How to cold call in Australia: a 12-step guide for sales teams

The short answer

To cold call in Australia, pick a tight list of businesses or people who fit your offer, find and check their numbers, and wash any number that could be private against the Do Not Call Register within 30 days of the call. Call between 9am and 8pm on weekdays or 9am and 5pm on Saturdays, local time, and never on a Sunday or a national public holiday. Open with your name, your company and why you are calling, show a caller ID that can be called back, and end the call the moment the person asks. Then log the outcome and follow up on a fixed cadence.

This guide is for Australian sales teams and for overseas companies, especially UK ones, calling into Australia. It is a plain-English summary, not legal advice. The law sections quote the Do Not Call Register Act 2006, the Telecommunications (Telemarketing and Research Calls) Industry Standard 2017 (the Standard) and the Spam Act 2003, as published on the Federal Register of Legislation.

What is different about calling Australia

Three things catch teams out, and UK teams most of all.

• The register covers private numbers, not business ones. Section 14 of the Act makes a number eligible for the Do Not Call Register if it is used mainly for private or domestic purposes, used only for faxes, used only by a government body, or is an emergency number. A switchboard at a company is not eligible. A sole trader's mobile that is mainly personal can be.
• The calling rules apply to every telemarketing call. The Standard sets calling hours, the information you give at the start of the call, caller ID and when you must hang up. It applies to calls to Australian numbers whether or not the number is on the register.
• The register you check is set by the number you dial. A UK TPS check on a +61 number tells you nothing. If your team also calls the UK, the UK rules are in how to cold call in the UK, and the three national registers are compared in TPS vs Do Not Call vs DNCR.

The step-by-step process

These twelve steps run in the order a campaign does. Steps 3 and 4 carry the legal checks; the rest is how the calling gets done well.

Step 1: Decide who to call

Write down the companies you want and the person you need at each one. Be specific: industry, headcount, state, and the job title that owns the problem you solve. A short list of well-chosen businesses lets you prepare every call, which a long loose list does not.

Decide early whether you are calling businesses or consumers. Calls to business lines sit outside the register, so the work is mostly in the list. Calls to consumers, or to sole traders on personal mobiles, put the register wash at the centre of the process.

Step 2: Build the list and check the numbers

Start with free official sources. ABN Lookup (abr.business.gov.au) shows a business's legal name, its ABN status, whether it is registered for GST, and its state and postcode. ASIC's free search confirms a company exists and is registered; officeholder details come in a paid company extract. Neither gives you phone numbers. For those, use the company's own website, LinkedIn, industry directories or a paid data vendor.

Then check the numbers before anyone dials them.

• Read the prefix. Australian mobiles start 04. Landlines start 02 (New South Wales and the ACT), 03 (Victoria and Tasmania), 07 (Queensland) or 08 (South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory). 1300 and 1800 numbers are business service lines. In international format, drop the leading 0 and add +61.
• Use the area code for time zones. An 08 number could be Adelaide or Perth, which are 1.5 to 2.5 hours apart depending on the season. Use the postcode from ABN Lookup to settle it.
• Flag mobiles on business records. A mobile listed against a small business may be the owner's personal phone. Treat it as a number that could be on the register and wash it.
• Run a dead number check. Dialling disconnected numbers wastes agent time and skews your connect rate. A dead number check asks the mobile network whether a mobile is live, switched off or dead (the technical name is an HLR lookup), so callers stop dialling numbers that cannot answer. It works on mobiles only, and some networks, Telstra among them, do not return a live status, so the result for those numbers comes back undetermined.

Step 3: Manage consent

Consent lets you call a number that is on the register. Under section 11(2) of the Do Not Call Register Act the ban does not apply if the account holder, or their nominee, consented to the call. Schedule 2 says consent can be express or reasonably inferred from conduct and relationships; it cannot be inferred just because the number was published (clause 4), and express consent given without a stated period lapses after 3 months (clause 3).

In practice, record each consent with the date, the wording the person agreed to and where it was given, and set a review date three months out unless the wording states a longer period. A number with no consent record is unsolicited and goes through the wash in step 4. How consent works across the UK, US and Australian registers is in the register comparison.

Step 4: Wash the list and keep a suppression list

Section 11(1) of the Act bars telemarketing calls to a number on the Do Not Call Register. Section 11(3) protects a caller who submitted their own list to the register under section 19. The number must have come back clear within the 30 days ending on the day of the call. If someone else washes the list on their own register account for you, that protection is not yours; you rely instead on section 11(5), reasonable precautions and due diligence.

Washing is done through ACMA at donotcall.gov.au. Every number you submit uses one wash. A clear result on your own submission covers calls made within the 30 days ending on the day of the call, so re-wash any number you will still be calling after that. Wash business mobiles too, for the reason in step 2.

Alongside the register, keep your own do-not-call list. The Standard requires you to end a call as soon as the person asks you to (section 13(1)(b)). Your list is how that request survives to the next campaign. Apply it before the register wash. A number that washes clear is still off your list if the person asked you to stop, and removing it first saves a wash.

TPSClear washes Australian numbers against the register inside HubSpot, where it can re-wash them before the 30 days run out, and through Zapier and an API; the plans are on the Australian pricing page. If you hold your own ACMA subscription, ask about washing through your own account, which keeps the section 11(3) protection with you.

Step 5: Plan your calling hours

Section 8 of the Standard bans telemarketing calls before 9am and after 8pm on weekdays, before 9am and after 5pm on Saturdays, and at any time on a Sunday. It also bans calls on the national public holidays: New Year's Day, Australia Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Anzac Day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, plus any weekday given in lieu. State laws can add more restrictions (section 15).

