Feb 2016 imageSouce Digital Edition

Business Development
“Articulate the win.”
How to Win the
Networking Cold Call
By Troy Harrison | Sales Consultant & Author
We’ve all been here before.
There are people whom we
could benefit from getting to
know, and who would benefit
from knowing us. So we try to
attend functions where they
might attend, but often they’re
either not there or you don’t
get to make the connection. Or
you check LinkedIn, and they’re
fourth degree, at best, from you.
So, how do you make a credible
connection?
Do you decide to take the bull by the
horns and simply call them? You make
cold calls all the time, so why not? How
much different could this one be? Well, the
answer is – a lot.
There are pitfalls when making a cold call
to network – while there’s a clear path to
success. I receive a lot of calls firsthand, yet
unfortunately, many of those calling me get
it very, very wrong.
Let’s look at how
to do it right:
Plan and research.
I’m not a big fan of extensive pre-call
research because this is, on some level,
a numbers-based approach. If you’re
targeting one specific person with whom
you’d like to build a relationship, it behooves
you to have at least a basic understanding
of them; what they do, etc.
For example, I receive calls from people
who don’t do any or much prior research.
They’ve seen one article that I’ve written and
want to ‘connect’ with me. The problem is
that they make all their assumptions based
on the one article. If they’ve seen me in a
copier hardware magazine, they assume
I’m a ‘copier industry guy’ only – which I’m
not. I’m a sales guy, and perhaps a bit more
than that, but I’m not an industry guy, so
dropping names that are prominent within
an industry probably won’t be meaningful
to me. At the very least, they/you should
know what the person does, and if possible,
what their desired target market is, and
how they assist their clients.
Build a concise
approach.
This is one area where tele-prospecting
and telephone networking are similar.
If you waste someone’s time, you won’t
get a second chance. You should build
an approach to your target contact that
quickly establishes who you are, what you
do (stated in terms of the value you provide
to your clients), and why you believe the
two of you should connect. Ideally, you
should be able to articulate this in less than
30 seconds.
Drop the fake rapport.
I’m from the Kansas City metro area. For
many years, this has not been a fun place
to be in terms of professional sports. At
the moment, however, it’s very much a fun
place to be which causes people to think
they can build rapport by saying things such
as, “How about those Chiefs!” or “How
about those Royals!” I do love the Royals –
and I spent a lot of money to watch some
pretty awful baseball for a lot of years – but
cold calling me that way won’t generate a
win for you.
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imageSource February 2016