Sales Prospecting Perspectives

Adjusting Your Attitude For Cold Calling

  

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Let's face it, many seasoned sales-guys hate making cold calls. Whether they want to admit it or not, that is generally the case. For some reason a good majority reach a point in their career where they feel as if it should be someone else's job. Why is that? Even an average sales-guy has a true understanding of its importance yet they'll often come up with any excuse to avoid it.

There could be a variety of reason why they cross this imaginary line. Most won't out-right admit why they feel this way, but here are the most common reasons I've found over the years...

• They have far too much experience to have to make a cold call: Just because you brought down a couple of big deals in your day, doesn't mean you are excused from making a cold dial ever again. The best reps I have ever worked with not only could recite their top 15 target accounts from memory, they also made every effort on their own leveraging email and phone to set a meeting.

• They don't like getting shot-down: Most reps that consider themselves "closers" get used to performing for the captive audience hanging on their every word. In the cold calling game you have to take the approach that nobody really cares. I can't say it enough- once you pick up the phone you need to check your ego at the door. People WILL hang-up on you.  They don't care if have 20 years of experience and have closed multiple deals in the Fortune 500 space, you are just like any other sales guy interrupting their busy day.   

• 100% reliance on their inside team: The expectation is that you can rely on your team to keep you continuously busy with best qualified leads. That's wonderful, but what happens if your inside guy gets laid off? Even if you have the support, most of us aren't seeing the volume we are accustomed to these days. You owe it to yourself to at least spend some time making the calls to back-fill that short-fall. 

Now that you have the appropriate mind-set, next week we'll cover how to position your message in conjunction with your "call plan", along with how win an administrative assistant over as an ally.