What Are the Ethics of Cold Calling? A Guide for SDRs (+ 8 Proven Methods)

Nobody is sitting around waiting to answer a phone call from a stranger. When you cold call a prospect, you’re basically interrupting their day to sell your product.

And prospects aren't obligated to give you their time. Given the bad reputation that cold calling has, they'd rather block your number or resort to other measures to avoid your calls. No wonder research shows only 28% of prospects actually pick up the phone when a salesperson cold calls them.

Where does that leave you, then? You can't reach your potential customers, and witness an endless string of poor conversations. In the end, you don't book enough meetings and your sales pipeline looks bleaker than it did when you started prospecting.

So, what's the way out of this? The way out is upholding ethical practices while cold calling that involves doing right by your prospects always.

Here, we'll recommend 8 tried-and-tested cold calling tips to be more ethical in your cold calls to gain your prospect's trust and book more meetings with a clean conscience. 

But first, let's answer the question…

Is Cold Calling Ethical?

Short answer—yes, cold calling is ethical if you’re actually helping prospects. 

Here’s the long answer. By definition, cold calls are unsolicited. Reps make cold calls to prospects who they haven’t engaged with before to pitch their solution.

With that being the case, if you’re simply cold calling prospects to push a sale on their face when they least expect it, your cold calling isn’t ethical. You’ll end up as a rep who engages in deceptive practices and treats their prospects as just another name on the list.

On the other hand, your cold calling efforts will be ethical if you genuinely try to help your prospect through the cold calls. You can do this by understanding their pain points and how your solution will help resolve them. If your prospects recognize that you’re trying to help them out, they’ll see you as a trusted advisor.

So, the only way to make your cold calling ethical is to truly help your prospects make informed decisions, not just push a sale on them.

Why Should You Be Ethical in Cold Calls?

Since we have already established why cold calling is ethical, the next question is—why should you be ethical while cold calling?

This question is well and justified. As a sales rep, you’re typically making at least 100 cold calls every day. You have meetings to book, a quota to meet, and a pipeline to fill. With your quota attainment being directly tied to your daily activities, the ethical implications of cold calling will be the last thing on your mind.

But, we’re here to convince you that if you want to book more meetings, cold calling ethics should rather be the first thing in your mind. 

Being ethical means prioritizing your prospect’s interest and customer experience first in every aspect of your cold calling. When you do this, the quality of your cold calls will automatically improve as you'll give up any aggressively sales-y approach you might have followed in the past. Naturally, your conversion rates go up, and you’ll hit your numbers in no time.

 How’s that possible, you ask? Let’s take a deep dive into why ethics is necessary in cold calls:

1. To Personalize Your Scripts Better

Dialing prospects with just a generic cold calling script on hand is a surefire way to lose them. So, how do you personalize your cold call script?

When youput your prospects first,you’ll try to learn as much as you can about them. What are their goals? What are the challenges they’re facing? What initiatives are they working on?

Armed with this knowledge, you’ll craft your cold call script to be personalized to each prospect. Instead of shoving your solution at them, you’d tailor your pitch to focus on how your solution can help them overcome their hurdles and meet their goals.

This way, they’d not only see the value of your solution immediately but also feel the effort you have put in learning about them and their company. They'll feel inclined to stay longer on the line and hear you out.

2. To Build Strong Rapport With Prospects

Here’s a paradox in cold calling: When talking to a prospect, if all you care about is booking the meeting, you won’t book the meeting. 

The key to successful conversations is building strong rapport with the prospect. And rapport building can happen only if you put the prospect first.

When you do so, you’ll automatically be inclined to discuss their goals and challenges without pitching up, observe their verbal and non-verbal cues better, and actually make them feel like they’re being heard. This way, you build a genuine connection with the prospect, and they’re more likely to keep talking to you.

3. To Handle Objections Better

Every sales rep knows that there’s no way around handling sales objections. But, only a few know how to handle cold calling objections well.

The key to handling objections is empathy, which comes only when you're ethical in your cold calls. 

