Take the Cold out of Cold Calls with Proper Research

If you are faced with the daunting task of working through a cold call list, these tips should help you increase your chances of success. 1. Determine Your Goals Here are some suggested goals:

• Fully understand how your product or service matches the needs of the market you are targeting.
• Create a list of questions that demonstrate your research into market needs.
• Create a list of ideas that help your target market cut costs, generate sales, increase productivity or gain competitive advantage.
• Look at your competitors and determine how you will differentiate.

2. Find a Point of Entry Determine what department would be most receptive to your value proposition. 3. Learn About The Business The amount of time you spend on this will be directly correlated to the value you expect from the prospect conversion. Following are some key areas to research:

• Industry trends
• High priority quarterly or yearly goals
• Key issues important to the business
• Financial drivers
• Product and service lines
• Competitors
• Key customers
• Primary decision makers

4. Search for Openings Look for information about challenges the market is facing or long and short term goals and objectives you can help the market achieve. 5. Understand their Lingo To better speak the same language as your target market, examine their marketing materials, website and phone interactions to determine their lingo. References and Resources Corporate Information - Detailed information on public companies. Edgar Scan - More information on public companies. Selling to Big Companies - I based the information on this article on a portion of Chapter 8 in this book.