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Hiring A Virtual Assistant For Cold Calling

 

Hiring A Virtual Assistant For Cold Calling

 

Back in the day, you would have salesmen with briefcases knocking on your door, trying to persuade you to buy one of their products.

Later this evolved into cold calling by telephone, where companies would get their salesperson to ring unannounced, trying to sell you their product or service.

With the boom of the internet and e-commerce sales online, many business owners are using cold calling to generate extra sales from existing customers and potential new customers.

In this article, we explain why many companies hire a virtual assistant to perform cold calls and the different methods of cold calling they often use.

Why Outsource Cold Calling?

Here are three reasons why businesses should consider this option.

Time Consuming

Making phone calls to potential customers can prove to be laborious and time-consuming. As a result, business owners find that they are asking full-time employed staff to be cold callers and concentrate on doing other more important parts of their job, like dealing with marketing for their real estate business.

Using virtual assistant services allows you to hire a telemarketing virtual assistant to handle all the cold calls while your other staff deal with all the responsibilities that their job description entails.

Making a cold call can be time-consuming as some potential customers like to spend a long time on the phone having details fully explained to them

Paying virtual assistants an hourly rate to make cold calls proves far more cost-effective in the long term.

Mundane Work

Cold calling remains an effective way to generate sales for your business. However, it also remains mundane work that does not take a high skill set.

Some people are more suited to being cold callers than other people.

Therefore, a suitable telephone manner is essential; however, with some training, most people would be able to provide telemarketing services.

As a business owner, there is little point in getting your skilled workforce to perform mundane sales calls when their talents are suited elsewhere within your business.

Scripted Calls

Telemarketing virtual assistants will always work from a finely tuned script designed to appeal to a target audience.

For example, each real estate business will have done market research before writing the script they want their virtual assistants to follow during calls.

Virtual assistants will have to familiarise themselves with the marketing strategy script before they start making cold calls.

Suppose your business can hire telemarketing virtual assistants who can quickly gain a thorough understanding of what is needed when talking to potential clients. In that case, it will give your company a competitive edge.

Types Of Cold Calling To Consider

You also need to fully understand different methods of cold calling.

Business To Customer (B2C)

There are many forms of cold calling a telemarketing virtual assistant will have to deal with if they choose to work within the cold calling services industry.

One form of cold calling is called business to customer, or B2C cold calling.

This method involves making cold calls to the general public to sell a product or service. However, this method requires a telemarketing virtual assistant to use the proper rules and regulations.

It can be more challenging than it seems to work as a telemarketing virtual assistant making B2C cold calls because the database you have to work from is vast.

A virtual assistant will be making a call to a person who may not know anything about the product or service you provide. Often the person you are calling won’t give you enough time to explain the purpose of your call.

Business To Business (B2B)

Business-to-business (B2B) cold calling is conducted by a virtual assistant offering your product or service to another business.

Even though it is still referred to as a cold call, it is often not because the business you contact may know about your business.

This method is used to help with lead generation and establishes the potential of forming a working relationship between both businesses.

Many calling tools can be used, and using the relevant tools is vital when making B2B calls.

Although widely used, this method often draws criticism from specific business sectors, such as real estate, as it hinders the salesperson’s work.

Telemarketing

The role of a telemarketing virtual assistant isn’t just making phone calls. It can also involve sending faxes or emails. However, it does NOT include sending direct mail or meeting the potential client face-to-face.

Telemarketing is an excellent way to conduct market research to build data to see if your product or service is needed and how it can be improved.

The data collected from the general public is then used to help with lead generation, which the virtual assistant can pass on to a sales team member.

Technological advancements make it increasingly popular for a virtual assistant to use video conferencing calls as part of telemarketing.

However, the video call will only happen if a client asks to see a live demonstration of a product without having to leave their home. Or for example, in real estate, a person wants a tour of the property you are selling.

Lead Generation

Cold calling the general public helps your business establish which of the three categories they fall into, totally not interested, potentially interested, and very interested.

Once you have identified these people, you can concentrate your lead generation efforts on the potentially interested and very interested.

