The days of salespeople knocking on your front door trying to tempt you to buy their latest product may be a thing of the past, but telephone cold calling is still used today.
Even in the age of online e-commerce, businesses still deploy telephone cold-calling methods to generate revenue for their company.
Cold-calling tactics are so popular that companies hire a cold-calling virtual assistant. Let’s take an in-depth look into the methods and advantages of hiring a cold-calling VA.
Is Outsourcing Your Cold Calling Practical?
Let’s look at the three main reasons why cold-calling is practical.
Time Savings
Hiring a cold calling virtual assistant will save you a lot of time as it will be their job to make time-consuming phone calls to potential customers.
Hiring a remote worker to make cold calls allows your full-time staff to complete all the tasks within their job description.
A full-time employee will need more time in their working day to make several cold calls which means your business could miss opportunities to gain sales.
A cold calling VA is paid hourly and can dedicate the right amount of time to each call, proving cost-effective for your business.
Avoid Monotonous Work
Cold-calling virtual assistants need excellent communication skills, and a suitable telephone manner is critical when making outbound calls.
However, making cold calls can be monotonous and is best avoided by highly skilled staff members whose skills are better utilised elsewhere in your company.
It is important to remember that not everyone is suited to being a cold business caller. Still, with the proper training, most virtual assistants can make cold calls and offer other administrative support.
In-house staff members will have to perform multiple tasks during their working day. Removing cold calling from their remit will help them remain focused.
Use Scripted Calls
Cold callers always work from a well-constructed script that has been created to be enticing to a target audience.
A lot of market research is needed to construct the script to generate more leads for your sales team.
The person who makes outbound calls must have all the information available to them to answer questions the potential new customers may ask.
Therefore, your cold-calling virtual assistants must be able to follow instructions written within the script correctly and promptly.
Hiring engaging telemarketing virtual assistants who can answer all questions asked of potential clients will always reflect well and benefit your business.
Implementing Cold Calling Teams
Here are the main methods of cold calling you must understand.
Business To Business
This cold-calling method happens when businesses approach another business to offer their service or product. The technique is called business-to-business (B2B) through telemarketing services.
This strategy is not strictly cold calling, as both businesses will know about each other.
It is employed when conducting lead generation campaigns to help forge a strong partnership between businesses that can benefit one another.
Business To Customer
Business-to-customer (B2C) is a widely used method by cold-calling VAs.
This method of cold call will be used as part of a lead generation strategy by a VA to the general public to generate sales.
With this method, there are strict rules and regulations a telemarketing cold caller must endure when employing this technique.
It can be time-intense as a vast database must be tackled when making these customer phone calls.
Also, sometimes it can be disheartening for the person making the call because the recipient won’t always be thankful for the call. In extreme cases, the recipient can be rude and not give the caller enough time to explain why they are calling.
Qualifying Leads
Lead generation cold calling aims to identify people interested in your product or service.
The people who display a genuine interest in your product or service are then placed on a lead qualification database.
Another follow-up phone call is made to those people on this database to establish how strong the need and want for your product or service is.
A vital part of this call is determining if the potential customer has the financial means to purchase.
The last thing you want is to pass on a lead to your sales team only to find the potential customer doesn’t have the authority or funds to purchase your service or product.
Excellent lead qualification work will save your sales team a lot of wasted time.
Upselling To Customers
After a cold-caller VA has done lead generation and got their lead qualification database, they will be asked to perform upselling duties.
Upselling and cross-selling to customers is a proven method to generate additional sales for your business.
Upselling is when a salesperson tells the customer about the benefits of buying an improved version of the service or product they wish to purchase.
For example, if they are seeking a family car, it will be up to the salesperson to point out the mandatory benefits of purchasing the latest model. The newest model car will cost the most but will have a higher specification.
Cross-selling is common in business and is used to tempt customers into buying a product related to their immediate purchase.
Virtual Assistant Skill Requirements
Here are the primary general skill requirements of a virtual assistant.
Fluent English Speaking
You need an excellent and thorough understanding of the English language if you want to become a successful cold-calling virtual assistant.
Cold callers with a poor command of English will only cause problems for your company as the chances of things being lost in translation significantly increase. In addition, when things are not clearly explained, the chances of losing potential customers increase.
Hiring a friendly and engaging person who can easily explain your company’s services and products will significantly help the overall sales process.
Striking a friendly but professional conversation with a potential customer will help them trust you more than simply talking from the sales script.
Sales Talk
A cold-calling VA will also have to have a certain level of sales skills to do the job to a high standard.
While you don’t have to be highly trained in sales, it will prove advantageous if they have some knowledge and experience in how the sales process works.
For example, if you run a real estate business, your VA must have the ability to talk to potential new clients about your industry.
The main focus is to generate sales for your company, so if the person making your sales calls lacks expertise in explaining your service, they won’t attract new clients.
Time And Resource Management
As a cold-calling virtual assistant, you must have impeccable time management skills.
For example, if the person you hire cannot manage appointment setting correctly, it will lead to clients taking their business elsewhere.
Business owners hire virtual assistants to help their companies become more efficient while saving time and money and generating revenue.
Poor time management skills cost your company money instead of saving it.
There will be a designated time frame for each cold call a VA makes to a potential client. If they exceed this time limit, your business loses out on potential customers, which equals more profit.
Let Us Help You Find The Ideal VA
Hopefully, this article has helped you better understand cold-calling and the various strategies employed.
As a business owner, you always want your company to run smoothly. Hiring a virtual assistant will help you to achieve this and more.
Do you feel you haven’t got the time or confidence to go through the hiring process yourself? Then, call us for a free consultation.
We will explain how we can source, hire, train, and manage the right cold-calling virtual assistant for your business.