How to Write Cold Calling Scripts (+ Free Templates & Examples)

To be effective, cold calling scripts must successfully intrigue sales prospects. They need to reflect your calling objective and enable reps to make a personal connection, manage objectives, and initiate a call to action with sales prospects. We’ll show you how to write scripts your sales reps can use to turn cold leads into hot prospects, along with examples.

Free Cold Calling Scripts Templates

Cold calling scripts are a great time-saving tool for your agents as they act as a quick reference guide, but do require work to craft them for the first time. To help speed up this process, we’ve created free cold calling script templates to guide you while learning how to make a cold call script. Download all of the templates in PDF, Word, and Google Docs formats.

File to download

Download as Word Doc

Download as Google Doc

Download as PDF

Thank you for downloading!

💡 Quick Tip:

 

After a successful cold call, schedule product demos with clients easily with an appointment scheduling tool.

 

Consider software like Calendly that connects with your calendar and gives you a personal link to share with clients so they can quickly schedule sales conversations.

Visit Calendly

Refresh / Send again

Send As

Word Doc Google Doc PDF

Alternatively, here is how to write your own cold calling script in eight easy steps:

1. Determine Cold Calling Scripts Objectives

Prior to writing the script you plan on using for cold calling, establish the calling objectives of your campaign, as the objective will dictate some of the script’s content. To do this, you should consider your sales plan and the outcomes you want to achieve as a result of the cold call.

Examples of cold calling objectives include qualifying a lead, setting appointments for a more detailed sales presentation, or scheduling demos. However, the objective can also be simply introducing your business to a prospect.

2. Create Introductions

As it would be when you meet anybody for the first time, the first part of the cold calling script is greeting the prospect and introducing yourself. This includes a brief “hello,” “good morning,” or “good afternoon,” stating your name and mentioning the organization you’re from. If it’s relevant to the prospect, you might include your job title as well.

3. Find a Way to Connect Personally

Immediately after a cold call introduction, try to find a personal connection to keep the prospect engaged in what you have to say. Below are some excellent ways to connect personally with a prospect:

• Mentioning a mutual friend or professional connection
• Citing a referral by a mutual connection or the gatekeeper
• Referencing a recent news story either about something relevant to the prospect or in regard to an event the prospect was involved in, such as a community service project
• Bringing up the fact that you have the same alma mater as the prospect
• Talking about common industry challenges and pain points
• Mentioning that you used to work in the same industry or same company as the prospect

4. Indicate the Purpose of Your Call

Once you’ve made an introduction and some type of personal connection with the prospect, the next part of learning how to make a cold call script involves telling them the reason for your call. This is related to your calling objective, and could be expressed with statements like “I wanted to make a quick introduction,” “I’m calling to follow up on an inquiry you submitted,” or “I wanted to learn a little more about your business.” This leads nicely to the next parts of the script.

5. Incorporate Qualifying Questions into Your Cold Calling Scripts

This section of the script is only for if you need to qualify the lead or obtain information about them. These questions should be used to determine whether or not the lead would be a good fit for your business. Below are some qualifying questions that can be asked to qualify a lead or learn more about their needs:

• Who is your current provider or vendor?
• What are some of your pain points with your current provider?
• What are some recurring issues you are finding in your [industry, company, department, or job function]?
• How many employees are currently with your organization?
• Who is your ideal target market?

6. Design a Sales Pitch

No matter what your cold calling objective is, have a brief sales pitch ready if the prospect has time and wants to learn more right away. In this part, you are trying to explain what you do, your unique value proposition, and who the target market is based on your product or service attributes―all in less than about 30 seconds.

Example: “We are an insurance business that specializes in mid-sized accounting firms. Our underwriting team is composed of both underwriters and accounting professionals, which allows us to customize your insurance policies to cover the exact services you offer for the limits that you need.”

7. Prepare to Overcome Objections

Every experienced sales management professional knows overcoming objections is a crucial skill in many parts of the sales lead generation process. This part is less of a script and more of a set of notes to handle questions or objections to your sales pitch or call to action.

Prepare answers for the objections you’re most likely to hear from prospects prior to placing calls. You can then add more responses as cold calls are placed and new objections are made.

8. Initiate a Call to Action

The call to action (CTA) is the step in the script where you attempt to fulfill your cold calling objectives by moving on to the next step. This is done through trying to set up an appointment or attain their contact information after you’ve introduced your business, made the personal connection, indicated the purpose of the call, asked qualifying questions, given your sales pitch, and handled any objections.

In a perfect world, the prospect will be willing to schedule an appointment for a detailed product demonstration. This comes after the CTA is initiated, such as by stating, “I’d love to show you more with a 15-minute demonstration. Are you free early next week?”

The call to action could be altered, however, based on the prospect’s objections. For example, if they say they aren’t interested in discussing anything further at this time, you could respond with an alternative CTA, such as, “No worries, if you give me an email address, I can send you some additional marketing information and we can revisit in a few months.”

Cold Calling Script Template Examples

Below you’ll find eight cold calling script template-style examples. These examples are included in the previously mentioned downloadable cold calling script templates. After downloading the templates, you can modify them with information specific to your business for use by your sales team.

1. Appointment-setting Cold Calling Script

An appointment-setting cold calling script is used to schedule a meeting, sales pitch, or product demonstration with a prospect. Before using this script, make sure to research the prospect and their business to ensure the contact is the right person in the organization to speak to for what you are selling.

