The Anatomy Of A Great Cold Call

Intro

Today, everything in outbound is getting harder. Channels that were once reliable for reaching prospects, email and LinkedIn, are becoming more crowded and less effective. With inboxes overflowing and even LinkedIn now flooded with spam, it’s getting harder to stand out and capture attention.

That’s why cold calling is more important than EVER for the modern SDR. 

Despite what you might hear, it remains one of the few direct channels where you can make a real connection with prospects. But here’s the thing: most people are scared to cold call, which means fewer people are doing it, leaving a huge opportunity for those willing to pick up the phone.

In this article, we’ll break down the anatomy of a cold call and explain how to make this tried and true art form work in today’s environment.

Preparing To Call

There are 4 key areas of focus when it comes to cold call preparation.

Know The Customer: Make sure you have a clear understanding of the customer, contact, and their challenges.

Know The Message: Be well practiced and prepared to execute the right message for your prospect.

Know The Strategy: Have a call objective, a pivot strategy, and a response to top objections ready.

Outside Research: If you need it, you can find insights about your customers on their website, your CRM, and data tools like Apollo and ZoomInfo

Getting Past The Gatekeeper

Of course, the preferred method is to call mobile numbers, especially given the rise of data enrichment tools.. but what happens when you have to call an office line and deal with a gatekeeper?

We’ve found that there are three types of “gatekeepers”, and the playbook to deploy depends on who you’re speaking to.

😀 Gatekeeper Profile: People That Are Willing To Help

What You Should Do: Only a small percentage of receptionists / front desk professionals are willing to actively help salespeople. If you run across one, use it to your advantage. Of course try and reach the DM, but if you can’t, leverage them for insights about the company, its inner workings, and any other details that might be relevant to the future deal. 

😐 Gatekeeper Profile: People That Are Neutral On Helping

What You Should Do: Be somewhat vague (but never dishonest) and try to get to the decision maker as quickly as possible. Don’t try to make small talk or share unnecessary details about your product or the reason for your call. If the DM isn’t available, get the best contact information possible such as: a better time to reach the contact, their email addresses, direct lines / extensions, and mobile numbers.

😡 Gatekeeper Profile: People That Are Unwilling To Help

What You Should Do: The truth is, when a gatekeeper sees it as their job to block you from reaching the decision maker, you’ll lose more often than you’ll win. 

A few strategies: 

I’ve found in cold calling that you’ll typically get passed to what authority level you sound most like, based on your tone, speaking style and wording; so speak authoritatively. If you project confidence and power through your tone, it signals that you’re someone of significance, lowering the suspicions of the gatekeeper and making it more likely that they’ll pass you through.

Ask for a lower ranking person. Many times, a gatekeeper has been instructed to block anyone that wants to speak with one or a group of senior executives within the company. But this restriction may not apply to everyone, or those, say at the middle management level. There have been hundreds of instances where I’ve asked for a C level exec, gotten brutally rejected, then passed through after asking for a regional manager.

Use the directory. Some large companies have a dial by name directory. This can be another useful way of reaching your contact without having to speak with a gatekeeper.

Opening The Call

The most important part of a cold call is the first 30 seconds, as it sets the tone for the rest of the call.

Here are a few critical pieces to consider as you craft your opener.

Level of Permission

One of the most heated debates in the world of cold calling is whether or not to use a permission based opener.

Here’s my take after training and coaching over 1000 salespeople and over 300 SDRs: It doesn’t matter, at all. They both can work wonders!

What does matter, is what you feel confident in and what sits right for you. Our recommendation is to try both at least 10 times and determine what feels most appropriate for your personality. Someone more direct might align with a non-permission based opener, while a more passive personality may feel more comfortable asking for permission.

My personal favorite is a “light permission” opener. It sounds like this: 

“Hey Bill, it’s Jay. We haven’t spoken before, do you have a moment?”

Satisfying The Subconscious 

When most people answer a cold call, they are subconsciously asking themselves the same questions. In order to quickly build trust and keep them present in the conversation, you need to answer them.

Question 1: Who is this person?

Question 2: What company are they with?

Question 3: Why are they calling me?

Question 4: Have I spoken with them before?

For Question 3. “Why are they calling me?”, use our Value Creation Bullseye as a reference point.

Style of Opener

There are 100s of opener styles and most of them work when done correctly, here are a few of my favorites with examples:

Social Proof / Quick Customer Story (Use Case: Automation For Medical Distributors, CEO/COO/CFO Persona)

Rep: Hi Bill, it’s Jay from JGA Automation. We haven’t spoken before. Do you mind if I take 30 seconds to let you know why I called?

Prospect: Sure.

