Three Things Every BDR Must Master When Doing Cold Calls | Tanner Stewart - 1910
Episode
28 min
Read time
2 min
Topics
Productivity, Leadership, Sales & Revenue
AI-Generated Summary
Key Takeaways
- ✓Human Connection First: Start calls by genuinely asking how prospects are doing and sharing authentic responses about your own day, like mentioning post-lunch tiredness or Monday blues, to lower their guard and differentiate from typical salespeople who immediately launch into pitches.
- ✓Lead With Industry Data: Replace product pitches with valuable insights by saying you've talked to 50 similar companies and sharing trends you're observing, then asking if they see the same patterns. This consultant approach makes prospects want to compensate you rather than avoid you.
- ✓Resist Product Dive Temptation: When prospects mention a pain point you solve, avoid immediately explaining your product features. Instead ask follow-up questions like "Is that working?" or "Tell me more about that" to gather deeper intelligence before positioning your solution.
- ✓Qualify After Booking: Once a prospect agrees to a demo, immediately ask a few quick questions to ensure it's worthwhile for both parties. Ask what they hope to gain from the meeting or what their magic wand outcome would be, giving your account executive discovery insights upfront.
What It Covers
Tanner Stewart shares three essential cold calling strategies for BDRs: treating prospects as humans through genuine conversation, focusing on solution selling over product features, and asking strategic qualifying questions throughout the call.
Key Questions Answered
- •Human Connection First: Start calls by genuinely asking how prospects are doing and sharing authentic responses about your own day, like mentioning post-lunch tiredness or Monday blues, to lower their guard and differentiate from typical salespeople who immediately launch into pitches.
- •Lead With Industry Data: Replace product pitches with valuable insights by saying you've talked to 50 similar companies and sharing trends you're observing, then asking if they see the same patterns. This consultant approach makes prospects want to compensate you rather than avoid you.
- •Resist Product Dive Temptation: When prospects mention a pain point you solve, avoid immediately explaining your product features. Instead ask follow-up questions like "Is that working?" or "Tell me more about that" to gather deeper intelligence before positioning your solution.
- •Qualify After Booking: Once a prospect agrees to a demo, immediately ask a few quick questions to ensure it's worthwhile for both parties. Ask what they hope to gain from the meeting or what their magic wand outcome would be, giving your account executive discovery insights upfront.
Notable Moment
Stewart reveals that with only 18% of cold calls connecting, sales reps panic when someone answers and rush their pitch. He recommends staying present during dialing rather than multitasking on LinkedIn to avoid being caught off guard when prospects actually pick up.
Episode Transcript
This episode is brought to you in part by the following TSC sponsors. It takes a lot to grow your business. A lot of audience attraction, a lot of lead scoring, and all the channel managing you can manage. Plus, a lot of long days, late nights, and weekends, a lot of wishing there was an easier way. But with Breeze, HubSpot new collection of AI tool, it's easier than ever for marketers to attract audiences, increase leads and score customers fast, which means pretty soon your company will have a lot to celebrate. Visit hubspot.com/marketers to learn more. This episode is brought to you in part by Blue Mango Studios. Imagine using a podcast as a lead generation source, not only attracting your ideal customer, but entertaining them and getting qualified leads. To find out more, go to bluemangostudios.com. If you're struggling to close deals, you need to try LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Get a sixty day free trial all on the house. Go to linkedin.com/tse. Again, linkedin.com for a sixty day free trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Let's face it. There's a lot of things you can get wrong when doing cold call. I've made probably a thousand of them. That's why I have so many episodes. But there are three things that you should master, and We're gonna break down exactly what they are and how you go about doing so. Check it out. Hey. Hey. Hey, everyone. Welcome to another great episode of the Sales Evangelist podcast. I'm your host, Donald c Kelly, the sales evangelist. And I'm so excited for another great episode. I'm so excited to be here with you today. And on this episode, I have the one and only mister Tanner Stewart. Now Tanner and I were did this episode a while back, and this is, one that I'm pulling from the archive. As you've seen for the past several episodes, I've been really focusing on the cold calling and trying to help you to get things right and get your head focused, especially under the changes we've seen with Apple, and I spoke about that a couple episodes ago. Now the thing that I want you to understand from this call is that there's not one thing that you're going to learn that's gonna make your cold calling the best in the world. You have to find iteration. You have to apply. You have to try, and you you just improve. Tanner, however, is gonna break down what he found as he leads a team of sellers. And now Tanner, he's definitely evolved over the years and is a little bit more successful than where he was. But the principle that he shared back then, the same things that are applying right now in a many of the different industries that you're working in that can help you when it comes to your team or yourself doing better cold outreach. Listen to what Tanner shares and see how you can apply them. …
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