The time that counts is the time where the account holder usually lives (section 8(4)), not where your office is. The Standard does not say how this applies to a company line, so use the local time where the business is. Australia runs three standard time zones, and New South Wales, Victoria, the ACT, Tasmania and South Australia move their clocks in summer while Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory do not.

Inside the legal window, test different times of day against your own list, and keep the hours that convert.

From the UK. Sydney is 9 to 11 hours ahead of London, depending on the time of year. A Sydney business day ends at 5pm, which is 6am to 8am in London. Perth is 7 or 8 hours ahead, so its afternoon falls in the UK early morning. A UK team that wants to talk to the east coast either starts very early, runs an evening shift, or hires someone in Australia.

Step 6: Set up your caller ID

Section 14 of the Standard says calling line identification must be on for every call, and that the number shown must let the person ring back and find out who called and why. That number must be able to take return calls for at least 30 days. When someone asks for your contact details, section 11 requires an Australian number that takes calls during business hours where they are, plus an address, email or web address.

So an overseas team needs an Australian number that rings through to someone, or to a message that names the company. A local number also lets people see the call is from someone they can ring back.

Step 7: Write the opener

The Standard decides the first sentence for you. Section 9(2) requires you to give, as soon as the call starts, your given name, your company name, the name of the business you are calling for if different, and the purpose of the call. Build it into the opener rather than bolting it on.

An opener that meets the rule and sounds human:

"Hi Sarah, it's Tom from Northgate Software. I'm calling because we help freight firms in Queensland cut the time they spend on proof of delivery. Have you got a minute for me to explain why I picked you?"

Use first names. Keep it plain and direct; a formal script read word for word is easy to spot. If the person asks for contact details, give them straight away, as section 9(4) requires.

Step 8: Run the call

Most good cold calls follow the same shape.

1. Reason. One sentence on why this company, drawn from your research: a new site, a job ad, a recent contract.
2. Question. Ask how they handle the problem today. Then listen.
3. Qualify. Find out whether the problem is real for them, who else decides, and whether there is a deadline.
4. Ask. Ask for one next step, usually a 20 to 30 minute meeting with a date and time. Send the invite while you are still on the phone if you can.

Aim to talk for less than half the call. If you are reading a pitch at minute three, the call has gone wrong.

Step 9: Handle objections and "not interested"

Separate a brush-off from a refusal. "Send me an email" and "we already have something" are brush-offs. Answer with one question, such as "What would make it worth looking at?", then accept the answer.

"Don't call me again", "take me off your list" and "I want to end this call" are refusals. Section 13(1)(b) of the Standard says the call must end as soon as the person asks for it to end or shows they do not want it to continue. Thank them, end the call, and add the number to your do-not-call list before the next dial. Do not argue that the number washed clear.

One other rule ends a call early. If you learn that the person is somewhere it is outside the allowed hours, for example on a mobile in another time zone, section 13(1)(a) requires you to hang up unless they say they want to carry on.

Step 10: Log every outcome

Log every dial in the CRM with a fixed set of outcomes, so the numbers in step 12 mean something. A workable set is: no answer, voicemail, wrong number, gatekeeper, conversation, call back later, meeting booked, not interested, and do not call. Add a one-line note on what was said and the next action with a date.

Keep the wash date and result against each number too. If a complaint arrives, that record is your evidence that the number was clear when you called.

Step 11: Follow up

One call rarely books a meeting on its own. Set a cadence before the campaign starts, for example a call on day 1, an email on day 2, a second call on day 5, and a final call and email in week 3. Stop when the person says no, and move silent records to a later campaign.

Follow-up emails and texts fall under the Spam Act. Commercial messages need consent (section 16), which can be express or inferred. Consent can be inferred from a work email address that is conspicuously published, if the message is relevant to the person's role and there is no statement next to the address saying they do not want unsolicited messages (Schedule 2, clause 4). Every message must identify who sent it and how to contact them (section 17), and include a working unsubscribe (section 18). An unsubscribe takes effect within 5 business days (Schedule 2, clause 6).

Step 12: Measure the results

Track four numbers each week, per caller and per list.

Set your baseline from your first two weeks rather than from a figure someone quotes. Then change one thing at a time. A low connect rate points at the list or the hours. A low meeting rate points at the offer or the ask.

If you hire someone to make the calls

Many overseas companies use an Australian call centre or sales agency. Two rules follow you there. Under section 11(9) of the Act, a business that contracts someone to make telemarketing calls is taken to have caused those calls, so a breach by the agency is your breach too. Under section 12, where the calls are likely to reach numbers eligible for the register, the contract must contain an express term that the agency will comply with the Act and take all reasonable steps to make its staff comply.

Ask the agency whose register account washes your list. If it is theirs, the section 11(3) protection sits with them, not you. Ask for the wash records for your campaign, and make your own do-not-call list part of the brief.

A checklist for UK teams

• Route every +61 number to a Do Not Call Register wash, and every +44 number to a TPS and CTPS check.
• Wash before each 30-day window ends; the UK 28-day habit fits inside it.
• Rent an Australian number for caller ID and for contact details given on request.
• Schedule calls by the recipient's local time, and load the national public holidays into the dialler.
• Put your name, company and purpose in the first sentence.
• Keep one do-not-call list across both countries.
• For the commercial side of entering the market, read the go-to-market strategy for Australia.

Summary

Cold calling in Australia works like cold calling anywhere: a tight list, a clear opener, one ask and a disciplined follow-up. The local rules shape each stage. Wash any private number within 30 days of the call and record consent where you rely on it. Call in the hours the Standard allows, at the recipient's local time, with a caller ID that can be called back. Give your name, company and purpose at the start, and end the call when asked.