This means, no matter what objections they might raise, you'd respect their concerns and provide options in their best interest. You wouldn't be pushy or defensive while handling objections.

For example, when a prospect tells you they're not interested, you'd respond with: "I understand. Do you think I could email you the recent case study we did on {competitor}? {Solution} helped them drive {business metric} by X%. And I’m confident we could do the same for you. If you like it, we could discuss it in depth later."

So, being ethical in your cold calling activities allows you to handle objections tactfully, which lets prospects trust you and your offering.

8 Foolproof Methods To Make Your Cold Calls More Ethical

By now, you’re convinced (hopefully) that adhering to sales ethics can take your cold calling performance to the next level. Now, it’s time to put things into practice.

Here are 8 ethical cold calling tips to help you build long-lasting rapport with your prospects, provide value every time, and book more meetings:

1. Understand Buyer’s Needs in Depth

If prospects shouldn't see your cold calls as unwanted solicitations or even nuisance calls, you need to offer value to your prospects. For that, your research shouldn’t be restricted to just collecting basic information like their name, job title, company and industry type. You should make your pre-call research more comprehensive by understanding the prospect’s in depth.

Here are some questions you should answer with your pre-call research to understand buyers:

• What are the company-level goals they’re supporting? 
• What are the key challenges they’re facing? 
• What initiatives are they focusing on right now?
• Have they tried any of your competitor’s solutions before?
• How can your solution help them achieve their goals?
• Why is your solution better than the competition?

By doing so, you’ll be able to add value to your prospects and position yourself as a trusted advisor rather than just a sales rep. 

2. Maintain Transparency

By remaining transparent with your prospect at every point in your sales calls, you establish yourself as trustworthy and genuine in the eyes of your prospect. Prospects will also feel more comfortable engaging with those they determine as authentic. 

Let’s take a look at how maintaining transparency pays off during different stages of the cold call:

• Initial part of the call. When you make a cold call, you have the responsibility of letting your prospect know why you’re taking up their time. So, introduce yourself and your organization. This will let the prospect know who you are and decide if they want to stay on the call. This way, you’re empowering your prospect by letting them decide if they want to continue the conversation or not. Prospects will feel more comfortable continuing the call when they know they can opt out of the call.
• While pitching. When you’re pitching your solution, let your prospects know how exactly it’s going to help them and why they should care. As tempting as it may be, don’t embellish your solution’s capabilities and paint a false picture.
• Handling objections. When your prospect raises objections, be transparent and don’t make false claims. For instance, if they ask you how you got their number, tell them honestly where you got their contact information from.

3. Watch Your Tone of Voice

According to the famous 7-38-55 Rule by behavioral psychologist Dr. Albert Mehrabian,only 7% of your message is conveyed through words. The nonverbal component of your message, namely the tone of voice and body language, make up 38% and 55% respectively.

So, no matter how well structured and persuasive your sales call script is, if it isn’t delivered well as per the 7-38-55 rule, your cold call will end up in a disaster.

In a cold call, your customer can’t see you. So, the success of your call largely depends on how you sound. The prospect will pay attention to your pitch, volume, speed and enunciation. These cues will determine how authentic you sound and will help you connect better with them.

For instance, you begin your cold call in a drab and lackluster tone. The prospect won’t feel enthused enough to indulge you. But, if you sound enthusiastic and confident in your solution, you’ll be able to reel the prospect in from the beginning and get them to stick around till the end of the cold call.

4. Use Permission-Based Openers 

Imagine you’re answering 2 cold calls from Rep A and Rep B. You hear 2 different openers:

Rep A: Hey {prospect name}, this is {rep name} from {company name}. I called to let you know we help companies with {specific challenge}. How’re you tackling this problem?

Rep B: Hey {prospect name}, this {rep name} from {company name}. I know I’m calling out of the blue here. May I take just 30 seconds to explain why I'm calling?

As a prospect, which one would you prefer?

If you lean towards the second one, you’re right on the money. Prospects feel comfortable when you ask them for permission before continuing the cold call. As you’ve called them out of the blue, it falls entirely on you to make sure you aren’t interrupting a meeting or a business call the prospect would rather prioritize.

