How Do You Write a Cold Call Script?

If your sales team spends any amount of time cold calling potential prospects, you’ll already know how difficult it is to get through the door and book those meetings. 

But if they’re not following a set cold call script that you’ve strategically planned, their job is infinitely more difficult. 

A cold call script gives your sales team a blueprint to work from. It not only makes it much easier to get the attention of prospects, but it also improves your conversion rate for booking sales meetings. 

In this post, we’ll show you how to write a cold call script that impresses leads and boosts sales.

Want to know what’s influencing B2B buyer behavior? There are four key factors that you should think about when planning your marketing. 

Cold Calling Scripts: Are They Really Worth Your Time?

If you have a good sales team who already have some success with cold calling clients, you might be wondering if a cold calling script is worth your time.

But in reality, working without one is almost definitely costing you clients. On average, cold calling has a 2% success rate, mainly because callers don’t use an effective script.

But when you do have a tried-and-tested script, cold calls are much more effective. In fact, almost 70% of decision-makers report accepting at least one cold call, while an impressive 82% of buyers say they have scheduled meetings after a cold call.

While you’ll see much higher success rates with warm calls, cold calling is always a great way to quickly and effectively connect with new prospects. And your sales team simply won’t have the time or resources to warm up every client – so cold calling will always be an effective strategy when following a script.  

How to Create a Cold Call Script

There are tons of cold call script templates out there you can use for initial contact. But the most effective strategy is to take the time to create a more personalized script that works best for your company. 

Here’s how you can get started making yours.

1. Identify your key verticals

Some businesses make the mistake of casting a wide net when cold calling and go for quantity over quality. 

But it’s hard to create an effective script if you’re trying to target too wide of an audience. 

Instead, identify the key verticals in the B2B sector you want to target with your cold outreach. Perhaps you have software targeted at the hospitality sector or a service aimed at the finance sector. 

Knowing exactly who you’re targeting will make it much easier to match the tone of your script to your ideal prospect. 

2. Find 15 to 20 good prospects

It might seem premature to start finding prospects to target without having your script ready, but you’ll need to know who your prospects are before you can write an effective script.

LinkedIn is a great place to start when looking for B2B prospects for your cold calling campaigns – it’s easy to search by company size, seniority, job title, etc. 

Regional companies are always a good option for cold calling if this works within your marketing strategy. You’ll immediately have an icebreaker and people are more likely to trust other local businesses. 

3. Research each prospect

You’ll want to know some facts on each prospect to help personalize your cold call script. People can tell when salespeople are reading from a generic script they use on everyone and are much less likely to listen. 

If you can sprinkle in some personalization you’re more likely to get their attention and convince them you care about their business. 

For each potential client, you’ll want to know:

• Their company name and what they do
• Their job title and what they do within the company
• Similarities between their company and ones you’ve helped in the past

Bonus tip: if you’re not sure how to pronounce a prospect’s name, make sure you look it up before you call. Or, start the call by asking for the correct pronunciation – no one likes their name being pronounced wrong. 

The Best Cold Calling Script Ever

Now you have all the content ready to put into your cold call script, let’s dive into how to write the wording of a cold call script so you can put yours together.

1. Introduce yourself and grab attention

As soon as someone realizes they’re being cold-called, they are going to switch off. So you need to introduce yourself and grab their attention within seconds. 

Remember, prospects don’t know you yet and might not even be in the awareness stage of the buyer journey, so you need to give them a reason to listen. 

A generic opening sales pitch like “Hello, I’m Sam from Your Business, can I have a minute of your time?” just won’t cut it. 

Instead, try something like:

“Hi, this is Sam from [Your Business]. I’m calling because I think our software could save you three hours a week on team scheduling and email communication.” 

Aim to communicate exactly what you can do for them and include concrete results to get them interested. 

Making a huge claim about how you can help is an easy way to get them hooked – just make sure you don’t make grand promises you can’t keep. 

2. Qualify the prospect

There’s nothing worse than spending time on a great cold call, only to find out you’re speaking to someone who doesn’t have buying power. 

