Nobody knows how to do cold call roleplays

How it goes:

  • They practice from beginning to end every time
  • They never practice the same part of the call directly
  • Someone will give you feedback, but you don't immediately correct yourself
  • Prospects are unrealistically open to a 10 minute call


How it should go:

  • You practice sections of the cold call. Opener, initial hook, 30 second commercial, handling objections, booking a meeting.
  • If you mess up, you're immediately stopped, and you practice that part you messed up over and over.
  • You practice booking a meeting out of a 3 minute conversation
  • You practice being hung up on


Once you get the parts down, there won't even be a need to practice the whole thing at once.


Agree? Disagree?

๐Ÿ“ž Cold Calling
๐Ÿงข Sales Management
15
SaaSam
Politicker
2
Account Executive
I agree. I would also throw in a formula that I've always applied when using role playing as a way of training newbies.

Explain, demonstrate, evaluate, practice, evaluate again.

rinse and repeat always applying what you learned from the "evaluation"ย 
braintank
Politicker
1
Enterprise Account Executive
Amen. Traditional "extended" role plays are monumental waste of time.
goose
Politicker
1
Sales Executive
Agree. ย Use flash cards to handle objections. ย Not interested - bam, what do you say? ย In a meeting - bam, what do you say? ย We have a supplier for that - bam, what do you say?
SlinginSoftware
Politicker
1
Account Executive
I love thisโ€ฆ

Stopping if youโ€™ve done something wrong or even stopping if you do something really boss.

makes no sense to go through a whole script and then hear feedback on everythingโ€ฆ this way, youโ€™re segmenting everything out in a way thatโ€™s way easier to digest!
Kirby
Politicker
0
Sales Representative
Yes! Spend the majority of the time practicing how you want to say it! Catch the mistakes early, and then repeat it how you want to say it over and over until you've got it.
Hambalang
Politicker
1
Enterprise AE
I really like this approach. I'll be training a group of new SDRs and will definitely try this out. Another point is if you go through the full call without stopping them when they mess up, it's easy to lose track of all the points where you have to provide feedback.ย 
Kirby
Politicker
0
Sales Representative
Exactly. What prompted this was I was being trained on how to cold call at a new company, and the manager training me would do it, say "You did this totally wrong," and then we would start over from the top, and then she wouldn't even give me the chance to work on that specific point again!
HappyGilmore
Politicker
1
Account Executive
I like this formula a lot.

As an SDR we would practice our first 30 seconds a ton knowing that that was a very crucial part of a cold call.
Blackwargreymon
Politicker
1
MDR
Amen. Traditional "extended" role plays are monumental waste of time.
Clashingsoulsspell
Politicker
1
ISR
Agree. ย Use flash cards to handle objections. ย Not interested - bam, what do you say?
CaneWolf
Politicker
0
Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract
I think this is because people would rather eat sand when it comes to practicing cold calling. People need to be invested and I'm guessing finding invested people is pretty damn hard.
CuriousFox
WR Officer
0
๐ŸฆŠ
I'm not a fan. I can't fake the relationship part. I like to get straight to the value prop.
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What do you do?
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76% Give them a shot
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