempt to generate new business. And as an executive sales coach who coaches and trains companies, sales teams and salespeople each day, it's not that cold calling doesn't work. Cold calling works fabulously well.

However, it's more about the approach that salespeople are using when cold calling that simply does not work. Because most salespeople sound exactly the same as every other person when calling on the same prospect rather than developing their unique and compelling message that's going to grab someone's ear to the point where they're truly interested in what you have to say.

As a recipient of dozens of cold calls each day, why should a prospect want to hear the same approach time and time again? How can that possibly distinguish you? So you have to be careful. Most people who feel cold calling doesn't work, in actuality, they've learned the wrong lesson. After all, if you dig a hole with a spoon, do you learn the lesson that, "Gee, I guess I can't dig holes very well," or is it more about having the right tools to achieve the necessary objective?

So, with the strong prospecting and cold calling system that is mapped out, step by step, which also includes the compelling opening statement you need--the reasons why someone should listen to you in the first place, and well crafted questions to determine if there's even a fit between you and your prospect, you will see what a competitive edge cold calling can give you.

Bjorklund: Most salespeople dread making these phone calls. How do you overcome your own resistance to sitting down and picking up that phone and making those calls?

Rosen: This is certainly an issue that plagues salespeople all over the world who have to pick up that phone. One thing that I always hear is, how heavy that phone is, "That receiver weighs a thousand pounds, I just can't seem to pick it up and make those cold calls". And wouldn't you know it, cold calling always seems to be that one activity that never makes it on their routine.

Here is the number one cause for cold call reluctance, and I'm going to key it up in the form of a question. If you loOK at the sales process, there's the customer and there's the salesperson. Think about who the sales process should be about. It should be about the customer.

Bjorklund: So take the focus off yourself.

Rosen: Exactly. Because most salespeople make the sales process about them. And why do I know this? Because here's what I hear when I probe deeper into finding out what is the cause of reluctance. Salespeople will tell me, "Well, Keith, I don't want say the wrong thing," "I don't want to loOK bad," "I don't want to be a nuisance," "I don't want to impose," "I surely don't want to hear the word `no'," and "Gee, I don't want to blow a great selling opportunity," "I...," "I...," "I...," "I...," "I...," "I...," "I...," "I..." Everytime, salespeople come from that place. They're making the sales process about them, and what they can gain rather than the value they can deliver to their customers.

So once you can shift your focus and energy--to truly shifting that spotlight and putting it over the customer, it will, by default, relieve you of the unecessary pressure to loOK good and perform. After all, if you're so worried about doing and saying the right thing, or how you're going to be perceived, then how in the world are you ever going to capture that prospect's attention, let alone focus on their needs? So, either you're making the sales process about you, or your making it about the prospect and how much value you can deliver.

Bjorklund: Huge difference. Huge. What about developing the right mindset? How can you get there?

Rosen: Well, it starts with loOKing at what the primary objective of a cold call is. Think about the intention or end result of salespeople's prospecting efforts. It's not what they think. Now, if what I hear is, "Well, Keith, the goal of my prospecting efforts--when I make a cold call, I have to get that appointment," or "I have to get that demo," or "I have to make that sale," or "I have to get confirmation and send out that RFT". That's actually not the primary objective of a cold call.

Rather than focusing all of your energy on making the sale, the primary objective is really to first determine if there's a good fit between you, your prospect, and what you're selling. Instead of feeling that the intention of cold calling is to get the sale, provide the demo, schedule the appointment, the initial intention is to determine if there's fit worth pursuing. And while this might sound a little strange and challenges conventional wisdom, closing the sale and earning the business of a prospect is not your initial goal. Instead, it's about determining whether or not you and your prospect are a good fit.

Now, think for a second here how this change in your attitude and mindset would then change your behavior and your approach. While your traditional approach may be to produce some measurable result, now your primary objective is to discover whether you and your prospect are a good match, and if this relationship is worth moving to the next stage of your sales process.

Bjorklund: Doesn't this lead to a whole different set of questions you might ask when you're making a cold call?

Rosen: It certainly does. Because if you feel now that you have push the sales process forward, you're not taking into consideration that the prospect may not be ready, let alone, may be a good fit. And if you're pushing the sales process forward, chances are you're not asking the right questions. And all that does is create pressure for the both of you which fosters an unhealthy relationship right from the start.