As soon as you have their attention and you know they’re not going to hang up on you, make sure to qualify the prospect – both for purchase power and to make sure your offer is right for them. 

You can do this by asking a couple questions:

“I want to make sure I’m not wasting your time, so let me ask you a couple quick questions. Do you currently use software to schedule your team meetings and projects? Are you looking for a way to improve that process to save time with email back-and-forth?”

Qualifying questions also show the prospect that you’re not desperate for a sale, so the call becomes more focused on their needs, rather than them thinking you’re going to push them into making a purchase of software they don’t need. 

This is also the time to address whether they are the only decision-maker you need the ok from:

“Assuming we can deliver the results we’ve talked about, are you the person who can make a $4,000 investment?”

There’s no point wasting time talking to someone if they can’t go ahead with the next step in the sales process. 

Most qualified prospects will want to ok the decision with at least one other person and you won’t get a sale on the first call, but it’s good to know you’re talking to the right person. 

3. Address any doubt

All potential customers will have doubts or concerns about any new deal. Whether that’s spending money on new software or the time investment they might need to make to switch to something new. 

Once you’ve gone over the benefits to them and qualified them as a good fit for your product, simply ask:

“Do you have any worries or concerns about switching to a new software?”

If they have specific concerns, that’s great. Not only can you address them specifically, but you also have some key market research you can address more broadly on your website. 

If they don’t, follow up with common obstacles previous clients have had in the past:

“Some of our previous clients were concerned about investing in new software only to find it wasn’t a great fit. But we actually offer a 30-day free trial period that includes a dedicated account manager who will help with the change-over.”

Always bring the focus back to the benefits of your product and the ways in which you reduce obstacles.

4. Get the appointment

Most cold calls will end in setting an appointment. This is the first time your prospect has interacted with you, so they’re unlikely to close a deal then and there. 

But aim to get an appointment scheduled as soon as possible and get specific with it. 

“It would be great to schedule a follow-up appointment with you so I can go through a free demo of our software. Would Tuesday at either 9 am or 1 pm work for you?”

Many prospects flake on a follow-up call or meeting, so once they’ve agreed to a time, get them to confirm using open-ended questions:

“Is there any reason you might not be able to make it on that day?”

A simple call-out like this will make them think about possible meetings they’ve forgotten about and subtly make them confirm there’s no reason they can’t show up. 

5. Confirm the appointment

As soon as they’ve confirmed, finish up by sending them over a confirmation either by text or email, along with a calendar invite:

“That’s great. Do you have a preferred email address or number I can send the meeting confirmation to?”

This will be a reminder for them and lets you know their preferred contact details. 

Test Your Cold Calling Script

Once you have a script mapped out, you should test and re-test it. Even the most successful cold calling script template can be improved. 

Good sales reps will make a mediocre script look great, whereas an average sales team will make a great script seem a little less effective. 

The easiest way to test the effectiveness of your cold call script is with simple A/B split testing.

But it’s a little more difficult to use standard A/B testing on a script since there are too many variables to control for. 

That’s where qualitative A/B testing comes in. 

Qualitative A/B testing

Draft up two different versions of your cold calling template with just one factor different. Perhaps you’re worried that the introduction is a little abrasive, or you’re not spending enough time on overcoming obstacles. 

Whatever it may be, change that one thing and have different sales members use the different scripts. 

It can be difficult to track the difference in solid metrics, but you’ll be able to see which member is booking more meetings, and which team member is happier with the script overall. 

Making these small changes to your cold call script and continually tweaking it over time is how you’ll create a high-converting script that makes the sales process easier.

Want to Know More About Converting Cold Leads?

Cold calling will always have its place in any B2B marketing strategy. Yes, it’s tough to get the attention of prospects who don’t know you yet, and there’s a lot of white noise and competition making the job of your sales staff much harder. 

But when you know how to write an effective cold call script using our cold calling tips, you can easily increase your conversion rate and book more meetings with your ideal customers. 

When it comes to converting cold leads into paying customers, there are some simple tricks you can do that will warm them up much quicker. Check out our cold lead guide for six strategies.