Master the Cold Call & Multiply Sales Meetings

Second Nature’s AI simulation helps sales reps master cold call objections

It’s crucial to offer training to first time Sales Development Reps and Business Development Reps who will be engaging with potential customers before throwing them into the deep end of calling potential customers.

Typically, companies run sales onboarding and offer training videos and lists of talking points, but this doesn’t give new hires the real life experience they need to ace calls with the busy, and possibly irritable, stakeholders that they are calling. Role playing with a manager or sales coach can help, but it’s challenging to get enough practice with these busy people. So the end result is that many of them learn and practice on the job, trial by fire.

On average only 7% of cold calls typically result in a conversation.  A new rep could “waste” thousands of calls practicing their cold call pitch while they are learning on the job. That’s a lot of potential customers thrown away, and a lot of time lost on cold calls that go nowhere. Meaning the rep is learning what not to do in a very slow and long process, instead of learning what to do from an expert.

Second Nature simulates the cold call experience

Second Nature’s newest AI sales training module is designed specifically to help companies get their SDRs and BDRs up to speed. It offers a short practice session with one of our AI sales coaches, who puts reps through a typical cold call conversation.

The rep will get typical cold call objections, like:

• “We don’t have the budget”
• “We have an internal team for that”
• “I don’t know who you are”
• “It’s not a priority for us right now”
• “Why should we use your product?”
• Or additional customized objections relevant for your specific target market

It’s up to the BDR to introduce themselves and their company, successfully overcome the objection, give a short pitch, and then close the call by getting the prospect to agree to schedule another conversation, typically for a demo. Just like in real life, if the rep fails to clear any of these steps, the simulation will hang up on them.

In each five-minute session SDRs sharpen the skills needed to nail down that next REAL conversation.

Detailed feedback enables BDRs to keep improving

Once the session is done, Second Nature’s system gives detailed feedback, with scores for their knowledge of the solution they’re selling as well as their speaking style and tone, like whether they spoke too fast or used too many filler words.

This way, SDRs and BDRs know exactly what they need to work on and what they’ve already mastered. Once they’ve absorbed the feedback, most reps jump straight back into the simulation to see if they can raise their scores.

Managers can also see their SDRs scores to determine where they may need further coaching, and when reps have achieved proficiency and can start talking to real prospects.

Help BDRs master their cold-call game

With Second Nature’s cold call simulation, SDRs and BDRs gain familiarity with the typical pace of a cold call, the objections they’re likely to encounter, and the pressure of knowing they need to convince the prospect to continue to listen to their pitch, all before they face a real life situation.

This kind of realistic practice time gives SDRs confidence and fluency, increases their success rate, and saves you from throwing away real potential customers on SDRs who are still finding their feet.

Check out my colleague Dan practicing (a few times!) in these simulated SDR calls in the video below.

Related Resources:

• Cold calling isn’t dead: Hot tips for your cold calls
• How to handle objections in sales