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cold calling for mspsCold calling is a numbers game. It gets a whole lot harder in the summer months for a few reasons — one of them is plain old prospect unavailability. You can’t control the fact that all of your prospects are golfing and going to the lake, but here are some things that you CAN control to keep your pipeline full of hot leads this summer.

Show up the competition

Instead of taking it easy, kick things up a notch! While your competitors are ditching work early to drink on the patio with their buddies, you can make an extra 20 dials a day. Here at Managed Sales Pros, we dial about 180 times to get a qualified appointment. Twenty extra dials a day equals about two more appointments every week. How does that affect your bottom line this year?

Pitch everyone you talk to

The ultimate decision-maker might be golfing, but someone is still running the office. Are you pitching everyone who will talk to you? You should be. Use these conversations to qualify accounts so you don’t waste precious dials trying to reach decision-makers who don’t need your services. You should also ask questions so you can attempt to learn more about the companies you’re calling, and you should work on building your referral network, too. Don’t waste your summer dials by skipping these opportunities!

Sharpen your skills

Do you suck at cold calling? Well, then you should spend the summer practicing. Every day, pick one thing you can focus on to improve your cold calling. Try small things first, like removing your filler words. (Do you say “Um”, “I see”, “actually” or any other word too often? Identify these verbal crutches and try to eliminate them.) Work on asking only open-ended questions. These are questions that require an answer that isn’t just a “yes” or a “no,” and they help keep conversations going.

Have some fun

Are you bored of cold calling? That’s all you, baby. Anything that’s boring is boring because you’re letting it be boring. Try new things. Ask different questions. Have more fun with it. Have an old Halloween costume lying around? Put it on. Seriously. If you can’t have fun cold calling while you’re dressed like Batman, you have no soul, and I feel sorry for you. No costumes allowed at your office?  Try holding a contest instead. You’re the only cold caller? Challenge yourself — and reward yourself when you “win”!

Want to learn more about cold calling for IT service providers and MSPs? Watch the webinar: Hot Tips for Closing More Business With Cold Calling.

Photo Credit: Jon Curnow via Flickr.com. Used under CC 2.0 License.


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Carrie Simpson

Posted by Carrie Simpson

Carrie Simpson is the founder of Managed Sales Pros, a lead generation firm dedicated to providing new business opportunities for MSPs. Carrie teaches IT firms how to build, manage, and grow their sales pipelines. You can follow Carrie on Twitter @sales_pros and connect with her on LinkedIn. 

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