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Practice make perfect when learning how to make cold calls.

Written by: Harriette Blye

Article Overview: I am good at making cold calls. I am so good that I stopped buying leads and started calling from the phone book. I made more sales cold calling the phone book than the leads I paid my hard earned dollars for. My dollars were hard earned at that time. I equate cold calling from the phone book with cold calling door to door. Nevertheless, I reached a point in my development that I enjoyed cold calling the phone book. I had a technique and a script that worked. There was one huge problem with this system and yes it was a system. It was not duplicatible.

Practice make perfect when learning how to make cold calls.

I am good at making cold calls. I am so good that I stopped buying leads and started calling from the phone book. I made more sales cold calling the phone book than the leads I paid my hard earned dollars for. My dollars were hard earned at that time.

I equate cold calling from the phone book with cold calling door to door. Nevertheless, I reached a point in my development that I enjoyed cold calling the phone book. I had a technique and a script that worked. There was one huge problem with this system and yes it was a system. It was not duplicatible.

Almost everyone else hated making phone calls, even to people they know well. I made sales cold calling from the phone book but I did not get the growth and duplication in my business that I wanted from this technique.

Calling your friends and family from your warm market is a challenge as well. It could be you have chatted with them before about a business venture that did not go well or perhaps they know you so well they would not believe you under any conditions. Do you really want to sell and resell to your friends and family? That is not an easy choice.

Tom Hopkins says, "No one limits your growth but you. If you want to earn more, learn more." Learning how to successfully make cold calls will be useful to you in any business venture you attempt. If you can master cold calls you can talk to anyone about anything. You will learn how to effectively ask questions and more important you will learn how to listen as well.

If making cold calls is apart of your business strategy take some time to learn a good script. Practice, practice and practice cold calling from your local phone book. Try calling local small businesses and by pass the "do not call list." They are usually looking for an opportunity to create another stream of income and are open to listening to your offer. After you are comfortable calling free leads, move up to paid leads. Do not waste your money buying leads until you feel comfortable making cold calls.

Tip for calling small business. Let's assume you want to call hair salons in Atlanta, GA. Search for hair salons in Atlanta, GA and hundreds of them will show up in the results. You can do this for any type business in your town or any city in the country. If they are open to your offer you can send them to your website while you are on the phone if possible or make an appointment to visit if calling locally.

Cold calling leads require skills that have to be developed over a time period. If you do not have self-confidence and high self esteem you could get demolished and give up. Cold calling is not for the beginner in marketing if you don't have a mentor to assist you.

If you insist on learning this technique get a buddy, get on the phone together and support each other. Yes, you will make mistakes but you will learn a great deal about cold calling and even more about yourself. Make it fun.

Related Articles
  Cold Calling Tips
  Your Customers Can Help You Make More Sales
  Knowledge is NOT power, practice is NOT perfection
  Cold Calling Does Work – Have You Tired It Lately?
  What Cold Calling Business Lead Management Can Do For Your Business

Article Tags: business strategy, business venture, cold calls, earned dollars, easy choice, friends and family, nbsp, phone book, small businesses, tom hopkins
Referred by: http://jaykubassek.com



Related Forum Posts
Re: Dropped Out Of School To Startup! - If things don't work out you can always return to school. One is never too old to learn, in fact life is all about learning and growing and when you stop learning you start dying. If one avenue doesn't work out try another. Just make sure that you have make your best effort possible before giving up. MichelleJ
Re: Who hates cold calling? - I've never done cold calling for myself, only as a "last ditch attempt" at earning some extra money, on behalf of others. Yes its difficult, I had to pull numbers from a phone book and call to introduce a financial advice company, probably the toughest of them all. The way I got myself through the calls, and continued to make more, was to put myself in the recipients shoes and speak to them as if I were speaking/listening to myself. It just made it more personable, friendly and sometimes I actually enjoyed the conversations I had, although most of them said "no" at the end of the day. I dont think I would be prepared to do this for my own products though.
Re: Your weapon for success - Thank you for the list, keeping that customer relationship is vital because they can also act as your own little marketing team when they talk to their friends and family. Also ask for referrals! Each referral is way better than 40 cold calls.
Re: Article: How to Improve Your Cold-Calling Skills - Another thing that can help is to separate yourself from the outcome. Even the best call in the world won't work every time -- so after you craft a great approach and make a great call, that's it. Then you walk away satisfied with the job you did, regardless of the outcome. The action of calling (and doing your absolute best every time) is what matters, the outcome is not something you can control. That mindset will help since the rejection rate is high for cold calls. Also, taking an attitude of finding out information about your client's needs instead of pushing something onto them they might not want/need can help you feel less like a pushy salesman jerk. It's nicer when they react to you more like a helpful friend putting them in touch w/ info they really might need.
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


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