What should you say in a cold call
To start booking meetings with cold calling, you need to focus on your pitch
3/27/20264 min read
How to Build an Effective Cold Calling Pitch
When it comes to B2B cold calling, there are several schools of thought. However, most experts agree that having a well-prepared script is essential to performing well.
A script, a pitch, a sales talk: essentially, it's what you say once the prospect has agreed to have a conversation with you on the phone.
Obviously, the goal isn't to spend 10 minutes presenting your entire product or service over the phone. There are a few fundamentals you need to master to succeed at cold calling.
The idea is to deliver a short, relevant, and differentiated introduction that opens up a conversation and ultimately gets the prospect to agree to a meeting at another time, in a dedicated time slot.
Depending on the B2B solution or product you're selling, the competitive landscape, and your chosen sales angle, there are several different types of pitches you can use.
For example, the pitch you'd use to book a meeting with a large enterprise on behalf of a marketing agency will be completely different from the one you'd use to book a meeting with a tradesperson to introduce them to a SaaS invoicing solution.
In this article, we'll look at the different types of pitches you can develop for your offer, including some approaches that many salespeople may not even be aware of!
1. Pitching in a Highly Competitive Market
In some B2B markets, competition is extremely fierce. You may never come across someone who actually needs what you're offering, even after making 1,000 calls.
The reason isn't that your product or service is bad. It's simply that your prospects are almost certainly already working with someone on these matters.
This is generally the case when prospecting mid-sized companies and large enterprises in certain industries, such as IT consulting firms, marketing agencies, recruitment firms, and providers of certain types of software (particularly ERP systems) or B2B services.
For example, a large corporation will almost always have either a strong in-house marketing team or one or several marketing agencies supporting them.
It's very difficult to immediately identify how you could differentiate yourself from all these existing providers, especially when you don't even know who they are or whether you have a meaningful competitive advantage over them.
So, let's say I'm working from a carefully researched and qualified prospect list, targeting the Marketing Director of a large corporation on behalf of a marketing agency.
I won't be able to rely on an obvious or immediate need in my pitch.
Instead, I'll need to propose an introductory meeting, with the goal of understanding how they operate, learning about their challenges, building a relationship, and getting a foot in the door.
In some cases, this approach can help you establish a relationship with a large account and eventually unlock some very profitable business opportunities.
However, you should bear in mind that closing rates will inevitably be relatively low. That said, when a deal does come through, contract values will often be high enough to make the prospecting campaign worthwhile.
In this situation, it's best not to immediately mention that you're calling on behalf of an agency. Your pitch should focus heavily on social proof and storytelling before simply suggesting an introductory meeting.
Here's a concrete example of what this type of pitch might sound like:
"Basically, we've been working with [job titles] for over 20 years, particularly in industries such as [industry] and [industry], with major companies like XXX, XXX, and XXX.
We regularly organize events, for example at the famous XXX venue in Paris or at XXX, sometimes featuring celebrities such as XXX...
We're actually one of these companies' partners when it comes to product branding. We work across a range of areas, including media activations, events, and influencer campaigns, particularly through affiliate marketing.
We imagine you're most likely already working with partners on these topics, but I simply wanted to suggest an introductory meeting so we can connect, understand how you currently operate, and show you some of the potential advantages and differentiators we could bring to the table.
Would you have 20–30 minutes available for a quick introduction, ideally in the coming days or sometime next week?"
2. Pitching in a Moderately Competitive Market
Some competitive environments are much less challenging. You have a clear value proposition to offer, and although prospects may sometimes already be using a competing solution, they may also have no existing solution at all.
In this case, you can mention a known competitive advantage directly in your pitch. Alternatively, you may not need to mention the competition at all, particularly if prospects in your target market rarely have an existing provider.
This is especially common when targeting small businesses, independent professionals, and other types of prospects who tend to receive far fewer sales calls than larger companies.
If competitors are already present in more than 30% of cases, ChatGPT can be particularly useful for figuring out how to position your offer against competing solutions.
With software products, for example, it's often relatively easy to identify clear points of differentiation.
In this situation, your pitch should include social proof and potentially some storytelling, but it should also briefly explain the product and its concrete benefits in around 15–20 seconds.
You can then suggest a follow-up meeting to demonstrate the tool in more detail and answer any questions the prospect might have.
Conclusion
Even when you manage to reach prospects through cold calling and get them talking, you can sometimes get stuck at the next stage and struggle to book even a single qualified meeting.
Most salespeople, who aren't necessarily experts in prospecting, may never even get beyond the opening line, assuming they actually have the confidence to pick up the phone and make a few calls in the first place.
That's why, when it comes to generating results through B2B prospecting, outsourcing your sales outreach to specialists can sometimes be a very worthwhile investment.