In my 25 years of sales I have found that there is only one key to cold Calling and in person sales success and that is getting over fear.
It is amazing how a fully capable adult will create so many excuses and imagine the worst when you place him or her in front of a tiny little plastic phone.
The reason is fear !! and fear alone, because cold calling and in person sales is like anything else, with enough practice you become an expert.and yes some are born naturals but its something that can be learnt and taught.
For example, in each product line or industry sector that you are selling to there is only a finite amount of excuses or as we sales people like to call OBJECTIONS. For instance I used to operate a national consulting firm in Canada, my clients some of them fortune 500 and some of them small family run businesses, the one thing they all have in common are their OBJECTIONS.
Whether it’s that they "are not interested" or are "already have a provider" or the one I love the most where they are "happy" they all have the same OBJECTION’s that I have to overcome, why do I know this ? Because I have called thousands of people in the years offering the same product over and over again and there is only so many OBJECTIONS one can give to me. In fact some of them are across the board on all products one will offer, such as “I am happy”. Your job is how to make them understand that they are indeed not happy but that is something for another discussion. (Ask me if you’re interested)
This reminds me of a time when I was hired as a financial advisor at a very large company, it was literally my first week, I hadn't even completed my licensing to sell mutual funds yet they gave me and 5 others an exercise, these people had already been with the company from 6 months to a year and a half, they gave us a phone book and said dial 200 numbers and make as many appointments as possible.
I took the 200 numbers and started dialing, I called randoms up and said
”hi my name is ____ and I am a financial advisor can you please tell me about your thoughts on savings and your financial future” to tell you the truth the first handful of people hung up on me but as I went on I found a groove (a groove in this sense is a combination of words that work together to capture the leads interest since you only have seconds to capture someones attention i.e. a script) at the end of my 200 numbers which only took me about two and a half hours to dial I had made my first 6 appointments.
At the end of the exercise we all went back into the beautiful board room overlooking lake Ontario and we went over each other’s numbers, the first person was asked how many appointments she had made and the answer none ? the next the same and so on and so on and so on, then it came my turn and I had 6, remember the people that I was in the room with had 6 months to a year and a half on the job, I had not even a few days!!
Everyone turned to me and said how did you do that, my answer was I called 200 numbers and got 6 appointments. When asked how many numbers they dialed, the first person said 3-4 then they had to attend to something, the second said around 10 and couldn't get anyone so they abandoned the project, the third was a similar story in fact all 5 had only called a fraction of the numbers the task required.
It was clear, Fear had set into all of these 5 individuals that had much more experience that I had, their fear got in the way of their lesson, the lesson was not to make appointments the lesson was to get over the fear and create a groove that worked so that they could cultivate future business in order to be successful, the lesson was to dial 200 numbers.
So I say if you want to be successful in cold Calling or I'll even go as far as to say in sales then go make one thousand dials and then tell me it’s not working for you !!
You have to understand one thing, it’s a numbers game, just as is this internet thing which I am still trying to get a handle on, there are ratios and conversions at work here and when you find a combination that captures the attention then you get many hits, remember when learning an instrument it takes practice, expecting to pick up the guitar and giving up in half an hour making excuses that its not your thing is the same failings that I see when people try their hand at cold calling.
In the internet world its the combination of colours and text that draws the right attentions for clicks in the brick and mortar world its overcoming OBJECTIONS that will help your conversion rates.
Remember its a numbers game, a neophyte with no experience at all could call a thousand numbers and find x amount of people to sell to, the more you are able to overcome those OBJECTIONS the more successful you will be in converting your X into greater sales.
The more calls you make the less FEAR you will have because your mind will start to remember the same OBJECTIONS that are being hurled at you and you will start to create sayings and phrases that will overcome those objections, but you have to commit to making the calls in order to learn the OBJECTIONS so that you can design the REBUTTALS in order to overcome the OBJECTIONS and the only way that will happen is if you make an average of 200 dials per day, this is just to start once you get your REBUTTALS under your belt you will dial less and have more success.
The biggest fear you have to get over is yourself. Go force yourself to pick up the phone because that is usually the biggest challenge, you will find that by the third call you will be relaxed, don’t over analyse or as I like to think about it over ANALyse, it's all in your head.
Many people who I have trained have told me that they have fears of being told to F off or be rude to, the funny thing is the higher the person is on the totem pole the nicer they are, after all do you really think big CEO’s got to where they are by being assholes to people while climbing the ladder, after all they had to be likable to reach their position.
In my business we help manufacturers get money back from the government, my smallest contract is worth several thousand dollars and mostly all of my work is done on the phone, visiting my client is more of a formality, by the time I get there they are ready to sign. 90% of my clients used to have a competitor as a provider and where “Happy”.
You can do it !!
By the way I am new to the net, other then surfing, I am seeking knowledge if you have any to share it would be appreciated.
My goal is that I would like to be able to run my new companies sales off of the net.
I now manufacture dog treats.
