3 Sales Tools for Mastering the Lukewarm Call

Sales thought leadership and company blogs are oversaturated with the concept of cold calling’s slow and painful demise with the increased adoption of new technology and infrequent checking of voicemails.

The web is brimming with all kinds of viewpoints; the debate is strongest among those that still drive results from this older art form. It’s harder to reach buyers without a personal connection, and prospects want valuable content at exactly the right time.

Here are the cold, hard facts on the hottest trends in prospecting, with three sales tools that bring content to life to strengthen the selling process.

The Old Ways Don’t Work Anymore; Unless Leveraged Differently

Consider a few essential facts on the new state of sales:

• Fewer than 2 percent of cold calls result in a meeting.
• The average size of the B2B buying decision team has climbed from 5.4 to 6.8.
• Responding to leads within the first 5 minutes makes them 21X more likely to be qualified.

The fastest, most efficient sales organization will close the most sales. That takes social selling, but only as a part of a retooled sales process. Warming up the cold call gives prospects a reason to pick up the phone. Delivering valuable content at the right time converts them to customers.

LinkedIn’s “The New Era of The Cold Call” details why businesses still rely on phone calls in the social era. The key takeaway is that social selling can enhance, not replace, traditional sales techniques.

3 Next-Generation Sales Tools

Here are 3 sales tools to arm your reps with:

1. Spoke Phone – This virtual PBX inside an app transforms BYOD phones into a global mobile network for growing companies. In addition to basics like easy transfers, voicemail transcription, and free international team calling, it includes advanced tech like a multilingual AI receptionist, smart geo-routing for sales calls, and local numbers all over the planet.
2. Outreach – Calls go nowhere without effective follow up. This sales-enablement platform manages a unique cadence of touch points for each prospect at scale, based on a wide range of variables. Calls, emails, social connections, and even offline meetups are captured and optimally scheduled out so sales reps can get back to selling.
3. Mimeo – Distributed sales teams in the new mobile workforce need a simple way to immediately access the most updated sales support literature, online and offline. Mimeo delivers precisely the right content and print materials to multiple locations, events, meetings, and regions as it is needed. This gives the company better control over brand assets and brand reputation.

Coming in From the Cold

Comparatively, cold calling is inefficient and expensive than warm calling. After the warm connection, though, the real job of sales begins with demonstrating value. The right content in the right format at the right time makes all the difference in the world.

On the contrary, the valuable insights that can be gained from the cold call; corporate hierarchies, when a fiscal year falls, challenges within a specific department, and paths around the gatekeepers, are all part of the fuel that will warm the end call with a decision maker or champion to become warm.

One-Stop Shop For Sales Print and Digital Content

From training materials that help master the art of warming cold leads, to arming your reps with content that adds value throughout the buying cycle, sales managers leverage Mimeo as one of their most important sales tools to centralize their content and distribute it in any format, to anywhere in the world. Learn more here.