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Cold Calling Tips: Check Your Calling Attitude

Written by: Peter O'Donoghue

Article Overview: Many people want to generate new business in a short space of time but few relish the prospect of using the phone. The main thing holding you back is your own cold calling/telesales attitude. It's costing you business so find out how to deal with it here.

Cold Calling Tips: Check Your Calling Attitude

I run sales training workshops focused on getting business appointments. Whilst this includes information on how to prospect, sales letter writing, email writing, and social media, there is also a section on the use of the telephone to win new business.

Remember that most people are there because they are in sales or run a business that they have to sell. They all mention on their preworkshop questionnaires that they are looking to win new business and that they need help using the phone.

We go through two seperate exercises which I use to demonstrate to the delegates that they might need to work on their cold calling attitude rather than any tips and tricks.

In exercise one the delegates are asked to work in groups and brainstorm and then feedback to the rest of the room what methods they would use when they leave the workshop (we do this early on in the morning) to win new business. Generally there is a long list, that includes networking, asking for referrals, advertising and direct mail. Not many people put using the phone on the list! Whether it's cold calling or warm calling is irrelevant for now. When I ask people what actions they will take to win new business in the next 30 - 60 days, very few of them mention telesales or cold calling.

In the second exercise, I get the groups to work together to give me their thoughts on "What do you think about Cold Calling and Telesales?". I make a point of keeping my language neutral so as not to influence their answers. Nearly every group provide me with a huge list of negatives.

• They are rude
• They are aggressive
• Pain in the butt
• Waste of time
• Call at inconvenient times
• Won't take no for an answer

And so the list goes on.......................

The thing is very rarely do the groups give me any positive comments. Occasionally there will be someone with a bit more awareness around the subject are who will say - "A fantastic way of winning new business"

If you are looking to generate new business then you absolutely need to be able to use the phone. I appreciate and use all other forms of prospecting but there is no other method as powerful and as immediate as using the phone.

You may need to take stock of your mental inventory around this subject though. If you, like my delegates, only have negative things to say or think about telesales and cold calling then the first step is to worlk on you rather thancold calling tips and tricks.

Sign up for my newsletter to find out how.

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Article Tags: asking for referrals, attitude, brainstorm, business appointments, delegates, direct mail, exercise one, exercises, huge list, inconvenient times, li li, nbsp, new business, pain in the butt, questionnaires, tips and tricks, ul, waste of time



Related Forum Posts
Re: How to develop sales contacts? - Everyone has the right idea here. Depending on your business, there are different techniques that you could use. For consultants and sales heavy businesses, there are three tactics that I have found especially useful in my business: 1. Attend Networking Events 2. Cold Calling 3. Referral Program 4. Affiliate Program (most successful) The affiliate program was successful for me, as I hooked up with a franchise consultant, and he gave multiple unit businesses that needed my credit card processing services. I highly suggest you hook up with a sales partner, and give him a cut of the monthly revenue.
Re: Direct Mail Postcards - Post cards would be really expensive to send from Japan...but one way to advertise that is not expensive from overseas is by Cold Calling using cheap VoIP equipment. I know Japan has a really good internet connection, so as long as you are willing to stay up late, it might be an option. I cold call from Thailand far, far away from any city using a CDMA wireless internet connection and have had pretty good results. I find tho, that cold calling works best for business 2 business (b2b), rather than b2c products. --matt
Re: Cold Calling - As long as people are out of jobs, you'll probably have a lot of people who say they want to work for straight commission, but if they don't get paid fairly quickly, they usually move on. We've run into that and went through about 500 people (whose resumes looked really good) until we found about 3 good resellers. People just don't want to work for anything. Or they do a good job getting the business but don't do the follow up necessary to make the sale......so they move on thinking they need money NOW. Our business requires all cold calling as well. It's really tough for people to perfect that but there are a lot of good books out there. On is Cold Calling Techniques, by Stephan Schiffman
Business Tips - How about: Tips for managers to handle employees more effectively? Tips on how to deal with difficult customers? Tips on how to deal more effectively with suppliers? The only three I have in mind right now, but will try to come up with something else. Chris
Re: THE SECRET TO SUCCESS IS ALL IN YOUR HEAD...RIGHT NOW!!! - Yes, you are right Mal. Attitude plays a big role in it. Robert


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