How to Cold Call When 90% Hang Up (Live Role-Play)

0:00 hi this is Mark hi uh did I catch you at a bad time uh kind of what's up my name is Matthew i come from Matthew's Gourmet Pizza House we have an innovative pizza that drives employee happiness i don't believe it that pizza drives happiness hello chiropractor Seattle what kind of pizza you guys like i don't even know i've never seen the doctor eat pizza [ __ ] okay uh I don't know where to go what do you mean that's a no well I'm like "All right thank you bye." The folks that are listening here you're not selling a $20 pizza you're trying to book a meeting if you're good if you're good at this you book a meeting a day one meeting yeah this is like a game of seconds every word counts

0:46 this person is just ready they're trying to get you off the phone that guy that's Mark Rober need a resume all right how's this founder of Stage 2 Capital senior lecturer at Harvard Business School founding CRO of HubSpot and author of the sales acceleration formula today I'm going to ask him how to cold call what are the essential steps involved in making a successful cold call from like preparations and opening lines to handling objections and closing i feel like this is something you teach all the time at HBS yeah we have a whole class on this we bring in a good buddy of mine Sam Nelson the largest and most successful SDR leadership network in the world so we set up a whole case for a food catering business right so picture all these tech

1:34 companies that they want to you know like OBS here they provide you know food catering so this is a business that did that and the assignment is that you've got to sell to BCG Boston Consulting Group the New York office okay so we asked him in the assignment like who would you reach out to like look at the BCG LinkedIn network and like who would you call and we have them like devise the first cold email they would send and so we pick it apart in class right and then we challenge them on how often they should reach out and how like do you call them do you email them do you send LinkedIn notes like we have that whole discussion so this is the favorite part we we teach them how to do a cold call and connect and then we at the last 15 minutes of class Sam's team hands out scripts and call lists of local businesses and the students cold call local businesses and

2:25 try to sell them a $20 pizza in class we did it yesterday the first class sold five pizzas and the second class sold six pizzas now remember there's 90 students in the class and they're calling for 15 minutes i would say there's over a thousand calls that happen can I try and do it yeah this is going to be crazy yeah i think I have a future in it yeah let's go i'm gonna be Mark chiropractor office in Seattle i'm I'm working the front desk yeah so I'm the the office manager for the whole thing and you're gonna try to sell me a pizza hello chiropractor Seattle hey uh this is Mark's office right uh yeah this is this is Dr mark's office this is Tim his assistant tim nice to meet you my name is Matt uh hey I'll tell you what it's lunchtime right now and

3:12 have you guys ordered food yet uh yeah and what is this about so I run a pizza delivery company and I think you guys would love what we're doing we're new to the neighborhood uh if you would be interested what kind of pizza you guys like um I don't even know i've never seen the doctor eat pizza i don't know where to go with me if your reps are anything like producer Matt they did all the research all the prep picked up the phone they made the call they delivered the opening line and then they froze up all right all right hubspot put together a resource called the 30 sales call

4:00 templates for outreach that I think will help your reps prospect sell your products and land more appointments that lead to deals they'll learn how to get a decision maker's contact info connect with business leaders and even upsell existing clients you know where to get this go down in the description click on the link it's right there for you for free 30 sales call templates for outreach from HubSpot go download it now and start scaling your business let's get back to the video i don't know where to go what do you mean that's a no yeah exactly i mean hey I'm like all right thank you just respect for how many of these 22 year olds graduating college they do this as their it's like the hardest job in sales if you're good you get hung up on 80 to 90% of the time if you're

4:50 good you know what I mean if you're good if you're good at this you book a meeting a day one meeting i So well what was wrong with my call or was it like no matter what you were going to say no or was it like So there's a whole bunch of ways to do cold calling there's a whole bunch of books about this i'm going to teach you Sam Nelson's technique right he's the guest that I have in to HBS and and then we can abstract the best practices within Sam's specific technique to kind of summarize every single cold calling's like um coaching guidance right and by the way we're starting with the actual outbound call and the strategy on the connect okay and we can progress the discussion

5:38 toward the whole cold outreach program okay which is like voicemails emails social how often all that so we can get there but right now we just did the the cool connect all right so first off this is like a game of seconds every word counts this person is just ready they're trying to get you off the phone and so you're just like you want to be like super tight and I hate scripts but like if you're going to be tight on a script I'd probably recommend one here for two reasons like one it's just such like a highintense first 5 10 seconds means everything moment and then number two usually I'm training someone on this that's very new to sales like this is the entry level sales

6:24 role it's the hardest role anyone will ever do in sales and unfortunately you start there here's Sam's technique can I Let's reverse and I'll be the seller and um all I ask you I'm not going to over prep you i'm just going to say I'm obviously going to ask to buy the pizza i want you to deny me three times at least okay okay all right okay hello this is Matthews Chiropractor Services hey Matthew is uh Did I catch you at a bad time uh no what can I help you with oh actually this is great i'll be brief uh this is Mark from Mark's Creative Pizza Shop we specialize in pizzas that drive the culture and happiness of a team during the workday it's $20 and I was really just hoping to send you

