Tweet

Make Fewer Cold Calls and Get Better Results

Written by: Ari Galper

Article Overview: Cold calling, the old way, has to be the most painful form of sales work you can experience. There’s a lot of rejection, fear, and deflated hopes.

Make Fewer Cold Calls and Get Better Results

Cold calling, the old way, has to be the most painful form of sales work you can experience. There’s a lot of rejection, fear, and deflated hopes.

But there’s a new way to make cold calling as pleasant and relaxed as picking up the phone and talking to a friend. Just follow these steps, and your cold calls can become an enjoyable part of your day.

1. Rip Up Your Sales Script and Start a Conversation
If you’ve been selling for a while, you’ve probably used a sales script. Perhaps using a script is the only way you know to start a cold call.

But people can almost always tell when you're reading from a script, even if you think you’re pretty good at it. There's just nothing personal about it, and people pick up on that.

A script isn’t a conversation. It’s a linear process designed to move the other person toward a sale. You’re not having a real dialogue when you’re using a script. So nothing is “real” about the whole encounter.

A conversation, on the other hand, is a living, breathing relationship. You’re two real people, talking normally and naturally.

So when you’re just being yourself, the other person’s walls can come down. Because you’re not coming at them with one-way sales strategy. So your cold calls typically last longer. You’ll make fewer calls, and have better results.

2. From “Dreaded Salesperson” to Trusted Advisor
The old cold calling strategies teach you to polarize the roles of buyer and seller. You’re trying to coax “prospects” into buying your product. You’re not thinking about their world – their budget, problems, or time constraints. You’ve been taught to think about the sale.

Well, suppose you were to focus instead on the things that matter to the other person. For example, their problems. What if you were to become a problem solver?

That’s exactly the place you want to be when making your cold calls. Imagine approaching someone with the idea of finding out whether you can help solve a problem. Imagine the kind of attitude this would convey to the other person.

You’re no longer trying to persuade. You’re not even thinking about the sale. You’re thinking about whether you can help someone solve a problem. You’re relaxed, comfortable, and authentic.

When you make your cold calls this way, you’ll find that others will engage you more. And you’ll also be able to really enjoy what you’re doing.

3. Gain the Respect You Deserve – Stop Pushing and Chasing
The old-school sales gurus teach the essentially the same approach. “Focus on closing the sale. Keep pushing forward. Overcome objections. Your job is to turn every no into a yes.”
Persuading and coaxing has always been considered a normal and necessary part of cold calling. But it’s rooted in a kind of macho selling image. If you don't keep pushing, it means you're giving up. So you keep trying to move things forward, and you keep “chasing” with follow-up calls.

Even when your focus is on solving a problem for the other person, you can be coaxing and cajoling. But if you do this, how can you become the trusted advisor I spoke about earlier?
It’s really simple. Just let go of your attachment to the sale. When you do this, you can relax into being the professional that you are.

When you stop focusing on getting the sale, you can become a trusted resource. You’re no longer chasing, pushing, and cajoling. You’re helping. And that makes a world of difference in how people respond to you.

Follow these guidelines, and cold calling can become surprisingly enjoyable. You’ll find yourself spending much more time with each person. You’ll also see more positive results, whether or not a sale unfolds. Others will tend to respond to you more graciously. And your whole cold calling experience can become a pleasant one.

