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Why You Hate Cold Calling But Shouldn’t: The Common Myths Exposed and Truths Uncovered

Guest post by: Art Sobczak

Article Overview: Don't buy into the longtime, false beliefs about telephone prospecting. Prospect professionally, the Smart CallingTM way, and you'll make your calling easier, more fun, and successful.

Why You Hate Cold Calling But Shouldn’t: The Common Myths Exposed and Truths Uncovered

Most sales reps hate prospecting by phone. Part of the reason is that they believe some of the many myths that have been perpetuated over the years about "cold" calling. Most of these are nonsense, and just plain wrong.

Perhaps you've heard them:

Cold Call Myth: "It's just a numbers game."

Truth: It's a quality game. It does not matter how many calls you place; what's important is the amount with which you have success. A baseball player could swing at every pitch, but only the quality attempts have a chance of hitting the ball. Casino games are numbers games; sales and prospecting is a quality game.

Cold Call Myth: "For every no you get, you're that much closer to a yes."

Truth: You are no closer to a yes unless you are doing the right things to get the yes. The previous "no" has absolutely no bearing on your next call. Activity solely for the sake of activity does not get you closer to success.

Cold Call Myth: "You need to love rejection to be successful at prospecting."

Truth: You want to avoid "rejection." It is a state of mind based on how you react to what happens to you. I'm not a psychologist, but I would say it is impossible to love "rejection," unless you have some type of mental illness. You can get a "win" on every call -- even when you get a no. For example, you can plant a seed for the future, or simply keep the door open for a future contact.

Cold Call Myth : "The telephone is just for setting an appointment."

Truth: Salespeople are using the telephone can to SELL every type of product or service. Limiting oneself by getting off of a call too early unnecessarily lengthens the sales process. Indeed, your sales model might involve a face-to-face visit, but that visit will always be more productive if you take your call further.

Cold Call Myth: "Never give the screener any information."

Truth: The screener may in fact be a decision maker, or at least an influencer, and needs to be treated like the buyer. Trying to go around or above an assistant, and being evasive labels the sales rep as a cheesy buffoon, and simply intensifies the screener's resolve.

Don't buy into the longtime, false beliefs about telephone prospecting. Prospect professionally, the Smart Calling^TM way, and you'll make your calling easier, more fun, and successful.

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Article Tags: cold calling, phone sales, prospecting, sales recommendation, telephone selling



Related Forum Posts
Re: What to avoid when cold calling? - At the time of Cold Calling we should avoid price increases for products and unavailability.
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
Re: Cold Calling - Cold calling is an extremely difficult job to do and unless one learns that being told no by people is not a direct refusal aimed at the cold caller but at whatever is being sold, it can be very soul destroying work to do. One needs to have absolute confidence in themselves and a pretty thick skin. MichelleJ


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