Cold Calling Sucks, So Have Some Fun With It!
Posted by
Chris Lang on Thu, Apr 26, 2024 @ 04:11 PM
People that haven’t done it have no idea. Unless you have sat at a phone all day and pounded out dial after dial taking beatings all day long, you do not know how mentally taxing it can be to cold call. You get sworn at, hung up on, chastised and some people even have the nerve to tell you how you should have cold called them in order to get them to talk to you…which they won’t… and then they hang up on you. I have often likened it to walking into a mall and asking people what color their undergarments are. If you do it 100 times you’ll get slapped, punched and screamed at, but maybe ONE person out of the 100 will tell you to call them tomorrow to discuss why you need to know about their undergarments. That one person is your win for the day.
It is easy to become discouraged and lose hope in a job like this, which is why the turnover rate is so high. Not too many people have the stones or the skin to stick with it. What I suggest you do is have some fun. Listen, no matter how you cut it, you’re calling people in the middle of the day to get money from them and last I checked being interrupted and solicited isn’t something people like when they are busy. So when a prospect accidentally answers their phone only to be greeted by a sales person that sounds like they’re having their first interaction with human in years( I always picture Smeagol that little weird looking thing from Lord of the Rings), they aren’t too happy. Prospects are like dogs; they can sense fear and tension in you. If you’re prospecting scared you are much more likely to get a negative reaction than if you call with a big smile on your face and a carefree attitude. You’d be amazed at how many people will talk to you when you actually sound like a human rather than the 50 other people that reach out with their white noise elevator pitches. Your attitude projects over the phone. My suggestion is to LOOSEN UP.
Drop the robot voicemails and the elevator pitch that you got from the first paragraph of marketing’s new white paper. When you call a prospect explain what you do as if you were saying it to your best friend. Separate yourself from the pack and say something different. If someone is avoiding your calls, leave a voicemail asking them why they don’t love you. (I’m serious it works) When a prospect goes dark, send an email telling them that you fear they are trapped under a rock and will send a search party unless they reply. When you catch a prospect that has avoided you for a while start off the conversation with, “You exist! You’re like trying to reach Santa.” Just keep in mind, playing it loose and being an idiot are not one in the same. You still need to have your stuff together and deliver a pitch. Just don’t sound like someone has a gun to your head while you do it.
Tomorrow, try talking to your prospects like they’re a friend you’re happy to have a chance to talk to. You’ll have some more conversations, which will lead to a couple more leads and possibly 1-2 more deals. At bare minimum you’ll at least have a hell of a lot more fun.