Your questions answered on how to be a cold calling machine

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1. 4:05

   And the reason is you're going way too fast. So the first thing you do is you slow down. The second thing you do is think of your cold call and buckets that are mini sprints that are always the same. Every single time. Your opener is always the same. Every single time. Your value prop is always the same. Every single time when you get hit with, I'm not interested. “Your answer should be same every single time.” And so what you should do is practice all of these micro pieces so many times so that when you give your opener, you've given it a million times. Or when you get hit with, I'm not interested, you practice that objection to be handled a million times and it comes off supernaturally. That's how you do it.

   In Not-interested objections

2. 4:05

   And the reason is you're going way too fast. So the first thing you do is you slow down. The second thing you do is think of your cold call and buckets that are mini sprints that are always the same. Every single time. Your opener is always the same. Every single time. Your value prop is always the same. Every single time when you get hit with, I'm not interested. “Your answer should be same every single time.” And so what you should do is practice all of these micro pieces so many times so that when you give your opener, you've given it a million times. Or when you get hit with, I'm not interested, you practice that objection to be handled a million times and it comes off supernaturally. That's how you do it.

   In Phone objection handling

3. 6:55

   Please. Thanks. Boom done. And to that point there is a law of diminishing returns of everything in sales contrary to popular belief. I do not believe you should do 500 cold calls a week. I think that's a colossal waste of time. I also don't think you should leave someone seven voicemails. I usually leave to the first call is always the first voicemail “and it's usually a 10 second voicemail with context only.” So literally Nick, I work with a couple of Sequoia portfolio companies. I'm going to send you an email. Feel free to reply back to that one. No need to call me back. It's Armand. I paved. Cheers. That's it. The second voicemail is a little bit longer.

   In Voicemail length and delivery

4. 9:44

   We're actually starting a cold call. So everything on openers and value props Nick first tactic. What do we got? You know, I love my permission based opener. I always open with Armand. This is Nick Segelsky with 30 minutes to President's Club. I know you didn't expect me to call you this afternoon. Do you mind if I take one minute? “I'll tell you why I'm calling and then you can tell me whether or not it makes sense for us to speak.” I use it every single time nine times out of ten. The person says, all right, you got a minute and I say, you know what? You could even start a timer if you would like to and then I go into my pitch. Sometimes people say well Nick. What if they say no doesn't that open them up to turn you down well nine times out of ten They say yes

   In Permission-based cold call openers

5. 10:29

   Hearing what you're saying physically and actually listening with their brain when you get permission and they opt in it actually gets them to Listen to your pitch, which is the intent of the call that you're making now Armand you do things a little bit differently I know Well, I combine my opener with the permission based opener So my opener is called the heard the name tossed around opener “And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna try to get you to forget that it's a cold call and it sounds like this” I'm gonna say Nick. I work with a couple other Sequoia portfolio companies in the valley It's a it's Armand at pave Have you heard a name tossed around and what I'm doing is a couple things number one is I'm not leading with my name I'm leading with the fact that I work with other people in your investors portfolio So not only have I done my research, but I'm also not a complete rando

   In Cold call opener mistakes

6. 11:40

   Normally, we'd be working with someone like yourself by now. What'd you hear? Did we screw something up? That's it Alrighty, lastly number three before we get into the questions Nick once we've actually gotten through our opener How do we describe what we do on the phones? “Well the timer a little bit of buffer for them to calibrate one of the things you got to remember is you're cold-calling someone” You're like shocking them out of what they were doing And so give them a second to calibrate to art. I'm about to listen to a pitch So I always say no problem you can even start a timer if you would like but then my framework here is I try to get extremely specific about a Granular problem that we solve granular might not be the right word. I want to be crispy I want them to know that I am a expert in this space

   In Permission-based cold call openers

7. 11:59

   Well the timer a little bit of buffer for them to calibrate one of the things you got to remember is you're cold-calling someone You're like shocking them out of what they were doing And so give them a second to calibrate to art. I'm about to listen to a pitch So I always say no problem you can even start a timer if you would like but then my framework here is I try to get extremely specific about a “Granular problem that we solve granular might not be the right word. I want to be crispy” I want them to know that I am a expert in this space So if I'm selling a billing solution to a law firm and I'm calling the CFO What I'm gonna start with is context I might say Armand the reason I'm calling you is we work with a bunch of other CFOs of

   In Value proposition

8. 14:51

   You go into your permission-based opener you ask for 27 seconds and they say no, what do you do? Well, you say no problem. When would be a better time to call you back now? What's gonna happen is a couple things one. They might hang up on you. That's fine We can talk about how we handle that in a second two. They might say a time. Okay, great “You might actually then book a meeting and confirm with a calendar invite three. They might say I don't know” What is this even about great now you have permission to tell you them why you called. So, you can't ever try to force, well it'll only be a second. You asked permission and you got told no. Don't try to shove your pitch down their throat. All you say is no problem. When would be a better time for me to call you back? If they hang up on you, here's what I do. You

   In Meeting booking and confirmation

9. 24:42

   my crummy cold call am I totally off base or that might be what's happening here the key here is throw yourself under the bus they'll either save you or you'll know that it is not an email worth putting together Armand let's wrap us up here and tell me what you do when they say we're happy with our current “solution I'm gonna say oh you” have a comp tool awesome you know the vast majority of the time it doesn't really make sense to switch off of these things and so do you mind if I just mark it on my end like who are you guys using just so I make sure no one calls Awesome. Now I know the competitor. Once I know the competitor, it doesn't matter what we do

   In Incumbent vendor objections