While you can’t control the individual on the other end of a phone call, following tried-and-true tenets can help warm up your cold prospects, igniting greater sales potential.

When it’s time to roll up your sleeves, clear your throat, and pick up the phone to attempt a sale, you may feel a touch of dread about the potentially tense conversation coming your way. After all, cold-calling a lead can be hit or miss depending on the person’s openness to hearing your pitch, leaving you wondering if it’s worth the effort at all. However, this classic conversion technique is unmistakably profitable across various industries. For instance, revered sales coach Rana Kordahi reports on The 360 Blog from Salesforce that a majority of her clients originated from cold calls— a whopping 70 percent, in fact.

Clearly, these avenues are brimming with potential, and elevating your approach to them could mean securing more deals. Whether you’re a tried-and-true sales professional eager to polish your conversion skills or a supervisor tasked with navigating your team toward superior closing rates, consider these tactics that may just make cold calling a more lucrative strategy for your business.

Call at the right time

Timing is essential to reaching a prospect—even the best pitch at the wrong moment can kill an otherwise surefire deal. To start off on the right foot, schedule coldcall sessions for Wednesdays and Thursdays, either between 11:00 a.m. and noon or toward the end of the workday. According to Indeed, these are the most effective periods for performing outreach because people are less likely to be buried in a task. In case your industry is an outlier, track times and dates for all touchpoints in your CRM; should you pinpoint successful trends, adjust your schedule accordingly.

Identify yourself

It’s important that you make the individual comfortable within seconds. Rather than misleading them about who you are or why you’re calling, respond to a “Hello?” by clearly stating your name, the organization you represent, and what industry you belong to. Taking this step can help a total stranger build at least a rough image of who you are, planting an early seed of trust that you can nurture later in the conversation.

Hook them fast

Poll your loved ones, and they may tell you that their natural reaction to answering a sales call is promptly hanging up. To avoid suffering this fate as the one dialing the phone, you need a compelling hook. Incorporate your value proposition into your introduction, such as by saying “I’m calling from X Business Solutions, a software company that can cut the time needed for your bookkeeping tasks in half.” Immediately outlining how your respondent stands to benefit from doing business with you could intrigue them into giving you room to continue.

Speak cordially

In order to make a comprehensive pitch, you need to create an environment in which cold leads actually feel invested in speaking to you. Your hook will go a long way toward achieving this, but you should also apply a little congeniality. “The more back-and-forth interaction you have with your prospect, the greater your chances for success,” writes Science of People founder Vanessa Van Edwards. Ask a few questions about their lifestyle and work, and offer personal takes based on how they reply (e.g., “Oh, you’re at lunch? Those breaks go by too fast, don’t they?”).

Essentially, your goal is to make them feel as if they’re conversing with a familiar contact. However, don’t dally too long; find the best opportunity to quickly relate the discussion back to your pitch (e.g., “I know your workday is limited, so let’s talk more about our software. It can help your team save hours per day on paperwork.”).

Be direct

Once you feel like you have captured a prospect’s interest and taken control of the conversation, ramp up the pressure. With a little healthy insistence, you can create a situation in which they hesitate to say no to you. There are multiple ways to execute this. For example, try gradually increasing the speed of your speech. You may find that 30 / BUSINESS IN ACTION they subconsciously match your pace, getting swept up in the excitement despite any potential concerns. (Just remember to remain professional. There’s a difference between pitching your product well and bullying people into giving you their money.)

Then, when the moment seems right, confidently request the close. But don’t merely suggest it—say it outright. Questions like “Can I go ahead and take your credit card details?” make it clear to both parties that a sale is occurring. If they need some reassurance right before they take the leap, refer back to your value proposition as a reminder of what they can gain from making a payment now.

Don’t end at no

It’s very likely that you’ll hear a refusal at some point during your conversation. After all, a 2024 Focus Digital survey across various industries indicates that it took respondents anywhere from 41 to 134 cold calls to close a single sale.

The key, though, is that they did close. Simply put, an “I’m not interested” doesn’t mean you should give up. The prospect has the power to terminate the call whenever they’d like, so don’t take this action for them. Continually seek and address their objections as long as they stay on the line with you, including common concerns like a limited budget, a perceived lack of relevance to their lifestyle, and little knowledge of your product. Stay courteous and calm as you counteract each one, relying on your best customer service skills. Do so well enough, and you just might transform a no into a yes.

Remain optimistic

While you should enter each conversation confidently expecting a sale, not every call will be successful. Ultimately, you can’t control who’s on the other end, their present state of mind, or how much time they have to converse with you; even a perfectly compatible prospect may be having a stressful moment when you contact them. In the event that they won’t budge, thank them for their time, request that they keep you in mind for their future needs, and then move on to the next number on your list— there just might be a deal there waiting to be snatched up.

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