This video provides an in-depth guide to cold calling in tech sales. The speakers discuss common problems with existing cold calling training, present a new framework for effective cold calling, and offer real-world examples and scripts. The goal is to equip viewers with a directly applicable framework to improve their cold calling results.
Cold calling remains crucial: Despite the rise of email and other channels, cold calling retains its value as a powerful sales tool, especially in saturated markets. The ability to generate pipeline at will through a live conversation remains unmatched.
Modern training flaws: Many prevalent cold calling training methods are too complex and ineffective for new reps, focusing on advanced techniques instead of foundational, repeatable structures. A simpler, more structured approach is often better.
Value Statement Framework: This framework involves a concise introduction (who you are, why you're calling, what you want), followed by a value proposition highlighting the benefits for the prospect. This approach prioritizes immediate value delivery and controls the conversation flow, increasing the likelihood of scheduling a meeting.
Efficient Cold Calling: Effective cold calling requires more than just a script; it involves efficient research and preparation. Creating pre-written value statements and objection handling strategies for different personas significantly improves efficiency and confidence.
Objection Handling: Instead of immediately engaging with objections, initially focus on selling the meeting. If objections persist, use prepared, targeted questions to provide additional context and build credibility before revisiting the meeting request.
Here are the sections from the transcript where Connor Murray gives explicit examples of cold calling scripts, organized for easy copy-pasting. Note that these examples are part of larger conversational sections; I've tried to isolate the core script examples themselves, but some surrounding context might remain.
Example 1: Finance (General)
hey Eric this is Conor Murray call from XYZ company how are you uh I'm good how are you doing well good I'm just reaching out because I'm part of the team here that supports XYZ company regarding back office Financial applications so we work on priorities related to strategic planning budget forecasting and scenario modeling usually by reducing the Reliance on Excel and automating a lot of those monthly Financial reports you have to do so we'll be your main points of contact here for any priorities you have in these areas resources you may need anything like that okay
Example 2: Finance (General, Slightly Different)
hey so and so Conor Mar calling from XYZ how are you good I'm just reaching out because I'm part of the financial applications team that supports XYZ company regarding back office Erp applications and we work on priorities related to strategic planning budget forecasting and scenario modeling usually by consolidating financial data from siloed sources reducing Reliance on Excel spreadsheets and automating a lot of those monthly Financial reports so I'll be your main point of contact here for any priorities you have in these areas resources you may need anything like that
Example 3: Finance (Insurance Vertical)
good um so blah blah blah good I'm just reaching out because I'm a business development manager here that works with insurance organizations on priorities related to claims and analysis fraud detection and risk assessment usually by working with customers to implement bi capabilities that segment customers and analyze claims in real time and also create customizable dashboards that are interactive and made for self-service reporting so I'll be your main point of contact here for any priorities going forward in these areas resources you may need anything like that
Example 4: Life Science
good I'm just reaching out because I'm part of the Strategic life science team that supports XYZ companying regarding back office Financial applications and we work on priorities related to clinical trial planning um cash Runway forecasting and commercialization usually by working with life science customers to integrate and centralize their data sources to track clinical trial budgets in real time run accurate scenario models and accelerate the commercialization process
Example 5: HR (General)
hey so and so this is Conor Murray calling from XYZ how are you good I'm just reaching out because I'm part of the hris application team that supports XYZ company regarding HR applications and we work on priorities related to talent management workforce planning and recruiting usually by working with customers to do things like automate much of the onboarding process create a single employee data model for all of HR and better forecast future talent and staffing needs so I'll be your main point of contact here for any priorities you have in these areas going forward resources you may need anything like that
Example 6: HR (Retail Vertical)
hey Conor Murray how are you good I'm just reaching out because I'm part of the hris application team that supports XYZ company regarding HR applications and we work on priorities related to employee engagement onboarding and development and workforce planning usually by giving retailers a scalable LMS system for quick on demand learning AI tools to analyze real-time employee feedback and the ability to optimize hiring and Staffing levels on a location by location basis so I'll be your main point of contact here for any priorities you have in these areas resources you may need anything like that
Remember that these scripts are designed to be adaptable. Connor emphasizes replacing the bracketed information with details specific to the target company and persona.
