The prospect of cold calling a person is daunting; everyone seems to be busy, and the approach is hardly scientific. How do you ensure that a prospect will return your call or email? How can you best set up a time to meet with someone? What should you say in that initial phone call or email? 

While there is no recipe for success that works for every sales person with every potential client, there are methods that can help. To learn how to better connect with prospects for the first time, we turned to Jeff Ragovin, Chief Strategy Officer for Salesforce Marketing Cloud, to fill us in on how he approaches cold calling. 

1. Start with an email.

We live in a world where everyone is quite busy. Most people hardly have any time in their work days anymore. So if you’re going to reach out to someone, send them an email first. 

2. Attention to detail is crucial.

"Be really concise, be sincere, be real." You don’t want to cut and paste an email and send it out to someone and maybe have the wrong name or title. That’s a big no-no.

"I’ve seen it happen to so many people; you’re trying to do things really fast, you copy and paste an email, and then send it to the wrong person. That’s the fastest way to make someone hit delete."

3. Respect your prospect's time.

You want to make sure that you respect someone’s time. Make sure that the email you are sending out to someone has all the information that you are really looking to get in that next step; if it’s a meeting, keep it short, keep it sweet.

4. Set a firm date.

"Have a strong closing in there. Don’t leave it at simply “what time is good for you?” Give three or four future dates and try to lock one in. “How about July 19 or July 20?” says Ragovin. "If you keep it too open, you probably won’t hear back from them."

Image via: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickragreen/

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