I know what you're probably wondering: "Wait, isn't Bluleadz an inbound marketing agency? Why are you doing a post about outbound sales calls?" The reason is simple. Outbound calling still remains a valuable means of connecting with prospects in your sales funnel.And yes, it's possible to have a productive outbound sales call that complements your overall marketing and sales efforts. Saying the right things on an outbound sales call may seem like moving pieces on a chessboard. However, you can keep leads engaged and close more deals by learning and applying a handful of rules.
Let's go over some of the basics involved in outbound sales calls and provide you with some ways to make your calls more successful, along with some essential components you need to add to your sales call scripts.
An outbound sales call is a call initiated by a sales rep or a call center to a prospect or existing client. Typically, these calls have the goal of selling a product or service to these contacts—but they can serve other purposes as well. The major distinction between outbound and inbound is that with outbound calls, the organization is the one initiating contact, not the prospect.
Outbound sales calls are often cold calls. Cold calls are calls that are initiated by a salesperson to a customer without prior engagement. The dialer may research the recipient before calling prospects, but generally, an outbound call is the very first time a salesperson and a prospect have been in touch. However, while all cold calls are outbound sales calls, not all outbound sales calls are cold calls.
Outbound calls often get a bad rap, but they do have a few advantages that can prove beneficial for your sales team and your business.
Some of these advantages of outbound sales calls include the following:
There are always debates surrounding inbound and outbound marketing and selling methods. So, what about outbound and inbound sales calls?
Let's see what their similarities and differences are.
Inbound and outbound calls have the same end goal—to set up a sales meeting and to close deals. To nail your next sales call and set up a meeting with qualified opportunities, adopt some tips and best practices.
Here are 10 outbound sales call tips that can boost the effectiveness of your sales calls while building rapport with your prospects.
Save time by making sure to use a script as a reference during your call. Using a call script makes it easier for you to lead the conversation and get through all of your talking points in a timely manner. It also helps to standardize calls across all of your outbound sales agents so results are more consistent from one agent to the next. However, this script should still leave some room for customization to incorporate the next tip...
Researching your prospect before you call gives you access to some talking points that can truly grasp their attention and create instant connections.
By finding key information about them, you can show your prospect you made an extra effort to personalize the conversation. Additionally, you can lead the call by focusing on talking points relevant to their pain points.
It may be exciting to tell your prospect about every feature and detail of your product or service, but this may overwhelm or even annoy them. Keep your phone call relevant to what they need to alleviate their pain points, address their wants, and pique their interest.
Think of it this way: Have you ever had a friend who was really into some hobby (sport, show, game, etc.) that you really didn't care about just drone on and on about it? Odds are that, despite being friends, you quickly found yourself getting bored and wanting to change to a different subject.
Now imagine a complete stranger trying to subject you to that. Your response would probably be something like:
Objections should not automatically shut down the phone call. You can prepare by anticipating common objections and developing responses for them.
Think about ways to counteract the most frequent objections you hear and then rehearse them with a team member.
People often like to hear the sound of their own names. This is why you should use it on sales calls to establish a more personal connection with your prospect.
Try linking your prospect's name with your product or service. For instance, you can say, "Becky, do you imagine yourself using this subscription to gain X benefits?"
Be careful not to use the person's name too often because this may come off as suspicious and manipulative. Additionally, it's important to pronounce their name correctly, or else you risk offending the prospect.
When you are talking to a prospect for the first time, you want them to start trusting you. Disguising your voice or speaking in a lower or higher pitch than usual may turn your prospect off, causing them to instantly mistrust you.
People typically respond well to mirroring, so try to match their speech patterns and tone of voice. If you are unable to master this, try to keep your tone of voice natural and unwavering instead.
Social proof goes a long way with prospects. Let them know how your product can help them by outlining how it helped others like them.
Provide them with statistics and use case scenarios that are similar to theirs to show that your product or service can work for them in the same way. Offer to send content that also displays this information so they can see it for themselves.
Your aim should be to engage your prospects during outbound calls. The best way to do this is to ask them value-based questions and then provide value-based answers that are centered on the prospect's needs and wants.
Keeping the focus on your prospect is beneficial for both parties. They get to talk about themselves, and you can gain their attention in an interesting and meaningful way. It can also help you better identify avenues for selling your products or services to them if you hear them voice a concern or pain point that neatly aligns with a benefit your company provides.
While discussing the prospect's pain points is important, you might not want to focus too much on their problems. Instead, focus on the solution and how your product will make a positive impact on their lives.
Positivity during a call will provide you with a more favorable response than negativity.
Most people won't answer the phone the first time you call. Make sure to leave a voicemail so they know who you are, what you want, and where they can reach you.
They may call back and engage in a conversation with you, or it may make them more willing to answer your call the next time you follow up.
Don't worry about the reply. Continue to focus on fostering trust with the prospect.
Every call should have specific components to ensure all outbound calls run as smoothly as possible. Here are eight components you should include in your call scripts and frameworks:
Introductions let your listener know who you are and why you are calling. A proper introduction should only be a few seconds. Some aspects to include in an effective introduction are:
Avoid a robotic introduction. Instead, try to make the introduction friendly and conversational.
Your sales team should aim to make a great impression on your prospects and leads. The best way to do this is to develop a bond using rapport-building statements.
Some ways to build rapport include:
People want to buy from people they feel comfortable talking to, and rapport-building statements may help your prospects feel more comfortable.
