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How to End Your Fear of Cold Calling

Written by: Ari Galper

Article Overview: 3 Steps to changing your mindset about cold calling!

How to End Your Fear of Cold Calling

Most of us really dislike cold calling. It’s probably the most dreaded of all sales activity, and causes the most rejection.

But there are wonderful ways to think differently about cold calling. We can eliminate the negative experience that’s typical for both caller and receiver simply by changing our mindset. When we begin to think differently, we find that cold calling is no longer the fear-laden experience we’ve come to expect.

By adopting this new mindset, you’ll be able to enjoy calling again. And, for the first time, you’ll see other benefits to cold calling besides actually closing a sale.

Here are three key focuses that shift us into this new way of approaching cold calling:

1. Focus on relationship rather than salesmanship

Begin your cold calls with the idea of having a conversation around the other person rather than around your product or service. Let your whole focus be about whether you can assist the person you’re calling.

This allows a conversation to unfold naturally and easily around their needs. And it also helps you be more relaxed around the possibility that your solution really may not be a fit for them at this time.

Who doesn’t like the idea of meeting new people? And who doesn’t like providing help if we can? When your mindset is in this place, then gracious and easy conversations happen. You aren’t all tense about whether a cold call will result in a sale. You’re operating out of authenticity. You’re being a real person, talking to real people.

Can I be of help to you? You probably wouldn’t say these specific words, but it’s a mindset that’s easy to hold. And it’s also more easily received by potential clients. They won’t feel “chased” by your sales agenda. They’ll be more open to explore things with you. And you’ll feel the enjoyment of meeting new people and discovering whether you can help them.

When you focus on building this kind of connection with people, you’ll find yourself improving your life in many ways. One is the obvious. You’ll have better cold calling conversations. You’ll find your sales going up. nd you’ll also find yourself bringing much more professionalism into the actual experience of selling.

2. Focus on dialogue, not monologue

This new cold calling mindset is about having a true conversation, not a one-way script. It means genuinely anticipating cordial conversations with a new acquaintances.

This has to come from you naturally. It has to be a natural conversation. ou have to believe yourself that you’re calling to see if you can help someone with your product or service.

Once you begin to enjoy the idea of conversing with people and building trust with them, your whole being shifts into this new frame of reference. And you begin to be in a place where the sale itself will not affect your behavior.

When this happens, your fear of rejection goes way down and your enjoyment of the human connection goes way up.

This is where you become free of the old rules around cold calling because you’re not worried about the selling anymore. You’re only concerned with helping the client, regardless whether you make a sale or not. And that’s freedom. It’s freedom to be professional and authentic.

When you think of upcoming cold calls in terms of dialogue rather than monologue, then you aren’t focused solely on what you might get from the conversation. You’re operating out of an honest desire to assist, and this always means having a two-way conversation.

3. Focus on problem solving rather than product selling

No matter what industry you’re in, there must be a need for your product or service, or you wouldn’t survive very long. So whether you’re offering entertainment, bookkeeping, computer programs or anything else, you’re fulfilling a particular need.

This new cold calling mindset focuses on identifying these needs from the perspective of potential clients. Shift your mindset away from what you have to offer, and focus instead on what their problem is. Step into their world.

Most of us enjoy problem solving. We like to “fix things.” So it’s easy for us to come from a place of wanting to solve a problem. And that’s where we begin our cold calling conversations -- from their point of view, their difficulties, and whether we might be of service.

Human nature being what it is, we, as people, enjoy other people. And the more we help them, the more we get feedback that is supportive and positive.

We all want to enjoy our jobs and feel good about what we’re doing. One of the major benefits of this new cold calling mindset is to add credibility and integrity to what we do as professionals. When we humanize the process of cold calling, we step out of the typical one-sided salesperson persona, and that feels really good.

To your success,

Related Articles
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  Cold Calling Does Work – Have You Tired It Lately?
  Cold Calling Works!
  Stop By All That Business Your Are Driving By If You Want to Increase Sales
  What Cold Calling Business Lead Management Can Do For Your Business

Article Tags: authenticity, cold call, cold calls, conversations, fear, improving your life, mindset, negative experience, obvio, real people, real person, rejection, relationship, salesmanship, tense



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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