So, instead of asking yourself, "Gee, how can I sell this person?," you really want to change that question to "Do I even want this prospect as a customer?" So, if you shift your mindset, as you said, it also changes your approach to asking better questions. Because instead of feeling you have to convince or push someone by regurgitating your pitch all over them, you're now going to want to learn and gather as much information about that particular prospect as you can.

Bjorklund: Well, you have to have a strategy to start with. Where do you begin with that?

Rosen: When it comes to the cold calling strategy--being the recipient, once again, of many cold calls--the average strategy or the typical strategy that I hear sounds something like this: they open up the call, they say who they are, and then they say "Here's what I want from you, Mr./Mrs. prospect." And if you think about it, you're calling them, you're already interrupting their day, you're already interrupting what they're doing, now you're going to ask for something?

Well, no wonder why most cold calls are already doomed from the start. That's focusing again on the salesperson and making it about them versus giving value. If we shift that model around now, and once again, giving fairly broadbrush steps to making a cold call, now it's going to sound a little different. Now it's going to sound like: you open up your call, you deliver a strong, compelling reason that would motivate someone to want to listen to you in the first place, then you build off what I coach salespeople on, which is my model of selling and cold calling, which is permission-based closing, permission-based selling, and permission-based prospecting.

Where I'm going now is you're going to get permission to actually have that dialogue with that prospect. Now, once you say yes, you have someone who's open to listening to what you have to say. Now, we move into the step that we just talked about, which is determining if there's a good fit. You're going to ask them the questions to see if they are truly a prospect who can benefit from your product or service.

Once you've qualified them and see that there's a fit, you're then going to discuss what the next steps are. Whether it is that proposal or that demo, or if it makes sense to meet with them face to face, or even schedule the next call, that's when you would do it. Once you know you have someone who is a good fit for what you have. Otherwise, you're going to wind up doing what I see most salespeople do, or should I say, many salespeople do, which is, they wind up going out, calling up prospects, following up with prospects, meeting with prospects that they really have no business meeting with or following up with in the first place.

Bjorklund: Oh, but it loOKs good to the boss.

Rosen: [laughs] It sure does. Except at the end of the month when they don't post the numbers. Right, Chris?

Bjorklund: Well, and it's so inefficient.

Rosen: It really is. And then, of course, salespeople complain that they don't have enough time. Well, they don't have enough time because they're focusing on the wrong prospects.

Bjorklund: But what about delivering a compelling message? When all these doors have been opened and you've got to have the decisionmaker on the phone--you've gotten that far, some people chOKe at this point. And, how do you get them to listen?

Rosen: When I ask salespeople this question, most of the time it's a no, and the question is this, "Do you know exactly what to say to a prospect that captures their attention so succinctly and effectively that they're actually asking for more?" and the answer is no. So, how can you get a prospect interested enough to want to listen to you, let alone do business with you? The answer is simple. It's about crafting a compelling reason. And the word compelling is synonymous with persuasive and gripping.

So, the intention of a compelling reason is to stimulate interest and open up a conversation. Therefore, you certainly don't want to sound like all the other salespeople who are calling on the same prospects and saying the exact same thing. Here's are some examples of what I mean by a compelling reason. First and foremost, when you're crafting your compelling reasons, you want to make sure that you include the end result of the benefit. A compelling reason is not your product. A compelling reason is not how you're going to achieve the end result. A compelling reason is not what you can do for them. The compelling reason is the end result of the benefit that is benefit of the benefit's benefit.

Bjorklund: [laughs] OK.

Rosen: After the user's service, what are they going to gain? Some examples would sound like this: "Get in front of 25 percent more prospects." "Cut your sales cycle in half." "Increase sales by 47 percent." "Reduce turnover by 17 percent."

Bjorklund: Love the numbers.

Rosen: And "Put two hours back into your day." Now those are just several examples of different compelling reasons. And if you noticed, in each example, it doesn't talk about what you do or even how you do it. It's what that prospect will experience after utilizing your product or service. And that's all they care about in the first 30 seconds of a conversation with you anyway.

Bjorklund: Is that about how much time you have to make this compelling statement?

Rosen: 30 seconds, I would say, is an average, and of course, that can go both ways. Sometimes, it could be 15 to 20 seconds, sometimes it's about 45 seconds. 30 seconds is right about an average. Well, it sounds like a very short amount of time. It actually is longer than you think, when you pick up the phone and you're trying to grab someone's interest.