The prospect needs to see value in your product offerings in order to be interested in listening to your pitch about how your product or service will help them overcome an issue they are facing.
This means that salespeople must talk about the specific features and benefits a product or service provides to each prospect. And they need to position the product or service as the best solution for the problem.
Value-building statements should be flexible so sales reps can tailor them to different prospects.
Open-ended questions encourage the prospect to open up about their pain points and their wants and needs.
Some questions to include on a sales script include the following:
Asking these questions or questions similar to these should help sales reps to find out which benefits of the product or service they are offering to entice the prospect to make a purchase.
You need to establish credibility to let prospects know that you are worth listening to. Your sales team can boost their credibility by:
Standard objection handling statements can equip your sales reps with what they need to save a sale.
Prepare effective responses to all common customer objections and include these in your script so your sales reps can be prepared to handle various objections as soon as a prospect mentions them.
Never assume that your prospect does or does not want to purchase your product. Ask for the sale. Let the prospect offer you a confirmation of their interest in (or rejection of) your offering.
If a sales rep is able to set up a later time to talk to the prospect in depth about the product offering, they should conclude the call with a wrap-up statement. This statement could be a confirmation of their next meeting and an expression of gratitude.
Sales reps can also offer their direct contact information to a prospect in case they need to ask questions or reach out before the next meeting.
Access your sales call script templates and get started with developing your sales prospecting strategy.
These sales call templates and examples walk you through the following situations:
This template focuses on creating an instant connection by mentioning a mutual contact. This helps to warm up the call and generate a sense of familiarity.
The goal of this template is to name-drop without making it weird. To do this, you should casually mention the mutual contact at or near the start of your call.
Keep in mind that using the name-dropping script isn't always the best idea if you haven't helped a client or mutual friend at all.
Here's an example:
"Hi this is [Rep Name], I'm calling because [Mutual Contact] said you might be interested in..."
This kind of introductory name-drop works really well when you can get current customers to recommend others who they think could benefit from your products and services.
A gatekeeper is someone who isn't the ultimate decision-maker when it comes to a purchase.
They are the ones who decide whether or not to pass along information to the decision-maker. They may give cold responses and cut to the chase by asking you what your call is about before you can make it through your introduction.
An example script for this might go something like:
"[Contact Name], I completely understand about [issue they may have mentioned]. I would love to help you with that. Let me know how I can help or if I need to talk to [Decision Maker Name]."
The goal of this template is to build rapport with this person and get them to like you so they'll pass you along to the decision maker. The idea is to treat the gatekeeper like a person instead of an obstacle.
This template is designed for sales reps who are making their first contact with a prospect. This type of call is also known as a sales connect call. It focuses on gathering information so you can learn more about how you can help this person.
This script helps you to connect with the prospect by asking open-ended questions. You can use the answers they give to follow up later on. If your initial questions get the prospect to open up, you can dig deeper and ask more thorough and specific questions.
An example of this would be:
"What's your biggest challenge in [job role/industry]?"
This script is perfect for reaching out to leads that have already indicated their interest or need for your product. Focus on basing your call around information and clues you've gathered before the first call.
For instance, you may notice that your prospect has just finished up with a round of funding. Using this information, you may assume that they need a specific solution that streamlines their work.
This script is short, and it requires reps to ask for the appointment within the first minute or so. The key with this script is to present a solution that entices the listener enough so that they want to take the next step to learn more.
An example might look something like:
"Hey, I know you've expressed an interest in solutions to [problem name]. We can set up a time to meet about that."
Voicemails should be short. This script focuses on leaving a voicemail that is 30 seconds or less to gets straight to the point.
Even though the voicemail should be short, you should still focus on providing value by telling the listener what you can do for them or demonstrating an understanding of their pain points. For example, instead of just saying, "This is [name] from [business], call me back at [phone number]," consider mentioning "I heard that you were interested in finding a way to solve [X problem], call me back at [repeat phone number]" as well—or even leading in with the challenge and solution first before sharing the contact details.
Here's a call script that might require some heavy customization depending on your solution and the specific objections that you most frequently encounter.
One objection common to many industries is the price of a product or service. Many customers are highly cost-conscious or may simply assume that they can always get the same product or service cheaper elsewhere (or have difficulty correlating the expense to a specific, measurable benefit). Here's an example of a price objection response script:
"Yes, the solution costs [$ amount here], but it's not a matter of price—it's a matter of value. For that [$ amount], you can [enter list of specific, measurable benefits here] that help you achieve [customer goal].
Sooner or later, every sales call needs to come to a close. How you say goodbye can have a major impact on the prospect's impression of you and your business. It's also a good opportunity to nudge them down the sales funnel.
You may want to customize this farewell message to best suit your business' brand. For example, if you have a business with a more formal tone, you might end a call with "thank you for your time, let's talk again. Does [insert date/time] sound good?" to create a formal farewell that also encourages a repeat contact.
A somewhat less formal version of that could be "Hey, thanks for talking with me. Let's speak again. Can I call you at [time] on [date]?"
These scripts are essential for your outbound calling strategy. Download more sample templates beyond the ones listed in this blog to start making more effective outbound calls that earn you more customers.
These outbound sales call tips and script examples enable you to refine your sales prospecting approach so you can close more deals and build lasting relationships with your clients.
Buyers are hard to convince in a competitive landscape, but you can ensure better outcomes when you understand your customers, assess their pain points, and offer them solutions that work over the phone.