Making countless cold calls may be classed as menial tasks. However, it helps with the lead generation process.

To ensure success, many companies use tools such as Leadzen.ai, which is regarded as the most intelligent lead generation software.

Lead Qualification

Once lead generation has been completed by the cold caller, the process moves on to the next stage, known as lead qualification.

Lead qualification is the best leads you are left with and most likely to be turned into sales.

With the lead qualification, you would have gathered several leads based on if the person needs and wants your product or service.

If the need and want are there, it is vital to clarify if the potential purchaser has the means to pay for your product or service.

Many people may need and want your product or service, but you could be wasting your time if they don’t have the ability or authority to make the purchase.

Appointment Setting

If you are using virtual assistant services, they will often be responsible for appointment setting.

The appointment is made by the virtual assistant with the client or business prospect to meet with your company’s representative.

The appointment could be to discuss anything relating to your product or service and may be to close a contract or check on the progress of a project the two parties are collaborating on.

Companies often use virtual assistant services to help them manage their targeted appointment setting because it can prove time-consuming if you have to deal with several clients.

Due to the dynamic nature of the business world, it can often be tricky to tie down a client or company to set a date for a meeting. As a result, the process can often take longer than anticipated.

Upselling/Cross Selling

Virtual assistant services are often used to help with upselling and cross-selling to customers to generate more sales.

Upscaling is when a salesperson tries to sell someone a better model of the product they are buying.

If they want to buy a three-seater sofa, you may advise them to buy the higher-value three-seater leather reclining sofa rather than the non-reclining version.

Cross-selling is when a business tries to sell a customer a product related to the one they are purchasing.

For example, someone may buy a sofa, and you would try to sell them a rug and a coffee that complement the sofa.

Multi-Tiered Campaigns

Multi-tired campaigns are when you use your highly skilled market research to help you generate a cold calling sales campaign.

This method means you can send potential and current clients emails, text messages, and phone calls to attract their interest in buying your product or service.

This strategy appeals to your target audience, and the virtual assistant will be responsible for email support and making calls.

As you will be targeting clients in high numbers regarding, for example, property details on a house you sell, virtual assistants must have a good knowledge of dealing with such campaigns to ensure they help your business needs.

Required Skills For Cold Calling Virtual Assistant

Here are the main skills you need to focus on.

English Language

Excellent command of the English language is essential for anyone who wants to become a telemarketing virtual assistant.

It may sound obvious, but hiring a virtual assistant for cold calling who has poor English will likely get lost in translation with the potential customer, which will mean no sales.

It will take good English for a cold calling VA to engage the person they are calling in friendly conversation before delivering their sales script.

Often building a friendly rapport with a potential client will lead them to agree to a set appointment which leads to them buying from you, and the aim is to get more new clients for your company.

Sales Skills

While a telemarketing virtual assistant will work from a script, they must have the sales skills required to do the job.

Professional experience in sales will be a significant advantage to any telemarketing virtual assistant because they will better understand closing deals.

The aim is to boost revenue for your real estate business, so if the cold caller lacks sales skills, they are unlikely to be the right person to attract potential buyers.

Time Management

All telemarketing virtual assistants are required to have excellent time management skills.

For example, if they take ages doing the data entry for potential leads, it will waste time when they could make another call.

The whole point of a real estate business, or any business, hiring telemarketing virtual assistants is to save time and money for the company, increase efficiency, and generate new business opportunities.

If the virtual assistant you hire has poor time management skills, it will cost the business money when the aim is to save money.

Companies who use cold calling often set a time limit on each call to ensure they get through as many calls per hour as possible. If the virtual assistant can’t stick to the time constraints set, it will cause a problem.

Call Us To Help With Hiring Your VAs

Having read this article, you now better understand how cold calling services work and the different methods and strategies involved.

You may want to implement these practices in your business but don’t feel confident about hiring a freelance virtual assistant.

Give us a call today for a free consultation on how we can source, hire, train and manage the right virtual assistant for all your cold calling services needs.

Take your business to the next level today! ENQUIRE NOW

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