7:10 over a pizza for 20 bucks and brighten the day of your employees today how's that sound uh we tend to eat uh a little healthier here uh it sounds like it's a great business but I'm not sure if it's something that we typically eat at the office like healthier or how like uh we the chiropractor Matthew he tends to order more like salads got type of meals well I mean we're actually a perfect fit for that um like I said this is around employee culture and sort of like brain food so we're heavy in protein unlike a lot of other pizzas so we gravitate the healthier side i really would love to just like it's $20 i really just want to send one over today and you know brighten your guys' afternoon and give this a shot i don't I'm not given any sort of budget control i don't

7:59 have $20 to be spending on a pizza today yeah i mean like I wasn't expecting that you would but I know like you guys are all about collectively to spend over $20 on lunch in just a few hours i know it's like 10:00 a.m over there in Seattle this is going to actually be less than the collective office so people are going to save money and have a healthier I really just I I I think we should send a pizza over there for $20 people will save money and have a really productive afternoon uh you know maybe we're a little busy right now could you give us a call back maybe tomorrow that might work best for us yeah actually the fact that you are busy this is perfect because everyone's about to waste 20 minutes to order food this is going to save 20 minutes time i'm guessing you have four people over there this is going to save an hour and 20 minutes of time if you just place the order so the pizza shows up and I was like "Matthew this is great what a busy day." And

8:48 lunch is ready for us $20 hour and 20 minutes left what do you say Matthew i'm going to send you over a pizza sure fine uh yeah you just uh just send it over to the office i appreciate it thank you so much we'll be there in 30 minutes thank you Matthew thanks bye okay i don't know what's more stressful honestly it's like being put in that position or like having to be the one talking both of which are not my So I was I haven't cold called in in a decade but like at least it was an opportunity to like show off the framework and and so let's unpack what's happening there okay the folks that are listening here you're not selling a $20 pizza you're trying to book a meeting sam's work is trying to script it and simplify it so that we can really listen and it frees up all my brain focus and energy on what your objection is so I can handle it and twist it back okay so

9:36 the first thing that I did was I always ask the same question which is did I catch you at a bad time and the reason why is because there's only two answers yes or no like 90% of the time it's like yeah I'm super busy and 10% of the time no I have a minute now Matthew threw me a softball supposedly and said no I have a minute the reason why Sam encourages that is because the answer is exactly the same so I don't even have to pay attention to what he says i always say "Okay I'll be brief." So I deliver that same elevator pitch and then I ask for to deliver the pizza so what do you think $20 for the pizza i give them the ask okay so in a in a more like businessto business setting that's where I'd say um so I'd love to set up a introductory call how is your schedule so

10:24 that that would be the the difference with the the pizza exercise 95% of the time I get an objection just like Matthew did right so this allows me to create all my mental energy and space to handle the objection and then go back for the ask in this case hey you know let what do you say let me send over a $20 pizza next objection comes I listen i'm intent i handle it and then I ask again so I'm in this flywheel and I'm never going to let the person out of the flywheel until they hang up and like the data shows that like the best SDRs and cold callers out there on average will handle three or four of those before they book a meeting okay so hopefully you appreciate you know the simplicity of that technique does that make sense Matthew yeah it does you don't

11:10 let them out of a flywheel that like once you got them you're just like running through the same sort of like hear the objection come up with solution i mean it's just like it's that's our job here you know this is a super uncomfortable moment i'm always trying to explore the gray line or the line around ethics and morals within sales gimmicks you know manipulation the things that led to bad behavior I'm fine here like as long as I believe in my product and that I'm going to help this person and as long as I believe that as I get to know them and uncover their problem I'm not going to sell them something they don't need then I'm okay you know that's our job i can't tell you how many people I used this tactic on 20 years ago when HubSpot was a no-name company and

11:59 because of my persistence they bought and their business accelerated i'm fine with that that's my job but sometimes it takes some convincing and this is the hard part of just getting their attention you're just not there to necessarily like salvage the relationship from just a friendto friend standpoint you know some people say if you like if you need to have that just go get a dog i don't know if I have a future in sales but you're going to get better let's remember that you got you cut off and froze here's the notes you want to take hi did I catch you at a bad time space space okay I'll be brief space space we have a innovative gourmet pizza that drives employee happiness and productivity it's only $20 i want to send a $20 pizza over to your place and

12:45 give you guys a wonderful afternoon at work obviously everyone gives an objection handle the objection and then say "I really want to send you a pizza for $20." In a real setting um once you've been doing this for a week you're not going to hear no objections anymore in fact like when you study these things 90% of the objections will be simplified to a 5 to 10 list i don't have time i don't have the money how is healthy whatever so this becomes really much easier to do when you do it for weeks and SDRs usually have to sit in this seat for a year before they get promoted hi this is Mark hi uh did I catch you at a bad time uh kind of what's up okay I'll be brief uh my name is Matthew i come from Matthew's Gourmet Pizza House we have an innovative pizza that drives employee

