The opener is where a cold call either earns attention or confirms the interruption. Small talk and false familiarity make the person work through your performance before they know why you called. Hiding the cold nature of the call can leave the prospect more guarded and annoyed because the opener flags a sales attempt.1 Use the opening sentence as a clean handoff to the reason for calling.
Before you dial
Preparation keeps gaps in the opening from exposing details you could have fixed before dialing. Check these details before you write or say the line.
Have the contact's name, company name and telephone number ready.2 Add the website address so you can research the company, and the contact's job title so you can think about likely interests.3 When a detail is missing, fix the record yourself. Complaining about bad data leaves the problem in place.4
Give the reason quickly
Make the call easy to understand. The person should know who is speaking, why you are calling, and what the company does before deciding whether to stay on.
State who you are and why you are calling.5 Follow with a brief company overview that fits in one sentence, since a 20-second elevator pitch is too long for this job.6 Get the prospect speaking under ten seconds.7
Read the line aloud before dialing. If it needs a long runway to make sense, keep working on it until the reason is clear without extra setup.
Cut the warm-up
Warmth is easy to fake in an opening, and the prospect can hear the effort. Remove moves that ask for social rapport before the call has earned attention.
Cut opening small talk and do not begin by asking how the prospect is.8 Questions such as "How are you doing today?" signal a script before you have said anything substantive.9 Flattery or friendship is a common attempt to warm up a potential customer.10
The opener built around having heard the prospect's name tossed around is meant to make the person forget that the call is cold.11 Weather talk or an immediate agenda can also signal that the caller is a salesperson.12 Give the reason for the call its own words and let the other person decide how to respond.
Let them react
Once you deliver the line, let the other person answer without making them fight through more script. Use the reply to choose the next move.
Opening with the standard opener can create substantial psychological reactance.13 A negative response may be a reflexive defense of the interruption itself.14 Wait for that response before launching discovery questions, because a cold call usually has not built enough trust for questions at this stage.15
Use LAER when resistance appears: Listen, Acknowledge, Explore, Respond.16 Move on when you have a reason to continue or a clear refusal. Do not turn the first response into a debate.
Respect the interruption
Keep the rest of the exchange as compact as the opener. You control the amount of airtime you take, so the prospect can decide what to do with the interruption.
Assume you are interrupting a busy day, get to the point and show respect for the person's time.17 Long rambles are a specific failure to guard against.18
What not to do
Remove these opener patterns from your script. Each one creates work for the listener before the reason for the call is clear.
- Do not lead with a generic self-introduction, since it triggers a negative reaction.19
- Do not choose an opener that is too open-ended.20
- Do not say "We're a leading provider of..."; it answers an unasked question about a company the person has not agreed to care about.21
- Do not use overly sales-oriented language on an introductory cold call.22
- Do not ask "Did I catch you at a bad time?"; opening with it makes booking a meeting 40 percent less likely.23
- Do not ask "Do you have twenty-seven seconds?"; the phrase is described as a poor opener used mainly to give the salesperson courage to make the call.24
- Do not rush the call or your speech, because that signals desperation for the sale.25
- Do not assume a clever opener will save a weak exchange; many tested openers make people hang up immediately.26