Here are the relevant transcript excerpts discussing "shots on net" and objection handling, separated for clarity:
"Shots on Net" and Call Efficiency:
and what I sort of started to realize is if you don't ask for the meeting really what we're doing here when making coal calls as sdrs especially is we have a pipeline goal we need to set a certain amount of meetings to reach that pipeline goal you can't set meetings if one you don't make enough coold calls because it's taking too long to do research in between call calls and two if you don't ask them for time on their calendar you don't have a chance at booking the meeting if you remember learning about math in high school it was if you go from a 0% to a non z% chance of booking the meeting that's technically an infinite per increase by getting yourself on the playing field so I decided from now on I'm going to take control of these cold calls and structure them in a way that positions me to give myself as many shots on net as I can I want to be asking them for the meeting giving them enough context being ready to handle the objections but all of my responses and and what I'm positioning on the call should be centered around why it's valuable for them to take the meeting so I started developing this form framework that I call the value statement framework where instead of giving the control over the Prospect and asking them a bunch of questions survey style and hoping they generated enough interest to where I could go for the meeting I more decided I'm going to take control tell them who I am why I'm calling and what I want
so it's a very left-brained way of approaching coal calling where I'm more taking control of the process and actually measuring it while I'm doing it yeah and I I think this is really good precursor information too I know mindset we can definitely get into that is a bit of a dicey word like that yeah so in terms of mindset like that's another thing I think in terms of training and YouTube and out there there's too much like Tony Robin style sales mindset stuff where it sounds great and it's like cool calling is a path to understanding yourself and unlocking like your inner Potential from a place of abundance exactly and it's like okay now pick up the phone and use that information to make a dial and it's like you can't and it's like that stuff's great like if it's helping you stay motivated cool but don't think it's making you better at coold calling I like to focus on actual techniques because I think the problem and why people aren't confident and it comes across in their language their tonality is because they don't have a process they don't know what to do they ask a directional question and they're so worried about what's going to come next when they start talking the prospect can sense that everyone says tonality is 90% of your communication on cold calls and we'll get into tonality later but if you don't sound confident because you don't have a process in place like I want to focus on giving you actual techniques you can follow because that's going to make you confident not like the Tony Robin sales motivation
Objection Handling:
so here's back to my framework now of giving yourself as many shots on net as you can so yes there is a time when you want to open up the conversation based on the objection they give you but I think a lot of people forfeit a shot on net or a probability of booking the meeting so a common one is like hey Connor thanks for reaching out we actually already use ABC for our planning and budgeting system so I don't see why it makes sense to me instead of going into asking them questions about any priorities they have in the future how's that system going for them anything like that I want to double down and sell the time another way of saying it is is acknowledge their concern and tell them why it makes sense to meet anyway this is your second shot on net so your first one was when you told them who you are why are calling and then stated what you want that you were looking to set up time this they've objected hey we already use XYZ or ABC company as a planning and budgeting solution I would immediately meet them and say got it yeah that's actually why I was reaching out we work with customers of X competitor all the time so if there's ever a fit we can move ahead but I think it at least makes sense to get you introduced to the rest of my team going forward because we'll be the main ones supporting you here in all of these areas for the foreseeable future so does Wednesday work for you
now if they're still pushing back after you doubled down and sold the time again this is where you have to build more credibility and more value but I don't like the way a lot of people are taught to ask these again it's like right word positive question negative consequence question what I think you should do is give them some sort of hypothesis as to why you reaching out it's the framework is essentially and I ask but like whatever question you're asking you ask it and then say and I ask because we work with a lot of retailers on blank and these are things you can pre-prepare again like you don't have to be riffing all of this off off the top of your head you can prepare good questions to ask by industry so you get your value statements by Persona and by industry you have pre-prepared questions to fall back on if they need a little more context so here's a couple more examples that so if you're calling a VP of Finance you gave them the value statement doubled down sold the time they didn't bite and they're but they still are engaging with you they're on the phone here's a common example is you can ask so do you know how many applications your Finance team uses to complete the end to-end close process and the reason I ask is because we work with a lot of customers who have at least five or more siloed applications in addition to all the spreadsheets that are passed around across their teams and we're able to consolidate their data and processes onto a single application and really accelerate the close process so it's a question and then you give them more context as to why you're asking and then they're going to hopefully start engaging with you again not always but then the more they engage with you you can again pull it back to like yeah this is great and this is exactly why I wanted to set up a meeting like this is what we want to cover on the next call and then positioning it as let's get to the meeting because now you've given them more context
Here's the section of the transcript where Connor discusses "coiling the spring," the process of preparing targeted value statements and questions in advance:
a key part of this process that I haven't really gone into to much detail yet is this process of coiling the spring so you don't just randomly rifle through these different scripts it's what I said about coal calling efficiently is different than being an effective coold caller on each individual coold call part of it is if you're going to make a finance value statement or an HR or a marketing value statement you also want to spend the time to make different lists by person within that industry So within Finance there's VPS of fpna there's controllers there's accountants each of them care about slightly different things so you're going to name slightly different priorities and challenges that you solve based on who you're calling but the goal is to make these really large lists of these personas so that all you need to know is their name and the name of the company they work for to know that what you're going to say is likely going to be very relevant to them you don't need to pull up any company information or LinkedIn so here's another example of a Basic Finance one similar to the one I just did so it's I I was going to say before we jump into that I just want to call out too like your adamed especially early on and this video I would guess is for people just beginning or intermediate level cold calling ability it's like you actually have this up when you're making calls and you actually have your objections ready to go so like this level of planning gets you to the point where maybe you don't need to look at it like you just rifted off the cuff earlier because you've done it so much but like these are the little details I just want to add color that the average person is not doing they they just they get disc they're uncomfortable and they want to just feel like they have the solution instead of actually taking the time to diagram this out and to say it so many times that it's second nature G to their head they can say it flawlessly I have 80 different personas at least that I could call into there's no way you memorize all of them but it's you do the work to create them up front and then yes you don't sound red when you read them out loud like you'll see I'm going to riff through quite a few examples here that could apply to a lot of people so
but this is how you can be be prepared keep control and have a framework to fall back on but do so at scale it just takes a lot of work to on that process of coiling the spring up front you have to make the different value statements you got to pre-prepare the questions these are things you can hopefully work on with your manager or your AE and your different meetings you don't boil the ocean like it takes time start with your most common personas your top industries and work your way out to the more Niche personas and objections over time yeah no really really great stuff and yeah I think like this stuff either I think there's a camp that's going to think that there's no way this would work there's another camp that probably think this is like too simplified and doesn't work but again like this is why we put such an emphasis on live coaching and why like quite frankly the only reason we created Co call Mastery in the first place is because we had tons of people reaching out to you booking one-on-one coaching and then realized we needed a way to scale our efforts and really make this something that that many people could use