13:34 happiness i'd really love to send you guys a $20 pizza that I know everyone's going to love i don't believe it that pizza drives happiness well I'll tell you what everyone loves pizza especially ours i you know I would love to send you one of our $20 pizzas all right listen we have like I have a waiting room here for like four people we run behind but one of our chiropractors is sick i can you just call back another time i you know honestly I think that's even better i'm going to save you guys all the work of having to order out even like leave the office to get lunch i want to I'll send you this pizza you guys don't have to worry about ordering today we've never even bought lunch for the office i don't even know how to expense this i feel like I really don't feel like my cat needs some shots like I I don't really want to use my own 20 bucks to pay for this for the office absolutely i hear you that's why we'll cover the $20 i just want to send this to you guys i want you to let me know if you guys feel like this is great pizza much

14:24 happier office that's all I'm looking for okay i mean if you're covering it yeah we'll give it a shot all right we'll send it over to you today great dude how that was amazing i mean last time he didn't even make it through the call you got one objection you got thrown off now the only B minus there you didn't get the 20 bucks i thought it was going for free no we don't bring him in with a free this is right there premium right there you didn't need All you had to do is hand that last objection of like that's okay what's the big deal i'm sure the doctor will do it let me And I would have done so you were right there you got it all right so all right all right i feel But do you see like So like I mean you explain to me now how do you abstract that out to general tactics so what is super like helpful for me like you gave me a little bit of a script and you know even in

15:11 your description you're like did I catch you at a bad time doesn't really matter about the answer like you have it from there like I'm going to be brief give your quick elevator pitch that sort of framework incredibly helpful I already know what I'm going to say it doesn't matter like I already got that down then after that what was really helpful is knowing like hear the objection and I know like what my sales pitch is is like send you the pizza so no matter what you're going to object i know like what these are going to kind of be it's going to be about price it's going to be like we're busy it's going to be on those things i wasn't in the headsp space of you want to make this sale yes and this time I'm in the head space of like I can address each of those concerns because I need to make this sale now how do you feel about learning this and doing this cuz like I'm sure we have a lot of founders on you know that are listening maybe they're product founders

16:02 maybe they were like "Oh my gosh I feel really grimy right now." Like "I thought I was just building I thought I was just building great product and why wouldn't everyone just love this and like you know putting it with forget about selling the pizza just say you were trying to book a meeting to hear out about my product and start the process like are you okay with it or you still feel weird about it?" No I feel much better about it honestly you're not there for a relationship you're not there to like make friends with this person and protect the like a friendship you're here to like solve a problem for them and in the process selling whatever your product is i often draw analoges between sales and being a doctor to help bring some of these mindsets to life now your doctor's in the office with you they're diagnosing something and you're

16:50 very resistant to it are they going to like solve for their relationship and friendship with you or are they going to give you the hard advice and be like "Dude this is what you have you got to wake up and listen to me." Like your doctor delivers the hard news because your doctor is proud of their work their mission is to solve your problem and that's what you are as the product founder you are working on important stuff you're building important stuff you're trying to bring to market a great solution for a broad set of problems and there's going to be a resistance to it you have to put at the forefront solving that problem ahead of just like being friends with [Music] everybody all right folks so thanks to producer Matthew for being very vulnerable and giving us our lesson

17:36 today so to recap we learned a little bit about cold calling cold outreach specifically the cold connect that's where a lot of the appointments are booked so there's three takeaways I want you to remember here the first one is I hate scripts but in this case we kind of have to use them it's such an intense moment every second counts if we can get through the next first 5 seconds it's all about getting to the next 5 seconds so to have a repeatable script that's simple that allows your seller to focus on listening and handling the objections that are going to come fast the better and we we learned one technique on how to do that number two the objections are going to come so you've got to listen you got to deliver the ask for the appointment listen to the objection handle the objection and ask for the appointment again you're in this continual flywheel don't get

18:25 uncomfortable there don't get thrown off your seat just hang in there as often as you can if you're good at this you're going to get hung up on 80% of the time okay so just know it's just like hitting a baseball you know most even the best batters out there you know don't get a hit most of the time that's the the business we're dealing with just hang in there with the objections number three didn't come up in our conversation but producer Matthew did a pretty good job on this you don't want to sound like a salesperson you don't want to sound like a radio host you want to sound like uncomfortable nervous i often try to channel being like a skinny 14-year-old kid people feel bad for you they don't want to hang up on you so your instincts here on like what should a salesperson sound like don't listen to those right just channel

19:11 a very authentic human individual and that'll get you your sales get you your appointments i'm Mark i hope you have enjoyed this episode on cold calling techniques if you like this video you'll love the rest of our content in our channel hit subscribe now and we'll see you next time