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Cold Calling Without Fear

Written by: Harry Frisch

Article Overview: Cold calling techniques are ways to “open” and “qualify” a prospect who is not particularly familiar with the product or service being offered. Unlike a customer coming into a showroom, who is already at least somewhat familiar with the product or service he is seeking, a “cold prospect” may never have heard of the product or service, and even if he has, he may have no awareness of his own need or desire to buy it. When dealing with “cold prospects”, the salesperson needs...

Cold Calling Without Fear

Cold calling techniques are ways to “open” and “qualify” a prospect who is not particularly familiar with the product or service being offered.

Unlike a customer coming into a showroom, who is already at least somewhat familiar with the product or service he is seeking, a “cold prospect” may never have heard of the product or service, and even if he has, he may have no awareness of his own need or desire to buy it.

When dealing with “cold prospects”, the salesperson needs one set of cold calling techniquesto establish the prospect’s initial willingness to even communicate with the salesperson, and another whole set of cold calling techniquesto get the prospect’s awareness up high enough of his own potential need or desire for the product, before the salesperson can further interest the prospect in acquiring the product or service.

All successful “opening” techniques have one basic quality in common. When the salesperson convincingly and sufficiently demonstrates himself to have this particular quality, the prospect will trust the salesperson sufficiently and will be willing to communicate with him openly. If the salesperson doesn’t demonstrate a sufficient amount of this quality, and fails to win the prospect’s basic trust, the salesperson will be on very shaky ground as he tries to take the sale forward. The quality in question is that of being Helpful and Caring. And the way to demonstrate yourself as helpful and caring is by showing sincere Interest in the prospect.

Once the salesman has applied sufficient amounts of this “opening” cold calling technique, and the prospect trusts the salesperson enough to be willing to openly communicate with him, it is time to unroll the next set of cold calling techniques: those designed to elevate the prospect’s awareness that he has some need and/or desire to own the product or service that the salesman is offering.

This is commonly called the “qualifying” step. But the emphasis here is not on the salesperson discovering how ready and able the prospect is to make a purchase. The emphasis is on the salesperson discovering the potential needs and wants the prospect has for the product or service being offered, as well as on elevating the prospect’s awareness of his own needs and wants for what is being offered.

In Chapter 4, Opening, in the sales training manual, HOW TO SELL – Clear and Simple (www.HowToSellClearAndSimple.com), one gets a thorough understanding of how to go about getting the prospect into open communication. And in Chapter 5, Qualifying, there is not only a step-by-step layout of how to go about effectively discovering the prospect’s needs and wants, there is additionally a section, The Cold Call Qualification, which goes into the specific cold calling techniques which effectively raise the prospect’s awareness of his own needs and wants for what the salesman is offering.

“Opening” is another name for “How to earn the prospect’s trust” and ”Qualifying” is another way of saying “The art of how and when to ask the right questions”. There are an enormous number of sales techniques which a salesman needs to be familiar with if he is to be consistently successful, but it is in the areas of opening and qualifying that he is in the most need for workable tools, when it comes to the search for cold calling techniques.

(c) 2004, 2005, 2006, Harry Frisch, STI Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

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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
Re: Fear of Success - You don't need to fear success. We should embrace it. Fear is define by a man of God as False Evidence Appearing Real. the meaning is what we fear most does'nt come to pass
Other Great Books... - Feel The Fear And Do It AnyWay - Susan Jeffers How To Stop Worrying And Do It Anyway - Dale Carnegie ('What's the worst that could happen - the worst?' Then prepare yourself for that and reality is such a relief!).


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