5 Reasons Your Cold Outreach Is Failing
Rather than write a convoluted, clumsy intro into this article we’re going to dive right in as to do otherwise would be ironic, which will make sense pretty much immediately……….
Get to the point
Imagine a scenario where you’re walking along a high street and someone you don’t know approaches you and asks you how you are doing. There are essentially only two responses to this.
a) You ignore them and carry on walking.
b) You reply with something vanilla such as “I’m fine thanks” and then carry on walking
There are several reasons at play here:-
Suspicion
Fear
Time
“What’s in it for me"?”
And this is no different to cold outreach. Whether or not we’re in a professional capacity we’re conditioned to be suspicious of unsolicited approaches by humans we don’t know. It can be unnerving and a general tendency is to think “what do they want?” If the recipient decides to engage then there is a fear that they might put themselves at some kind of risk.
That risk might be as simple as using up some of their precious time, or in a professional capacity it could put them at a commercial risk - so perhaps it is better to ignore the approach. And that is why cold outreach must get to the point quickly, but not only quickly - one must present a compelling reason to stop and engage quickly too.
2. Stop with the insincere pleasantries
Years ago I went to see my doctor and whilst looking for a seat in the waiting room I bumped in to someone from my high school who I’d not seen in over 15 years. I panicked and rather than saying something like “How lovely to see you” I chose to say “Hi, what are you doing here?” What the hell was I thinking?! What if she was having a huge boil lanced off her left buttock? What if she was anxiously awaiting an appointment to discuss some kind of STD or awaiting test results for some kind of terminal jungle fever?
We’ve all received and lets be honest, probably written, emails with things like:-
“I hope this email finds you well”
“How are you?”
“Hope you had a lovely weekend?”
Inherently they’re not evil questions - but if you don’t know the person they not only come across as lame but also an insincere. Now, perhaps you have so much compassion for humankind that it is spilling out of your mouth on every cold call. Or you are unwilling to accept that many people’s weekend consisted of defrosting the freezer, worming the dog and attending a far right rally. And like my doctor’s waiting room example - perhaps the recipient has just been told they have a week to live or that their partner has run off with the circus.
Asking insincere questions to people you’ve never met doesn’t build rapport.
Asking insincere questions to people you’ve never met doesn’t put the prospect at ease.
Asking insincere questions to people you’ve never met makes you seem untrustworthy.
3. Different strokes for different folks
It is likely that some or possibly all of the following apply, or could apply to you. You :-
Serve different markets
Have clients of varying sizes
Serve different geographies
Supply directly
Supply though channels
Are told different reasons why your clients choose to do business with you
Supply to countries which don’t speak English as a first language
Offer more than one service or product
Enjoy varying levels of market share and awareness depending on some of the above variables
Yet despite all (or some) of the above being true, many companies think it is appropriate to apply a broad brush approach to their cold outreach. And the end result sounds like a bad wedding disco - it tries to cater for everyone yet is pleases almost no one.
One size does not fit all. Unless you already enjoy a massive market share and are likely in a B2C environment your cold outreach must be tailored and targeted.
4. What, no foreplay?
If you’re working through some kind of list and literally calling people and asking for a meeting you’re wasting money and time and you need to prepare yourself for a lot of disappointment.
If you don’t take the time to professionally warm up your prospects then you’re increasing your chances of failure hugely and going back to them too soon after a poor “first pass” can look at best desperate and at worst unprofessional.
You need to be strategically warming up your prospects and if you don’t know how then please contact Silent Sales and this is our bread and butter and is a non-negotiable for any successful outreach campaign.
5. Are you trained to prospect?
The number of people we speak to who attempt prospecting without any training never ceases to amaze us. A lot of the time prospecting is lumped in with Customer Service and untrained personnel are essentially thrown to to the wolves. You’ve probably received such calls where the caller stumbles over their words and the lack of confidence, purpose and control of the call is palpable. Or you’ll have received terribly worded emails which ramble or assume that you know things about the company - cringe-inducing drivel.
And it might surprise you to learn that many sales professionals aren’t trained to prospect. From our Silent Sales Training surveys we ask how much sales training delegates have received in the last five years and the number below is an average across all of the many sessions we’ve conducted globally across multiple industries - the majority of whom are in proactive sales positions.
>81% of respondents have told us they haven’t had any training in the last five years
Talk about setting up your team to fail right!?
Whilst it is evidently self serving for us to promote the benefits of Silent Sales Training, it is also clear that without providing the sales team with the tools they need to prospect they’re going to get burned, a lot.
There are over 50 other reasons why your cold reach isn’t working, many of which we cover in our Silent Sales Training and Silent Sales Mentoring so feel free to contact us to learn more.