Welcome | Blue Dane Treats
It is amazing how a fully capable adult will create so many excuses and imagine the worst when you place him or her in front of a tiny little plastic phone.
The reason is fear !! and fear alone, because cold calling and in person sales is like anything else, with enough practice you become an expert.and yes some are born naturals but its something that can be learnt and taught.
For example, in each product line or industry sector that you are selling to there is only a finite amount of excuses or as we sales people like to call OBJECTIONS. For instance I used to operate a national consulting firm in Canada, my clients some of them fortune 500 and some of them small family run businesses, the one thing they all have in common are their OBJECTIONS.
Whether it’s that they "are not interested" or are "already have a provider" or the one I love the most where they are "happy" they all have the same OBJECTION’s that I have to overcome, why do I know this ? Because I have called thousands of people in the years offering the same product over and over again and there is only so many OBJECTIONS one can give to me. In fact some of them are across the board on all products one will offer, such as “I am happy”. Your job is how to make them understand that they are indeed not happy but that is something for another discussion. (Ask me if you’re interested)
This reminds me of a time when I was hired as a financial advisor at a very large company, it was literally my first week, I hadn't even completed my licensing to sell mutual funds yet they gave me and 5 others an exercise, these people had already been with the company from 6 months to a year and a half, they gave us a phone book and said dial 200 numbers and make as many appointments as possible.
I took the 200 numbers and started dialing, I called randoms up and said
”hi my name is ____ and I am a financial advisor can you please tell me about your thoughts on savings and your financial future” to tell you the truth the first handful of people hung up on me but as I went on I found a groove (a groove in this sense is a combination of words that work together to capture the leads interest since you only have seconds to capture someones attention i.e. a script) at the end of my 200 numbers which only took me about two and a half hours to dial I had made my first 6 appointments.
At the end of the exercise we all went back into the beautiful board room overlooking lake Ontario and we went over each other’s numbers, the first person was asked how many appointments she had made and the answer none ? the next the same and so on and so on and so on, then it came my turn and I had 6, remember the people that I was in the room with had 6 months to a year and a half on the job, I had not even a few days!!
Everyone turned to me and said how did you do that, my answer was I called 200 numbers and got 6 appointments. When asked how many numbers they dialed, the first person said 3-4 then they had to attend to something, the second said around 10 and couldn't get anyone so they abandoned the project, the third was a similar story in fact all 5 had only called a fraction of the numbers the task required.
It was clear, Fear had set into all of these 5 individuals that had much more experience that I had, their fear got in the way of their lesson, the lesson was not to make appointments the lesson was to get over the fear and create a groove that worked so that they could cultivate future business in order to be successful, the lesson was to dial 200 numbers.
So I say if you want to be successful in cold Calling or I'll even go as far as to say in sales then go make one thousand dials and then tell me it’s not working for you !!
You have to understand one thing, it’s a numbers game, just as is this internet thing which I am still trying to get a handle on, there are ratios and conversions at work here and when you find a combination that captures the attention then you get many hits, remember when learning an instrument it takes practice, expecting to pick up the guitar and giving up in half an hour making excuses that its not your thing is the same failings that I see when people try their hand at cold calling.
In the internet world its the combination of colours and text that draws the right attentions for clicks in the brick and mortar world its overcoming OBJECTIONS that will help your conversion rates.
Remember its a numbers game, a neophyte with no experience at all could call a thousand numbers and find x amount of people to sell to, the more you are able to overcome those OBJECTIONS the more successful you will be in converting your X into greater sales.
The more calls you make the less FEAR you will have because your mind will start to remember the same OBJECTIONS that are being hurled at you and you will start to create sayings and phrases that will overcome those objections, but you have to commit to making the calls in order to learn the OBJECTIONS so that you can design the REBUTTALS in order to overcome the OBJECTIONS and the only way that will happen is if you make an average of 200 dials per day, this is just to start once you get your REBUTTALS under your belt you will dial less and have more success.
The biggest fear you have to get over is yourself. Go force yourself to pick up the phone because that is usually the biggest challenge, you will find that by the third call you will be relaxed, don’t over analyse or as I like to think about it over ANALyse, it's all in your head.
Many people who I have trained have told me that they have fears of being told to F off or be rude to, the funny thing is the higher the person is on the totem pole the nicer they are, after all do you really think big CEO’s got to where they are by being assholes to people while climbing the ladder, after all they had to be likable to reach their position.
In my business we help manufacturers get money back from the government, my smallest contract is worth several thousand dollars and mostly all of my work is done on the phone, visiting my client is more of a formality, by the time I get there they are ready to sign. 90% of my clients used to have a competitor as a provider and where “Happy”.
You can do it !!
By the way I am new to the net, other then surfing, I am seeking knowledge if you have any to share it would be appreciated.
My goal is that I would like to be able to run my new companies sales off of the net.
I now manufacture dog treats.
Welcome | Blue Dane Treats
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