2. Leaving a Voicemail Cold Calling Script

A cold calling script for leaving a voicemail is used if your contact does not answer but you still want to introduce your business to a prospect. This is also a chance to make initial contact without any chance of immediate rejection. When leaving a voicemail, keep it short and provide enough information to spark interest and encourage them to call you back.

3. Voicemail Follow-up Cold Calling Script

The voicemail follow up cold calling script is used for following up after having previously left a voicemail, like you promised to do when leaving the voicemail. Keep in mind that you may need to re-communicate some of the information from the initial voicemail in case the prospect didn’t listen to it or has forgotten some of its content.

If they agree, schedule a time while you’re still on the phone. If they do not agree, ask if it’s OK to send them an email with some additional information, including your contact details.

4. Gatekeeper Cold Calling Script

There are many situations where you’ll be unable to directly contact the decision-maker who would be the most ideal person to speak to. You may not have their contact information, or you thought you did but an assistant answered instead. These cases require you to successfully deal with a gatekeeper. This adds an obstacle to your attempts to speak with the decision-maker, but one which you can be prepared for.

5. Connecting Through a Referral Cold Calling Script

Making a personal connection with the person you are cold calling is helpful to achieve your cold call objectives, such as scheduling a product demo. One way to do this is by citing a referral, mutual connection, or even the gatekeeper to that contact. If someone referred you to the contact, you can mention them in your introduction (assuming you have their permission). Otherwise, you’ll need to do some in-depth research on potential mutual connections.

If they agree, schedule a time while you’re still on the phone. If they do not agree, ask if it’s OK to send them an email with some additional information including your contact details.

6. Promoting a Special Offer Cold Calling Script

Rather than cold calling to try to introduce your business or schedule a demo with a prospect, you might simply be trying to promote a special offer. This offer could be for a limited time or to a limited group of prospects or customers based on geographic location, company size, or industry. Nevertheless, using special offers is a great way to entice a prospect into the sales pipeline.

If they agree, schedule a time while you’re still on the phone. If they do not agree, ask if it’s OK to send them an email with some additional information including your contact details.

7. Referencing an Important Recent Event Cold Calling Script

In addition to citing a referral, discussing a recent news story can also be used to foster personal connections with the prospect. The event should be relevant to the prospect you’re contacting or directly include them. Relevance can be established by things like the prospect being in the same location or industry as mentioned in the news story.

If they agree, schedule a time while you’re still on the phone. If they do not agree, ask if it’s OK to send them an email with some additional information, including your contact details.

8. Qualifying a Lead Cold Calling Script

Lead qualification is the process of determining whether or not a lead is a good fit for your business. When cold calling, use qualification questions in your sales scripts to gauge whether or not you should continue pursuing the opportunity. In this situation, your primary goal isn’t necessarily to schedule an appointment, but to obtain information.

If they say yes, schedule the meeting while you are on the phone. If not, ask if you can send an email with more information and your contact details.

Notice the script recites the prospect’s answers to the qualifying questions—this shows you truly care about their business needs and how your offering can fulfill them. Those needs should be referenced in your call to action for trying to schedule a demo or sales presentation. An example of this in action would be if the prospect states that one “like” of the current provider is how easy it is to use and a “dislike” is its high cost.

In your call to action, say something like “I’d love to continue this conversation with a 15-minute demo. It would give me a chance to show you how our drag-and-drop capabilities for configuring automated workflows can help you keep the product usability you like so much, and how our modular pricing model will save you money by only paying for the features you use.”

Calendly scheduling portal (Source: Arrivy.com)

Visit Calendly

Additional Tools for Cold Calling

Writing cold calling scripts for your business and downloading our free cold calling script template examples are just two ways to streamline the cold call lead generation process. Technology tools can also be utilized to place calls and organize calling information.

VoIP Phone System

Voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) phone systems place calls over the internet instead of phone lines or cell towers. It’s a more cost-effective business calling system because you only need to sign up for a VoIP service and have access to Wi-Fi in order to place calls.

Grasshopper, for example, is a VoIP phone system small businesses can sign up for that provides virtual phone numbers. Choose a local or toll-free phone number, then place calls from the mobile app or through a desktop on its web application. Customer relationship management (CRM) software like HubSpot and Zoho also integrate with Grasshopper to track calls and organize contact information in one, centralized database.

Grasshopper VoIP dialer and mobile app (Source: Grasshopper)

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software

In addition to integrating with VoIP calling systems, many CRMs also offer built-in phone systems to allow sales teams to place calls from their CRM platform. This can work in addition to other CRM features relevant to cold call campaigns, such as contact organization, contact notes, the ability to store cold calling scripts, and power dialing features.

Freshsales, for instance, is a cloud-based CRM that has a built-in phone system and integration option through its native software, Freshcaller, for making calls. Users have the ability to dial or place calls directly from their contact record page, which can also keep track of call history and call notes.

Freshsales contact page with built-in phone (Source: Freshsales)

There’s also a power dialing tool where a list of contacts can be set up and dialed automatically one after the other. This allows you to make a high amount of calls during a given period of time because you don’t have to spend time dialing phone numbers.

Freshcaller power dialer (Source: Freshcaller)

Bottom Line

Cold calling scripts serve as a guide during a cold call introduction to ensure you are providing necessary information to a sales prospect while also being prepared to handle objections. Developing ways to make cold calling scripts requires you to understand your cold calling objectives and foster sales conversations that lead to conversions, such as scheduling a sales presentation, setting up a demo, or qualifying leads for your sales funnel.