Beat The Fear Of Cold Calling
by Mr. Cold Call
1. YOU NEED TO CREATE A PICTURE IN YOUR MIND OF YOURSELF ACTUALLY MAKING COLD CALLS!
MR. COLD CALL EXPLANATION: You know if you can’t see the picture, you can’t be in the picture! If you can’t see yourself doing something how can you do it? You can’t! Just take a minute, close your eyes and see yourself making those sales calls. Can you feel the power of this? It feels good doesn’t it? Now let’s take this a step further, imagine picking up the phone and picture yourself with total confidence, how cool is that?
Now, let’s take this concept further, go ahead take another step, but do me a favor and add persistence to the sales equation. Why you ask? Because every single person that you are contacting should be successful business people and successful business professionals live and breathe persistence! How do you think they became successful in the first place? Persistence is an attribute that is well respected amongst any successful person. There is no question that you will contact and close more deals based on this fact!
How many more steps will you need to visualize in your head to start making effective cold calls? Your answer depends on how much you want the sale? How many times are you willing to contact your sales prospect? How badly do you want your prospect’s business? Once you can answer these questions, your answers will now help you to develop a clearer picture or understanding of the steps that you will need to take in order to make cold calls!
2. DEFINE AND LOCATE YOUR SALES PROSPECTS.
MR. COLD CALL EXPLANATION: Who are your target markets? Who is most likely to buy your product or service? What is your sales territory? Which markets in your territory are the most lucrative? Checking out your competition, doing a google search on your target market, speaking to co-workers, current customers and prospects are the best ways to define and locate your sales prospects.
3. CREATE A LIST OF POTENTIAL SALES QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR PROSPECTS.
MR. COLD CALL EXPLANATION: Your first priority is to create a list of engaging sales questions. Once you have compiled a list, you now need to test them in an effort to find out what works and what doesn’t work. The more engaging the questions, the more likely they will elevate your credibility, the more likely they will increase your prospect’s interest, and finally, the most important, engaging questions bring you one step closer to a sale. The next question that you may be asking is, “How do you know if you are asking good questions?” Good question, that’s easy, if the phone conversation is less than 15 to 30 seconds and you were not able to gain commitment for a follow-up call then this may answer your question (no pun intended).
4. CREATE A LIST OF POTENTIAL SALES OBJECTIONS AND PLAN HOW YOU WILL OVERCOME THEM.
MR. COLD CALL EXPLANATION: Sales objections will bring you one step closer to a sale. Why? Because if you respond to the objection with an engaging response you will help your prospect to self-discover why they should be doing business with you! Sales prospects are conditioned to resist and they do so with an objection. It’s an easy way out so as not to induce any pain (i.e. your prospect’s budget). If you create a list of potential objections and how you will overcome them their will be no surprises when you are making your cold calls. In fact, you will begin to see an objection as another way to ask an engaging question that will ultimately close your next sale.
5. HOW MUCH OF YOUR TIME WILL BE SPENT COLD CALLING?
MR. COLD CALL EXPLANATION: MR. COLD CALL certainly does not advocate that you make cold calls 100% of the time. However, it should definitely be part of your overall business development strategy. The first thing I would do is an analysis of where your sales leads are coming from and then use your results to develop a pie-chart business strategy. For example, if you found that 50% of your sales can be tracked to networking, 40% of your sales can be tracked to referrals and 10% of your sales can be tracked to making cold calls then I would label each section in your pie-chart with your results.
6. EMPOWER YOUR SALES DAY BY USING A CONTACT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM SUCH AS ACT.
MR. COLD CALL EXPLANATION: Bono from U2 said that the iPod is the greatest invention since the guitar. MR. COLD CALL thinks ACT is the greatest invention since the filing folder. If you want to be empowered and feel more confident when you are making cold calls I believe that ACT is one of thee most important sales tools in business. It gives you a way to efficiently and effectively manage your database of business contacts. Have you ever thought what life would be like without a cell phone? Imagine if you lost your cell phone for a month? How would you feel? Well, that is the same feeling that MR. COLD CALL has about ACT!
7. PUT TOGETHER A ROUGH COLD CALLING SCRIPT FOR YOUR SALES OPENERS AND VOICEMAILS.
MR. COLD CALL EXPLANATION: In business, you can try out 100 new business ideas and ninety-five of the ideas that you try may not work. However, what’s even more interesting is that the five new ideas that you try that do work will make-up for the time and energy that you put forth in the ninety-five poor business ideas that did not work. How do you find a proven system? Testing, testing and more testing!
