Business Through Friday Cold Calling and How to Leverage Belief + Why + Positive Result to Overcome Fear There are two words that can create fear in most sales people. Those words are cold calling. My first experience with cold calling was in 1990. I was in college at the time and I had an interview for a sales job with Merrill Lynch. The first part of the interview was your typical question and answer session. After the questions were completed, the interviewer took me to a room with cubicles, phones and a book. They asked me to sit down, make calls using a cold calling script. I made about an hour’s worth of calls before the interviewer came back in to see how I was doing and what my thought were about the cold calling. I thanked them for their time and the opportunity, however cold calling was not for me. My second experience with cold calling came in 1999 when I took a position with personal consulting firm (some people would call them a recruiting or headhunting firm). The job was simple in procedure and required discipline and drive to succeed. As a personal consultant, you make cold calls, anywhere from 100 – 200 cold calls a day. The outcome of the cold calls was two fold. One was to build rapport with the hiring decision makers so that they would sign a fee agreement and allow you to fill an open position. Two was to find candidates that were currently employed that would be a fit for these open positions. I was in this positive for about 18 months. I found this opportunity to be challenging and rewarding. It taught me mental toughness, focus multi-tasking and organizational skills. My third experience with cold calling came in 2001 when I took a sales position with a company that sold special operational equipment for law enforcement and military personal. My start date was September 26, 2001, just after 9/11. Needless to say, it was busy with inbound calls. One of my responsibilities was to cold call in-between inbound calls and market the tactical products we represented. My 19th cold call was to a suburban police department that was in the market for gas masks. At the time, gas masks were in demand by law enforcement because of the air quality issues at ground zero. I set up a meeting and took the owner of the company with me on the sales call. The sales call when well and the agency began the process to procure 135 gas masks. The sale didn’t end there. The Deputy Chief was also the Vice President of a statewide regional response organization that was also in the market for gas masks. He invited us to present to the board. The presentation went great. The statewide organization began the process of purchasing 40,000 gas masks. The sale didn’t end there. The statewide organization leads me to the statewide emergency management, public works and public health divisions. The presentation went great. Those organizations bought at total of 20,000 gas masks. From that one cold call, the number 19th cold call I made at that company, resulted into selling 60,000 gas masks. That is the value of cold calling! If selling millions of dollars of anything is just a cold call away, then why is it a dying art form? Why don’t more people make cold calls? I feel there are a few reasons why and they all lead to one word. That word is pain. Pain – People will do more to avoid pail than to gain pleasure. If the pain is more realistic than the pleasure, then the pain will win out. People view cold calling as painful. Why? Cold calls can lead to rejection. Cold calls can lead to looking uneducated. Cold calls can lead to failure. Cold calling is a numbers game. The more calls you make, the more opportunities you will find. The more opportunities you find, the more sales calls you will make. The more sales calls you make, the more you will sell. I went 0 for 18 on my first 18 phone calls. It was the 19th call that led to a sales call. That sales call made me more money than I made my first 30 years of my life! That sales call took the belief I had in myself as being possible to being real! Belief is what makes you get up in the morning. Belief is what drives you. Belief is what gets you going. Results from that belief creates the momentum! Results from that belief shapes you as a person! I leave you with this. Fear of rejection, fear of looking foolish, stupid or uneducated is never going away. The ones that can manage their fear by having the belief of what is possible will win. The ones that believe and have compelling reasons why will win. The ones that believe and have compelling reasons why and view their results as positive will always win. Think of it this way. Fear > Belief only if there are more fears than beliefs. Fear = Belief only if there are equal amounts of fears and beliefs. Fear < Belief only if there are more beliefs than fears. Fear < Belief + Why. Fear can never be greater than a belief and a reason why combined. Fear < Belief + Why + Positive Result. Fear can never be greater than a belief, a reason why and a positive result from that belief. I wish you well as you grow your territories and businesses. You never know when you 19th cold call is going to happen. When it does, it will change your life. All the best, love and be the change you want to see in the world! Michael
Posted on: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 12:22:11 +0000
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