This course has been certified by the CPD Certification Service as conforming to continuing professional development principles. Find out more.

Build confidence before the conversation begins

Strengthen your prospecting approach by focusing on effective preparation, confident call openings, and a structured conversation flow. You’ll explore techniques for creating stronger first impressions, navigating gatekeepers, and leaving impactful voicemails that encourage responses, helping you start more productive sales conversations.

Turn conversations into opportunities

Advance into the core of the sales conversation as you identify decision-makers, uncover prospect needs, and handle objections with confidence. You’ll also explore effective techniques for securing appointments and gaining commitments, helping you keep opportunities moving forward.

Keep momentum and grow your pipeline

Sustain your prospecting success by exploring effective follow-up strategies, social selling techniques, and referral generation methods that keep opportunities flowing. You’ll finish the course by reflecting on your progress and demonstrating your ability to apply effective sales communication and prospecting practices.

Syllabus

Week 1
Fundamentals of the Call & Breaking Through Barriers
- Course overview
  This course is ideal for sales professionals, account managers, and business development representatives who are looking to improve their cold calling and prospecting skills. No prior experience is required, but a basic understand
- Foundations and Mindset
  This activity covers mindset, essential preparation, and building a structured framework for your calls.
- Mastering the Opening
  First impressions happen in seconds. Here, we focus on how to capture attention immediately and make your script sound completely natural.
- Navigating the Gatekeeper
  This activity teaches you how to identify screens and professionally navigate past them to reach decision-makers.
- Managing Voicemails
  Most cold calls end up in voicemail. Learn how to transform these digital dead-ends into valuable touchpoints that actually compel prospects to call you back.
Week 2
Advanced Conversational Selling & Pipeline Management
- Discovery and Qualification
  This activity dives into asking the right questions to ensure you are speaking to the right person about the right problems.
- Overcoming Objections
  Resistance is a natural part of sales. Learn how to reframe objections as opportunities and pivot conversations when a prospect pushes back.
- Closing and Securing Appointments
  This activity focuses on the art of securing appointments and locking them down so prospects don't flake.
- Nurturing and Social Selling
  This activity covers how to maintain professional, non-intrusive follow-ups and combine phone work with digital social selling.
- Scaling Success & Assessment
  In this final activity, we look at long-term pipeline consistency and run a final assessment to verify your new sales skills.

Who is this accredited by?

The CPD Certification Service:

The CPD Certification Service was established in 1996 and is the leading independent CPD accreditation institution operating across industry sectors to complement the CPD policies of professional and academic bodies.

When would you like to start?

Start straight away and join a global classroom of learners. If the course hasn’t started yet you’ll see the future date listed below.

Available now
Join - $54

Learning on this course

On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

Increase returned voicemails with proven strategies
Identify and avoid common mistakes in prospecting
Develop a natural-sounding sales script
Confirm and cement appointments securely
Overcome objections and close direct sales over the phone
Plan and prepare for calls with clear objectives

Who is the course for?

This course is ideal for sales professionals, account managers, and business development representatives who are looking to improve their cold calling and prospecting skills.

Who developed the course?

Packt

Practical Tech Learning, Built for Where the Industry Is Heading

For over 20 years, Packt has helped technologists at every stage turn complex topics into real, usable skills. We’re a global technology learning publisher with a library of more than 9,000 hands-on tutorials, and we’re adding to it constantly.

What's included?

This is a premium course. These courses are designed for professionals from specific industries looking to learn with a smaller group of like-minded individuals.

Unlimited access to this course
Includes any articles, videos, peer reviews and quizzes
Certificate of Achievement to prove your success when you're eligible
Download and print your Certificate of Achievement anytime

Join - $54

Still want to know more? Check out our FAQs

Learning on FutureLearn

Your learning, your rules

Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning
Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores

Join a global classroom

Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others

Map your progress

As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate

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