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This post was originally published in August 2018 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
Cold calling remains a key strategy in software sales, with businesses of all sizes relying on it to generate leads and conversions. By effectively utilizing the best cold-calling scripts for software sales, you can point your Sales Development Representative (SDR) team in the right direction to build a client relationship and set a sales meeting.
Your SDRs are storytellers: they need to paint a picture to captivate the attention of prospective clients. Cold call scripts provide a foundation that builds a successful sales strategy. In this guide, we will discuss how to build a cold call script as well as cold-calling tips to win more business for your organization.
Our guide includes sales expert’s insights and best practices. Free for anyone who’s ready to create high-converting scripts.
Sales cold calling is a form of proactive outreach to a prospective lead, who may or may not have heard of your organization. An SDR will call this prospective lead to discover common sales pain points, introduce a solution, and set the stage for a conversation with a sales representative.
Cold calling in sales is a great way to get your foot in the door and build a relationship with a prospective client, ultimately earning more customers and revenue.
Several critical questions must be addressed to effectively utilize sales cold calling. Some of them include:
Ultimately, your SDRs should be able to engage prospective clients and help them understand what solutions your company can provide. It is important to be friendly, approachable, and knowledgeable about your organization’s business offerings.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to crafting your cold-calling script, but there are a variety of best practices to keep in mind. The following guidelines are key to building a relationship with a prospective lead, demonstrating your company’s value, and setting an appointment with a sales rep at your organization.
It might seem obvious, but the best place to start is with a simple introduction stating your name and your organization. These calls are brief, lasting only a few minutes at best, so your introduction should be concise. For example:
Hi [prospect]. My name is [rep], and I’m calling with Mitel. How are you doing today?
This friendly and informative approach helps you build trust and establishes a positive brand perception, leading to better cold-calling outcomes.
A successful cold-calling strategy relies on speaking with decision-makers at the company, so after your introduction, you’ll want to quickly confirm that you’ve reached the correct point of contact. The best way to do so is to ask directly:
Do you oversee business communications or phone systems for your company?
As mentioned above, efficiency is key for sales cold calls. You’ll want to be respectful of the other person’s schedule while delivering your message.
You’ve already introduced yourself and confirmed that you’re speaking with the correct point of contact. Now, it’s time to get to the heart of the matter and state your reason for calling:
I’m reaching out today because we would like to schedule a few minutes sometime next week to discuss Mitel’s cloud offerings for your business. Mitel has been named a leader four years in a row in the Gartner Magic Quadrant Report for Unified Communications.
In addition to stating the reason for your call, you’ll want to establish credibility — especially by demonstrating expertise or accomplishments — that will keep your point of contact engaged and entice them to listen more closely to your solutions.
After stating the reason for your call, it’s time to demonstrate why your organization’s solution is the best choice for your prospective customer:
You can give your employees one place to connect with customers, suppliers, and each other on your desktop, mobile, and tablet. It’s all about collaboration, boosting productivity, improving customer service, and helping employees to work smarter.
Remember: keep it brief! You don’t need to walk the point of contact through every single facet of your product; that’s for your salesperson to do after you’ve set the appointment. Simply speak to the positives of using your product and help the prospect understand the value of your solution.
This is also a great time to lean on your ideal buyer persona as you’ll understand their main pain points. You can tailor your description to demonstrate how your product can solve their problem.
This is where it all comes together: you’ve built a relationship with your point of contact and demonstrated the value of your solution. The final step is to set an appointment!
When is a good day for you to further discuss how Mitel could assist you in moving forward with the cloud or any UC solution?
The best practice for setting a sales appointment is to ask the prospect which day and time works best for them — rather than expecting them to accommodate your sales representative’s schedule. Keep your salesperson’s calendar in front of you during the call to avoid accidental double bookings or reschedules.
While cold calls are a good opportunity to gather prospect information, setting an appointment is the ultimate goal. Always ensure that you’re steering the conversation in that direction.
In addition to having a strong cold call script, there are several other tips for developing your software sales strategy. By looking at scripts we’ve developed for other EBQ clients, you can build and optimize a winning strategy.
When giving a brief overview of your company, you should have a clear differentiation that catches the prospect’s attention and keeps them on the line.
Hello, this is [rep] calling with [IT services company]. We can do all the IT for your company- *click*
Hello, this is [rep] calling with [IT services company]. We specialize in helping businesses with cloud infrastructure, partnering with Microsoft and Google to…
What sets these two scripts apart? While both state that the caller’s organization can manage IT, the second script is far more specific and credible. Instead of trying to solve all of your prospective client’s problems, it focuses on one specific pain point to provide a simple yet appealing value proposition. The second script also leverages well-known companies like Microsoft and Google, demonstrating industry knowledge and creating positive associations with industry leaders.
A winning cold call strategy is all about showing your client how your organization is the solution to their problems. We often see sales companies get stuck in the trap of using features as their main value proposition, but using business outcomes is far more effective.
Take a look at two scripts we tested for BigCommerce in their early days:
BigCommerce is a leading provider of e-commerce solutions to help elevate online sales and revenue. We offer a multitude of features like built-in marketing tools, such as SEO, a mobile-optimized store, as well as an abandoned cart saver that converts an average of 15% of abandoned carts to sales.
BigCommerce is the leader in e-commerce for small to medium-sized businesses. We enable our clients to easily launch professional online stores in hours and provide a variety of tools such as SEO, a mobile-optimized store, as well as an abandoned cart saver to help drive revenue growth.
The second script mentions popular features but remains focused on the outcome. As mentioned above, it also hones in on a specific pain point and provides a variety of support features to bring about the outcome. This upgraded call script helped BigCommerce set 40-60 sales appointments per month!
If your value propositions and pain points are not sticking with a certain lead, your SDR may need to go off-script. Having a list of secondary discovery call questions will help you clarify a prospect’s needs and ultimately set a sales appointment.
Rather than asking simple “yes” or “no” questions, you’ll want to encourage dialogue. Here are some of the example discovery questions we used for a cybersecurity company called Webroot:
Asking “how,” “why,” or “what” questions will allow you to gather more information about your prospect, and you can use that information to steer the conversation back toward setting an appointment.
As the business landscape changes, so should your cold calling scripts. Creating a feedback loop between SDRs and sales teams will help both parties understand how their value proposition is resonating with prospects.
For example, when pitching one software company’s application, we realized that prospects were less concerned with backup functionality, but appreciated the ability to sign in on multiple devices. Using this feedback from the sales team, we refined our cold-calling script to resonate more deeply with new leads.
SDRs can even optimize on the fly; as they gain a deeper knowledge of products and customers, they can tailor their own script and secondary questions to set meetings and drive sales.
Our guide includes sales expert’s insights and best practices. Free for anyone who’s ready to create high-converting scripts.
With 17+ years of experience across software sales, EBQ provides tested and optimized software cold-calling scripts. Our process will help your organization drive pipeline growth and positive ROI, giving you a distinct advantage in a fast-paced industry. Get in touch with EBQ to learn more about building a winning software sales strategy.
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