Bjorklund: Every salesperson hits with roadblocks and objections. What can they do to better handle those objections? I suppose anticipating what they might be is one of the suggestions you might have?

Rosen: Anticipating what their objections are and actually crafting a rebuttal around those objections is certainly a solid strategy in preparation for hearing them. I think it even goes beyond that, Chris. And I want to diffuse a very costly miss right now. Salespeople do not overcome objections. Prospects overcome objections. Because the only person who could truly overcome an objection is the owner of that objection or the person who created it in the first place.

Salespeople create the opportunity for this to occur through their effective use of questions. So, selling and overcoming an objection is really the art of asking questions, listening openly, and gaining information, not always giving it. So, the most common mistake salespeople make is reacting to an objection rather than responding to one. When you hear an objection or run into an obstacle, rather than reacting with a statement to defend your position, learn to respond to what the prospect says with a question that will uncover the real reason that's stalling the sales process, in order to create or explore a new solution or possibility.

It's really no wonder that most sales are lost at the beginning of their sales cycle, at the very start of the relationship with each prospect, rather than at the end. The more effective you are at diffusing any objections up front, the easier it will be to close the sale at the end.

Bjorklund: Most prospects aren't going to say yes on the first phone call, I would assume. So, how can you move the call along, and keep things on a positive note?

Rosen: Well, in terms of moving it along, the one challenge that salespeople report to me is that they'll have that initial conversation, it will go fairly well, the person might be qualified as a prospect, and for whatever reason that they can't close that sale on the phone, maybe there are several steps in their sales cycle, the next step has to be with some type of follow-up.

And where salespeople seem to drop the ball, and find more resistance, is "Well, Keith, I don't know the next step. I don't know when I should call them back. I automatically pencil them in a week later and just cross my fingers and hope that's the right time." Then of course salespeople wonder why they're always running into voicemails and even find some resistance at the other end, let alone hearing the prospect report back, "No, I haven't had time yet to review that proposal," or "Now's still not a good time. Why don't you call me back in another month or so?"

Well, wouldn't it be great, of course, if every prospect became our customer in our timeline? [laughs] Of course, but that's just not the reality. And while there's no foolproof method to prevent the fact that some of your prospects will not be ready to take that next step, there is something you can do to dramatically reduce the chance of that happening. And what you do is very simple. Get permission to follow up. Get permission. And that means not only getting permission to follow up, but also asking questions and gaining confirmation that it's OK to stay in touch and when it might be an appropriate time to do so.

See, now you have a prospect who has given you permission to continue to prospect them, instead of sending out unsolicited information that will do nothing more than aggravate and turn off the prospect.

Bjorklund: Keith, do you find that most salespeople do not have a solid follow up system in their bag of tricks, so to speak?

Rosen: The follow up system is another armor in that successful prospecting process. And when it comes to the follow up, this is just as an important system as it is from the time you make that initial call. And it's where a lot of salespeople will drop the ball, for their competition then to pick it up and close that sale.

So, when it comes to following up, there are a few strategies I certainly want salespeople to keep top of mind. First and foremost, map out your strategy. What exactly does that follow up system loOK like for you? That might include a total of 10 steps. With that said, there's a reason why I say 10 steps. Statistically speaking, when it comes to a fresh cold call, it's going to take about eight touches for you to get a response back from that prospect. Now, if it takes eight touches, you need messages as well as different platforms to deliver that message.

Bjorklund: So that includes email?

Rosen: Email

Bjorklund: Voicemail?

Rosen: Yes.

Bjorklund: OK. Keep going. Help me out.

Rosen: Email, voicemail, and here's an oldie but a goodie--even the fax machine. A lot of salespeople don't use the fax machine anymore because of email. But the fact is, if most people are using email and less people are using faxes, you've just uncovered a new communication method to contact your prospects with.

Bjorklund: What about a handwritten note? Talk about something that's outdated.

Rosen: Most definitely. Sometimes, they'd leave even their cellphones with them. So there are different platforms that you can approach them with. I think the key point that I want to focus on is, when people are following up, I hear a lot of salespeople saying, "Keith, when I hear their voicemail, I don't even leave a message. I just hang up the phone." And I ask them, "Well, why is that?" And they'll tell me, "Well, I'm not getting any return calls. So why should I leave a message in the first place?" Now we go back to what I initially discussed, which was, "Wait a second. Is it that voicemails don't work? Or is it that your strategy to leaving voicemails don't work?"