8. RESEARCH YOUR COMPETITION. WHY DO THEY HAVE YOUR MARKET SHARE?
MR. COLD CALL EXPLANATION: Keep this in mind, any new business idea you think you should be doing, you’re competition is either doing it or they are thinking the same thoughts as you! In Donald Trump’s new book “How To Get Rich,” he speaks about knowing your marketplace; this means you need to keep tabs on your marketplace and competition! I highly suggest checking out your competition to see how they are currently getting their business. One great way is to put them in your “ONLINE FAVORITES” and the other way is subscribe to their FREE newsletter. By the way, checking out your competition will give you new business ideas as well!
9. REVIEW YOUR PROSPECT’S COMPANY WEBSITE BEFORE YOU MAKE THAT FIRST CALL!
MR. COLD CALL EXPLANATION: Do you want to really WOW your sales prospect? Check out their website prior to calling their office. It just takes a few minutes and the first place I would go is the “ABOUT US” section on their website. Also, if you your prospect happens to be listed under “MANAGEMENT TEAM” read their biography because you might find out that you have something in common with them that you did not even know in the first place! If you do find something that you both have in common then this is a great way to further warm up your sales call.
10. BE OPTIMISTIC ON EVERY CALL!
MR. COLD CALL EXPLANATION: Have you ever met someone with an aura of optimism? How cool is that? Do your eyes light up? I bet their optimistic nature puts a smile on your face, right? Optimistic people have this gravitating power that makes people want to be around them! Next time your on the phone, be optimistic, how? Since your prospect cannot see you, the your most promising tool is the tone of your voice. If you sound excited on the telephone your enthusiasm will spread, it’s contagious and it may end up resulting in your next best sale!
11. TAKE A CONSULTATIVE APPROACH TO SELLING
MR. COLD CALL EXPLANATION: If you are asking engaging sales questions it will help your prospect to self-discover why they should be doing business with you. Prospects are conditioned to resist change, in fact, that’s a law of human nature! If we take this concept into account and use a more of a consultative approach to selling, then you will be looked upon as more of an authority or an expert on the topic at hand. This feeling of being an expert as experienced by not only you, but by your prospect will allow you to really have the upper hand and most definitely the likelihood of an upcoming sale!
12. SALES IS A NUMBERS GAME AND YOUR PERSISTENCE WILL PAY OFF IN THE END!
MR. COLD CALL EXPLANATION: If you think you will get a sale every single time on the first contact you are in for a big surprise. There are so many factors that come into play and the biggest one is your prospect’s time. I can assure you that you are not the only salesperson contacting your prospect and many of these salespeople will give up after just a few calls. How do you gain the attention of your prospect? How do you win their time? If you are persistent and do not believe in giving up it show in your calls and your tone of voice. Oh yeah, one other thing, let your prospect know how you feel and mention how passionate you are about speaking to them!
13. "WHAT DID I LEARN AND HOW CAN I USE THIS INFORMATION ON MY NEXT CALL?"
MR. COLD CALL EXPLANATION: One attribute of a great marketer is testing, testing and more testing. After each sales call, I highly recommend that you take a minute to digest what happened on the call and use this information to try something different on your next telephone call. I highly suggest that you write down your ideas on paper and keep written tabs on what is working for you. It’s important to do this because it helps you to keep running tabs of your results and testing is something that doesn’t happen over night! It happens over time!
14. DEVELOP A TELEPHONE PERSONA AND PEOPLE WILL REMEMBER YOU!
MR. COLD CALL EXPLANATION: Do me a favor when you think of the company Starbuck’s what are your immediate thoughts? How about Wal-Mart? How about AFLAC? Each of these companies brand themselves in a completely different way. They have been successful in creating a recognizable brand that sells! This same concept applies to you and how you brand yourself over the telephone. The question you may want to now ask yourself is simple, “What is my telephon persona?”
15. MOST IMPORTANTLY, JUST HAVE FUN ON THE PHONE!
MR. COLD CALL EXPLANATION: If you make cold calling fun it will make your cold calling experience one to look forward to and believe me your prospect will pick up on this in your tone of voice! Remember, positive energy breeds positive results!
Copyright 2007 MR. COLD CALL SEMINARS - All rights reserved.
Behind The Scenes With Mr. Cold Call™
Mr. Cold Call™ is a worldwide sensation and
claims to have made over 80,000 cold calls to date. He has been quoted
by numerous national publications such as Selling Power Magazine,
Investor's Business Daily, Successful Fund Raising and Advantage
Magazine. He has written over 65 articles on cold calling, developed a sales ratio calculator that automatically calculates your daily, weekly, monthly and yearly sales ratios, offers a custom sales script service called "The Script Responder" and finally, is the author of four best-selling ebooks with FREE email support and these titles include:
For more information on Mr. Cold Call™ and to sign-up for his free weekly cold calling tips visit www.mrcoldcall.com
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