Rep: I’m calling because we helped another medical distributor automate order entry, and saved them 42% on their back office labor costs - Is this getting harder to manage given how fast you’ve grown this year?

Research based (Use Case: AppTours (Product Tour Software),  CPO/VP of Product Persona)

Rep: Hi Lisa, it’s Jay from AppTours. We haven’t spoken before. Do you have a moment?

Prospect: Sure.

Rep: After reading your 10K, we saw that improving user adoption within the first 30 days is a big focus this year. 

Rep: I’m assuming you’re in charge of this?

Prospect: Yes.

Rep: From working with other software platforms, we’ve found that an easy to follow, new user tutorial can be a big driver in getting accounts activated - Have you considered something like that?

Executing The Pitch

Once you’ve gotten past your opener, it’s time to deliver your pitch.

Your pitch should be a 30-45 second deeper dive on the problem you address and how your software solves it, building on your opener. Some of the best pitches I’ve seen are crafted around a strong customer story.

The Pitch Framework

1. Introduce The Problem

2. Explain The Impact of Problem

3. Introduce The Solution

4. Explain The Measurable Impact of Solution

5. Ask A Verifying Question

Instead of explaining each step, here’s an example using the AppTours use case from the Opener section.

Continuation of Use Case: AppTours (Product Tour Software) (CPO/VP of Product Persona)

When we first started working with JGA Labs, they were in the same boat. Their mature accounts were getting strong YoY growth, but since the 2022 dip they’ve had a really tough time managing 30 day churn for their new ones. 

After doing 50 ex-customer interviews, their CPO Lisa found that new users got intimidated by the complexity of the UI - and because of this, they never got over the hump of receiving value. 

Once Lisa implemented AppTours, everything changed. New users got a step by step walkthrough on how to complete their first action, helping them get to know the platform on the first login. This cut their 30 day churn in half.

How do you think something like this could help you?

Asking For The Meeting

If they’ve responded positively up until this point, now’s the time to ask for the meeting.

Position your ask as a recommendation, not a favor. If you’ve done your job well and uncovered real pain points, you’ve earned the right to recommend the next step. This isn’t about pushing for time on their calendar; it’s about showing confidence in the value you’re offering.

Before you make the ask, use a statement of confidence that highlights your belief in what your solution can do for them. Something like, “Based on what we’ve discussed, I’m confident we can help you solve [pain point]. Let’s schedule 20 minutes next week to dig into how we can make that happen.”

Mid Call Checkpoint

If the prospect doesn't have time, end the call after getting the appointment and have your account executive cover “Quality & “Discover” on the actual demo. This may also depend on where the line is drawn between SDRs and AEs at your company.

If they’re still available to speak, keep going. 

Qualifying Questions

Qualification questions are designed to gauge the size of the opportunity and filter out prospects who aren’t a fit. (However, if you’ve done your research and built a great list, you’ll rarely need to filter out a prospect due to poor fit at this stage of the call)

Because of their self-serving nature, I typically ask them once some trust has been built, or once I’ve already secured the booking. 

Depending on your product, qualification questions can be great for non-executive personas to answer like a receptionist or middle manager.

Common Areas For Qualifying Questions: 

• Contact Role & Responsibility

• Department Size

• Competitor Contract End Dates 

• Any Additional Qualification Markers Important To Your Company

Discovery Questions

There are three types of discovery questions, and all of them are important in the opportunity development process.

Business Questions

What They Do: Uncover the prospect's vision, goals, challenges and strategic plans.

Example: “Other than reducing churn, what other product initiatives are top of mind for you this year?”

Pain Questions

What They Do: Understand the prospect's challenges and current situation + quantify its impact.

Example: “Can you walk me through the new user experience today?”

Decision Questions

What They Do: Help you learn about the prospect's buying process, who's in the DMU, their time frame to purchase, and likely competitors.

Example: “In addition to yourself, who else is involved in making buying decisions for the company?”

Example:” The last time you bought a similar tech product, what was the process like? Who all was involved?”

BONUS SECTION: Leveraging Callbacks

You can be the most skilled cold caller in the world, but since you’re interrupting people, most of your call connects aren’t going to have time to chat the moment you reach them.

However: if you nail your value prop in the first 30 seconds and build some interest, a percentage of them will take another call with you at a better time.

One tip to make your callbacks stickier: agree on a date and time before ending the call and send your prospect a calendar invite. Their willingness to lock down a time (and if they accept your invite) will give you a true depiction of their current interest level.

I had an SDR that would enter everyday with at least 2 calendar protected callbacks and they converted at around 35%. He used this method to generate 13-15 outbound bookings a month.

Conclusion

Thanks for making it all the way until the end, hope you enjoyed the read!

Looking for more sales development insights? Follow me on LinkedIn or check out my SDR Model Success Blog.