Cold Calling Cold Feet!

Have you ever had a day where you sat in front of your phone, computer screen open to your CRM with your data base of target prospects, the leads and follow ups are calling out to you "Call me! Book that appointment!" and you freeze. You really, really , REALLY don't want to make any cold calls!

I've been there, and I specialize in lead generation and LIKE it, so when I get into that mind frame, I know it's going to negatively effect my pipeline development which negatively effects my sales. You see, the well known fact is that prospecting is one of the top most despised activity in sales. Calling people you don’t know is uncomfortable. You get a tremendous amount of rejection. And frankly, it’s not very much fun. This is why prospecting and cold calling are put off by many Sales Professionals day after day until soon, it is too late.

There is good news and bad news. The bad news is this fear of cold calling will never really go away. It will always be uncomfortable picking up the phone and calling people you don’t know. It is just not a natural thing to do. The good news is you can gain enough control over your call reluctance and cold feet to keep your pipeline full. The following are some tried and true methods that will help get those fingers dialing!

1. One of the key reasons that we fear cold calling is we project our own feelings on the people we are calling. We imagine that they will judge us. We think they will be angry because we’ve interrupted their day. We believe they will dislike us because we are trying to sell them something. And we rationalize that they don’t want what we are selling anyway, to sooth our anticipated rejection. In other words we make decisions for our prospects before we’ve even had a chance to speak with them. All of this tends to come to the surface right as we pick up the phone. It’s a horrible feeling. And the key to success is turning it off. To do that you have to acknowledge this feeling for what it is – fear. You will be amazed at how easy it is to get past this initial fear once you acknowledge that it is there. It doesn’t mean that you won’t still feel it – just that you accept it for what it is.
2. Another suggestion from a well know sales trainer is to break your call blocks into small chunks and set goals for those chunks. It is much easier to set a goal to make twenty calls than 100 or to dial for 35 minutes rather than an hour. It is much easier overcome your initial fears and trepidations a few calls at time. You can get your mind around these small chunks. 
3. Make sure you know what you want. When you know what you want you can tap your desire to overcome fear. When you harness your desire you focus on what you want to achieve, instead of what you don’t want to do, suddenly prospecting becomes easy because the result of prospecting, more sales, is tied to something you want – your dreams and goals. Each day before you start your sales day review those goals and visualize how much you want to achieve them.
4. My final tip is somewhat self serving BUT if cold calling gives you more than cold feet and you can see the impact of not doing it (or not doing it right) in your business growth ...outsource it! Focus on your strengths and leave the cold calling to a respected business that specializes in lead generation AND lead nurturing. I've worked with many business owners and sales teams that saw the immediate benefits of handing the task of cold calling and building the pipeline over to the experts!

What cold call advice would you add to this list?

Happy Calling! 

Leah Carter