From Cold Calling to Warm Calling - Generate More Leads

Reaching out to people who are interested in your offering makes sense, but how does one go about doing so if they've never heard of you?

Most Organizations Around the World Struggle with This

Feeling uncomfortable with reaching out to people who haven't heard of you but are in need of your organzations expertise is something I've often come across as an Inbound marketing strategist for agencies.

The reason is because the organizations presume it involves cold calling or reaching out to people who are not a good fit for your organization and when doing so the result is usually a low quality of leads.

Wouldn't be better to place effort on those who actually would be interested in hearing from you instead? 

It's time to face the facts and realize that: "Cold calling is dead" as Dan Tyre put it during the pipeline generation bootcamp I attended a while ago. cold calling sam hirbod inbound coaching

What is "Warm Calling"?

Warm calling is way of prospecting and is all about reaching out to those who actually want to hear from you, including those who haven't yet, it's as simple as that.

Despite being called warm calling, it doesn't actually have to be a phone call, you could reach out through your live chat or other channels etc.

The goal of warm calling is to get to get the additional meeting booked, this is why a warm call should not take more than a maximum of 10 - 15 minutes. 

Should You Warm Call Anyone & Everyone?

Short answer is no, only if they fit your ideal customer profile (buyer persona) and you have a qualification process in place. If you need help in this department I'll be covering them in the upcoming blog posts.

So who would want to hear from you? Well there are various scenarios.

When do You Apply "Warm Calling"?

Scenarios where warm calling can be applied include:

  1. When someone is facing a challenge you can help solve.
  2. When someone has visited specific sections of your website multple times. 
  3. When someone has taken part of something you offer and provided their details.

When done right, some agencies even reach out to prospects mentioning their field of expertise on social media. 

These are some of the most common cases where agencies have turned a lead to a revenue generating customer, and as you can see, it didn't really require that much of an effort to identify who to go after. warm calling sam hirbod inbound coaching

How do You Warm Call?

So how do you warm call? 

If your prospect has been qualified then it's time for you or the person responsible to reach out. 

Here is a structure you can follow when reaching out:

1. Greet the person.

2. Mention why you are reaching out to them with focus on the prospect (do not start an elevator pitch about yourself and your company).

3. Share something that is specific to them.

4. Ask them related questions.

5. Ask if they'd be interested in a follow up meeting. 

The result could look something like this for someone who knows about your organization, just replace the [brackets] with whatever fits your business:

1. Hi [John Doe], Sam from [Inbound coaching] here.

2. I noticed that you [downloaded my ebook regarding "How to generate more leads through Inbound marketing"] and was just wondering what you thought about it? Was there anything in particular you were hoping to learn?

3. I noticed that [your website does not comply with GDPR yet] and know that a lot of [the agencies] I've been [coaching] within your field have been wondering [how GDPR will affect their lead generation and how they can comply with it.]

4. Does that sound familiar to you?

5. I'd be more than happy to walk you through how we [future-proofed their lead generation] and learn more about your own goals and challenges, would [Monday at 3pm your time] work?

If the prospect does not know about your organization then you could talk about their specific industry, competitors etc. instead. If you notice that the prospect is not a good fit for your business, then remember, you can always be helping

laptop phone pens inbound coaching sam hirbod

Ready to Generate More Leads?

Hopefully you'll feel more confident in reaching out to those who are in need of your help now that you've gotten some simple tools that you can use. Remember that warm calling really comes down to the very essence of inbound marketing, i.e. helping out. The more you help the more likely you are to succeed as a whole with your business.

Any thoughts you want to bounce off regarding this blog post, inbound or open roles? Let me know!