Nail Your First 30 Seconds of Any Cold Calling Script

The first 30 seconds of any cold calling script will make or break your call. First impressions are crucial, especially while cold calling expired listings for sale by owners or any sellers. 

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The good news is it's simple to learn and easy to remember. In this post, you a couple of strategies that I think you will find b the next time you prospect for sellers and buyers. 

Set Yourself Up

Communication is vital, and it's not just about the words. There are t main ways we communicate: Words, Tonality, and Body Language. Over the phone, of course, we only have words and tonality. Interestingly, studies have shown that words don't mich comes down to tonality.

3 Main Parts to Communication: 

Words

Tonality

Body Language

How You Show Up is Essential

Those on the other end of the phone can feel your energy. Standing up with a mirror on the wall will help you see your body language and remind you to smile. How is your posture? Are you standing up tall? All of that comes through the phone. The energy you present on the phone will directly influence their responsiveness.  

Words

What Script Should I Use?

Don't worry so much about what script you use. Follow somebody who is having success. If someone tells you differently, they are most likely just trying to sell you something. Just use a script from a trusted source. 

There are so many people out there with good scripts. What's important is that you practice it and memorize it. You must know it inside and out so that you're not thinking about what you're going to say, and instead, you can listen more effectively. It becomes more of an outline instead of a script. Then you can focus on your tonality.

Are you looking for a good script? You can find my scripts here- as a part of my FREE Expired Prospecting Mini-Course.    

Memorize and Internalize Your Script

Memorization is essential for scripts because if you're not memorizing them, you're not confident enough to have good tonality. Memorize and internalize the scripts. You can do that by practicing, writing them out, recording and listening to yourself, and having role-play partners.

The better you know your scripts, the more confidence you can deliver them with excellent tonality. When you're not thinking about what they're going to say and how you will handle the objection, you know your scripts and objection handlers so well; you have a calmness about you, genuinely listening to what they're saying.

Then the conversation will naturally go along with an objection handler or down your script. You never wing the exchange for an extended period.

At moments, if they're a talker, they might get you off script for a few minutes, and you're just listening, you're repeating and affirming, but you're always thinking how can I bring them back to the script and how can I always get a close in?

Lastly, If you call someone who is frustrated, try to understand. Listen to what the prospect is saying. Repeat and affirm what they're dealing with, ask questions, get back to your script, and help them move on to what you can offer them. 

Ask Lots of Questions

You're always trying to get to the real reason for why they didn't sell, and asking questions will usually get you the answer. There's always either a condition or an objection for why they took their home off the market.

Conditions, like they can't sell it for a real reason, like, they were going to move for a job relocation, but that fell through, so they're staying put, well, that's a condition, not an objection.

An objection would be, "You know we're just going to wait till winter when the market gets better." Well, hey, the market doesn't get better in the winter, right?" You're looking for conditions or objections. Objections you can handle, conditions you really can't.  

Don't Use Their Name

Names are essential but don't use them for cold calling. Whether you're calling expireds, old expireds, or circle prospecting, you don't want to address them by name because you're going to be using services like REDX or Vulcan7, and they don't always provide you with accurate name information. 

When calling For Sale By Owners, you most likely have the correct information and can address them by name. 

If you don't yet have a data provider to get these names and numbers, here's a discount code to save $150 on REDX. 

There are several reasons why it might be the case, but using the wrong name in a cold call will immediately make the recipient defensive, thinking you are a telemarketer. 

Instead, after making tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of calls, here's what I've found works best:

Ring, Ring!

“Yeah, hi, I’m not sure if you can help me but

I’m calling on the home at 123 Main Street.

 Is that your home?”

So what I'm doing is I'm identifying if they're the homeowner without calling them the wrong name and setting an ominous tone, and I'm asking if they can help me. 

Naturally, people want to help other people, so their curiosity peaks immediately, and they subconsciously think, "How can I help this person?" Mentioning their address intrigues them even more, and now they're listening very closely. 

If it is their property, I will continue, "Well, my name is AJ Mida, and I'm a local real estate agent. I'm calling because I noticed that your home came off the market six months ago, and I was just wondering if it was still available or if it had sold?" 

If it had sold, no big deal, and you can go on to the next call, ask them if they know anyone else looking to buy or sell real estate or if they're looking to buy or sell real estate.

Most likely, they will say it's not available, it came off the market as they couldn't sell it, and they'll give you why. So, then you follow up with:

"Hey, awesome, totally get it. It sounds like that was a good reason you took it off the market, but just out of curiosity, you know the market has increased over the last 12 months (if it has). Would you still be interested in getting that home sold? or would you be excited if you could still get the home sold?"

So, what you did is you identified them as the property owner. You've broken that initial resistance because now you're past the 30 seconds into the phone conversation, and they haven't hung up on you yet, which is always a good thing.

Now you're just going down the list of questions in your script. Any good script is just a list of questions that you can follow in order. If the conversation veers you away from the script, you always gently bring it back.  

Expireds

I love old expireds. They're fantastic, especially if you're new, as it's a lot less pressure because they're not getting a lot of calls. All the other agents already forgot about them, so you're the only one calling, less competition. 

Calling old expireds is a great way to build your skills and confidence. If you're calling new expireds, there's a better chance of getting the correct name. So, call them by their last name or first name, if you'd like. 

 Calling old expireds is a great way to build your skills and confidence.

Tonality

Practice Mirroring and Matching

On the phone, tonality is our primary communication, and it's something we can practice. Having your script memorized is the first step in excellent tonality, and now we can spend our energies focusing on our tone. 

Practicing with role play partners. 

You want them to grade you on: 

• How fast or slow are you talking?   
• Are you excited to be on the phone?   
• Are you mirroring and matching them in speech and tonality?    

Your roleplay partners need to vary their rate of speech and their tonality so that you can practice mirroring and matching.

You will have a time where you call somebody up, and they're just down, down, down, and if you come at them with crazy energy, then it's not going to be good rapport, and they won't feel in alignment with you and connection will be hard to find.

Now, you don't want to go down to their level, it's still good to bring energy, but you want to consider where they are and match that to a degree.

Same with if someone is talking really fast, with high energy. If you match that energy, you will more quickly put them at ease and more easily make a connection with them. Practicing this beforehand is essential. 

Approaching the Call 

When calling, there's no need to be uptight and professional sounding. Instead, think of it like you're calling a friend or family member. Be friendly, joke around, have a warmness about you. 

When you're calling people you're comfortable with, your tonality and attitude are a lot more relaxed. So, think to yourself, "I'm just calling my friends and family today." No big deal. 

When you treat it this way, calling becomes so much more fun and easier. Because when you're getting good results by having good tonality and using words the right way, you start setting listing appointments, taking listings, and selling houses. 

Then prospecting becomes really fun, I can promise you that. So when you start making these calls, be confident, be calm, and have a level of excitement. 

Positive and Negative Feedback Loops

When you treat calling like a profession, you'll start to achieve extraordinary results. It's like this feedback loop – if you're not practicing, not giving it your best effort, if your tonality is bad, or if you're coming with negative energy to the call, you'll have negative results. 

With negative results, you'll think, "I don't like prospecting." With that, your energy will worsen because you don't like what you're doing, and then your energy gets even worse, and you quit. 

When you treat calling like a profession, you'll start to achieve extraordinary results. 

But if you're coming with your best effort, good tonality, good energy, and excitement, the feedback loop starts, and you begin to achieve positive results.

You get a listing appointment, sell it, prospecting is working, your energy gets even better, you want to practice more because you know it's working, and then keep this positive feedback loop going versus a negative feedback loop.