When is the best time to cold call potential clients? When it comes to Cold Calling a prospect, there are certain rules that should always be followed. Many of these rules came into existence due to the Lead Response Management Research Study, a breakthrough report that changed the industry.

The response time, or how quickly you call someone back, should be a no-brainer, but unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Later on, the same study was repeated, on a much larger scale, and similar results were found. Below are the seven rules of cold calling and responding to leads.

1. Immediacy

The best thing you can do is contact a lead within five minutes of them submitting a web form to present your product or service. If a sales rep doesn’t respond fast enough within 30 minutes, then the chances of contact and qualifying the lead drop one hundred times.

2. Persistency

Another one of the cold calling techniques sales managers and salespeople should follow is this strategy: don’t give up! Sales reps need to make between six and nine phone calls before they stop. Sadly, the majority of sales reps out there are only making one to two calls per lead before calling it quits. The contact ratio is between 10 and 11%, and with that in mind, the sales rep who is making only one or two calls is only going to reach 10 to 20% of the leads. A word of advice for cold callers to increase your chance of getting positive results — be patient and persistent!

3. Optimize

Sometimes calling people back isn’t the best idea. Depending on your company and your customers, some times are better than others to call at. Try to figure out when it’s a good time to start calling prospects, especially if you’re targeting business owners. They usually have a very slim window of opportunity for cold calling. Finding out the best time to cold call can really help your sales process.

4. Time of Day

If there’s one thing that can hinder you, it’s calling at the wrong time. Some of the best times to call are between 8:00 to 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 to 5:00 p.m., assuming you’re calling within your time zone (if not, then adjust for where you’re calling). Try to determine when it’s a bad time for your prospective customer and never call during that time!

5. Day of Week

Want to know when the best day of the week is to call? Guess what, it’s not Tuesday (it’s actually the worst!). Both Wednesday and Thursday are some of the best days to call people, believe it or not! However, it might be different for your own company, so you’ll just have to run some tests and find out which days of the week are the best and worst for you to be making calls.

6. Get Direct Dial Numbers

The best way to reach someone is if you have the phone number that is best to reach them. By making sure your sales reps have mastered this technique, you’ll find that their ability to contact leads will go up!

7. Local Presence

This is a technology tool rather than one of the other cold calling techniques. Local presence is when you are calling leads from one side of the country to the other, and yet, on the lead’s phone, they see a local phone number. If you want your lead to picking up when you call, an area code that shares their area code will increase the chances of them answering.

Reach your ideal future customers.

The top sales teams use Peakslead to locate accurate B2B contact and company details.