Permission-based users make the prospect feel their time is being respected and valued. You can use the following permission-based cold calling openers to uncover customer needs faster: 

• Hi, this is {your name}. I know I’m calling you out of the blue, but do you’ve a minute to chat?

• Hi {prospect name}. I’m {your name} from {your company}. I know this is unexpected but do you have 30 seconds to hear me out?

• Hello. I’m {your name}. We’ve actually never spoken before but would it be okay with you if I took a minute to let you know why I called?

• Hi, this is {your name} from {your company}. I probably caught you in between your next meeting, but I’m sure you’ll be interested in what I have to tell you. 

5. Keep Things Strictly Professional

No 2 prospects are the same. When building rapport, knowing where the boundaries are is important to make them feel comfortable talking to you. Because if you overstep those boundaries, there might be negative consequences that can result in losing the prospect for good.

The fundamental rule for keeping your cold calls professional is to talk to prospects like how you’d have a casual chat with a colleague whom you don’t know too well. You can be informal and have a few laughs, but always stay professional.

Here are some pointers you can focus on: 

• Steer clear of potentially controversial topics, like politics or religion, during the conversation with prospects.
• Don’t bring up details about their personal life, even if you find something in your pre-call research.
• Avoid making any sarcastic or passive-aggressive comments. You might think that it sounds okay, but your prospect might not get it and things can go south pretty quickly. 

6. Don’t Call Prospects Outside of Business Hours 

Getting hold of a prospect’s direct line gives you better chances of connecting with them. But, that doesn’t mean you can bother them outside business hours. And, you especially can’t hound them when they’re on sick leave, vacation, maternity/paternity leave, etc. 

So, when you give your prospect a call, make sure you confirm if it’s the best time to call. Prospects are appreciative when they know you value their time and will let you know right away if they want to listen to what you have to offer.

If your prospect isn’t in a state to continue the discussion, leave them be. Make a note of what time works for them and give them a call later. 

7. Don’t Attack Competitors

As an SDR, you want to come across as amiable. If you were to bash your competitors under the guise of selling, you won’t look any better in your prospect’s eyes. Instead, you’ll be seen as unethical and bitter.

So, to keep things friendly, ask your prospect about the competitor they are using. You can use this as an opportunity to demonstrate why your solution stands out and how it’s better suited to fulfill your prospect’s needs by using:

• Case studies or customer success stories 
• Sales decks for feature comparisons to illustrate why your solution is more competent than the competitor in solving the prospect’s pain points.
• Free trials to let the prospects use your solution and see the value for themselves

8. Don’t Call Prospects Who Ask Not To Be Called

No matter what you do, some prospects won’t be interested in what you have to offer. And they’d make it clear during cold calls by asking you to not call them again.

When that happens, the ethical thing to do is honor their decision and not call them again. Simple. Also, this helps you stay on the right side of cold calling laws.

However, pay attention to whether they say “Don’t call me again” or “Don’t contact me again” before disconnecting. Here’s why:

• For prospects who ask you to not call them again, you still can use follow up using email as part of a multi-touch approach. Mention in your email that you might have caught them at the wrong time, and give your calendar link for them to schedule a call with you if things change.
• If the prospect specifically asks you to not contact them again, take them off your list and don’t follow up with them again via any channel. That’s the right thing to do. 

Ethical Behavior Gives You Long-Lasting Success in Cold Calling

Potter Stewart, former associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, once said: "Just because you have a right to do something doesn’t mean it’s right to do it." Same goes for being ethical while cold calling. 

Unethical tricks and tactics to get more sales quickly might sound appealing, and might even work for you in the short run. But in the long run, its negative implications can spell doom for you and even your sales team. They lose trust in the entire company and even dissuade other potential customers from doing business with you. So, always do the right thing.

The 8 sales tips we’ve covered here will help you tackle any cold calling situation with respect, honesty, integrity, and fairness. By genuinely trying to help every prospect on your list, you increase the chances of getting loyal and satisfied customers who’ll stay with you for a long time.

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