Bjorklund: Well, maybe they think they're being annoying. But isn't there such a thing as appropriate persistence?

Rosen: There most certainly is. And remember, Chris, at this point, we've gotten permission to follow up with them. So, it's OK. Now, keep in mind, if it's an initial call, and we do make that first call, and maybe we haven't had an opportunity to speak to them yet, I can understand there's some reluctance for a salesperson to leave that message.

But here's the thing. If we're talking about leveraging every minute of your day, and every sales effort you put forth, then it only makes sense to leave a voicemail. The difference, though, is we need to change your voicemail strategy. Just like you're going to develop compelling reasons why a prospect should listen to you when you make that introductory call, and in your opening statement, we're also going to weave those compelling messages in your voicemail.

The one challenge that salespeople keep doing is that they'll have a voicemail, it will be at the top of their head rather than scripted, and they'll go ahead and they'll fumble over their message, and they'll hang up the phone. Now think about it. When that prospect picks up the phone, what, at that point, is your product? The product is no longer what you're selling, the product is no longer the service you offer, the product is your voice and your voicemail. Because at that point, that's the only thing that that prospect has to evaluate you on.

So it only makes sense to treat your voicemails and give them the attention and the diligence that you do your product and your service. Now it doesn't stop there, because I'm not just going to suggest that you create just one solid voicemail and use that over and over and over again. The reason why is this--once again, if you have that one voicemail, that you're leaving over and over again, before you've even had an opportunity to connect with that prospect, you can theoretically be reinforcing the wrong message, because you don't know what their hot button is.

So, what I believe is, taking the shotgun approach, rather than the rifle approach. And the shotgun approach is creating five unique voicemails with five unique compelling reasons. This way, when you call that prospect, and they don't return your voicemail number one, maybe they'll return your voicemail number three, or maybe number four. And the reason why is a combination of your pleasant persistence, as well as leaving a unique voicemail every time. So while voicemail number one may not have captured their ear or hit their hot button, maybe voicemails two or three have.

Bjorklund: This is starting to sound like a whole lot of work.

Rosen: [laughs] Well, if you think about it, you know, if you loOK at what's working now. There's a wonderful checklist on my website, at Profitbuilders.com, which is a prospecting checklist. There's about 24 different components of that system. But think about it, Chris. Isn't this the reason why most people report cold calling not working? Because they're not giving it the diligence and the attention it deserves.

Bjorklund: Before we wrap up this show, Keith, I'm hoping you can talk about a few of the common tactics that you see salespeople use that simply do not work, just a few of them--what should be avoided?

Rosen: Oh, surely. First and foremost, when you get a call, and the other person who's calling says, "Hi. This is Keith with Profitbuilders. Can I speak with the person who's in charge of your marketing?" That person might as well call back and say, "Hi. This is Keith from Profitbuilders. This is a cold call." Because that smells like a cold call a mile away.

So, number one, don't ask for the marketing person. Number two, if you're going to cold call, and you're going to ask me how I am, then either do it authentically or don't ask the question at all. Because most people will call up and say, "Hi. This is so-and-so. How are you doing today?" Well, they really don't care. And what they are perceiving is that it will break the ice. In truth, it does not. And in truth, what it winds up doing is, it winds up actually turning off the other person because they already know it's a cold call, let alone, you've just wasted 10 seconds delivering a message that's actually going to hurt your efforts.

Another point to consider when you're cold calling. Don't overcome objections via email. If you make an initial contact via email and someone responds back, don't try to overcome objections via email. That's an opportunity to stop via email, pick up the phone, and make the call.

And finally, when it comes to collateral material. Don't send out unsolicited material. Number one, chances are, it's going to wind up in their junk mailbox. Number two, you're better off speaking to that person and finding out what information is important to them that they would like to see. So you could customize it in terms of what they're interested in, not what you think they're interested in.

Bjorklund: Keith, thanks so much for joining me on the AllBusiness podcast and for the great information.

Rosen: My pleasure, Chris. Thanks for having me.

Bjorklund: You can learn more about cold calling and prospecting from Keith Rosen by going to his website at Profitbuilders.com, and by reading his blog and checking out his videocasts on AllBusiness.com. If you have feedback for us, or would like to suggest a guest, send your emails to podcasts@allbusiness.com. I'm Chris Bjorklund, and thanks for listening.