To your success,

Related Articles
  Cold Calling Does Work – Have You Tired It Lately?
  Your Customers Can Help You Make More Sales
  What Cold Calling Business Lead Management Can Do For Your Business
  The Surprising Truth about Cold Calling
  How To Approach Cold Calling

Article Tags: attitude, budget problems, cold call, cold calls, dialogue, encounter, fear, problem solver, prospects, real people, rejection, relationship, sales script, sales strategy, salesperson, things that matter, time constraints



Related Forum Posts
Re: Quote of the Day - "The only people witho - Thanks for sharing this Evan, there are some very powerful quotes in there, I particularly like this one:- You are now at a crossroads. This is your opportunity to make the most important decision you will ever make. Forget your past. Who are you now? Who have you decided you really are now? Don't think about who you have been. Who are you now? Who have you decided to become? Make this decision consciously. Make it carefully. Make it powerfully. regards, Mal.
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
List of a few legitimate online business - Well My main methods to make money so far are adsense,affiliate marketing and freelancing and I think these are some more sites that can help me to make some more money.Your reviews are welcome: ::linkworth dot com>This site is awesome and offer lots of ways to make money. ::mturk dot com>complete simple mini task and get paid ::microworkers dot com>complete simple mini task and get paid ::shorttask dot com>complete simple mini task and get paid ::istockphoto dot com>sell stock photos ::eHow dot com>Make money writing ::Bukisa>Make money writing ::Associate Content>Make money writing ::Triond>Make money writing ::fiverr dot com>$5 freelancing job ::cpalead dot com>make money by completing offer ::peerfly>make money by completing offer
Re: 10 Tips to Start an Online Business - [quote="Anya101":1y6il6zm] 5. Make it very easy for people to order your products. The easier the order process, the more orders you will get. Make sure your payment pages are secured. If you accept payment online, it is [/quote:1y6il6zm] *This* is very good advice. I went to a site a couple of weeks ago to order a DVD, an independent movie, and instead of having Paypal, I had to jump through hoops to sign up for their payment system. It would have taken me more minutes than I cared to spend, so I just didn't bother!
Run a major competition - You beat me to the punch LoveInventions! I was just on my way to post this! The idea is simple: run a competition for a major prize to get people posting. In this case Darren put up a $729 Nikon DSLR up for grabs as the top prize. The winner was selected randomly and each post you wrote gave you another chance to win. [quote:1nc4sv0r]The Goal - the aim of the exercise was simple. To sign up new members to my forum and increase page views. My hope was to have a bumper month but also get new members signed up to have an ongoing impact on overall activity going forward.[/quote:1nc4sv0r] [quote:1nc4sv0r]Results: Traffic - Over the full month traffic was increased 66.7%.[/quote:1nc4sv0r] [quote:1nc4sv0r]Results: New Members - Recruiting new members to the forum was another goal of the competition. We’d had an influx in January of 1803 new sign ups as a result of a previous smaller competition but since had been around the 1200 per month. April however saw a boost in numbers by an extra 2823 members.[/quote:1nc4sv0r] [quote:1nc4sv0r]Results: Activity - Another bonus related to increased traffic is the increases in user activity on the forum. Here’s the increase in new ‘threads’ to the forum (up from the 1500’s to just over 4000 for the month). And here is the increase in new posts (up from 1400 per month to over 43000 for the month).[/quote:1nc4sv0r] [quote:1nc4sv0r] The Downside So far it’s sounding fairly rosy isn’t it. Increases in traffic, members, activity and even earning are all good. However there was two downsides. 1. Moderation Workload - I have an amazing team of moderators to DPS but the month of April was the hardest that they’ve ever worked. I totally underestimated the extra load upon them in setting up this competition. It has made me reconsider how I run future competitions. 2. Impact upon Quality of Reader Interaction - over all the increased activity of the site brought in some wonderful new members who are interacting on the site with genuine interaction. However a small number of new members were just there for the competition - even though I made it clear that spammy entries wouldn’t win. This impacted moderators workloads but also the overall morale on the site a little. I think we managed to contain it but again - next time I run a competition it’ll not be based upon post numbers but rather some sort of quality level of interaction.[/quote:1nc4sv0r] What do you guys think? Is it worth testing out? Considering we already give out over $1,000 in month prizes, what would be the ultimate prize that we award at the end of the competition?


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

SEO Link Popularity and the Home Business Website

How to Sell to the Price Driven Customer

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.