We often talk about the importance of keeping morale as high as possible to keep productivity at a maximum.
The main thing that holds us back is fear. Fear of failure. Fear of rejection. Fear of the unknown. The truth is that fear is a normal and healthy emotion. It’s good to be afraid in dangerous situations – it keeps us safe. However, sometimes we experience an exaggerated amount of fear that is inappropriate to the situation. Think about it – cold calling is not a life and death experience!
It’s OK to feel a bit nervous about making cold calls. Any athlete will tell you that adrenaline can help you to perform at your peak! Besides, courage is about taking action in spite of fear. The key to getting yourself to take action is to change the way you FEEL about picking up the phone.
So how to defeat call reluctance and get dialling ?
1. Stop worrying about being perfect.
We put so much pressure on ourselves to perform – no wonder we’re reluctant to pick up the phone. We’ve got performance anxiety! Take the pressure off yourself!
"80% of success is just showing up." Just by getting yourself to follow through and make your sales calls, you’re succeeded! If you mess up on the call, who cares? The most successful people are the ones who are willing to make mistakes. The only way you can not make mistakes is if you never take action – and that’s the path to ultimate failure.
2. Ask yourself, ‘What's the worst that can happen?’
Shakespeare said “the coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man dies but one.” Usually the thought of the thing we’re afraid of is much worse than the actual experience. Listen, what’s the worst that can happen? Let’s say you call them and they’re not interested. Who cares? There are plenty of other prospects out there.
What if they’re rude or offhand? Listen, if you’re polite and professional, most people will respond in kind. But hey, occasionally you will come across people who are just plain rude! Once in a blue moon, someone may even hang up on you– that’s happened to me before too! Can you handle that? Listen, you probably wouldn’t want their business anyway. Remind yourself that,“You can’t lose what you don’t already have.” You didn’t have their business before you made the call, you still don’t have their business, what have you lost? Absolutely nothing! You’re no worse off for having tried.
3. Accept that most of the companies you call are not be read to buy from you … yet.
That's OK! The purpose of prospecting is not to close a sale, but to open a relationship. You’re building a database of warm prospects who might buy from you in the future. Write this down: “No now is not No forever.” And remember, you only ever have to make one cold call. Because the next time you phone them it will be a warm call.
4. Decide to let every single call be a success.
Huh? Well think about it. Who decides whether a call has been a success or not? You do, of course. So why not allow yourself to feel successful more often? Listen, people like doing things that make them feel good, and avoid things that make them feel bad. So make sure you feel good about canvassing. Here’s how.
Make a list of primary and secondary objectives. Primary objectives are what you ‘ideally’ want from the call, for example to get a requirement or an appointment. Secondary objectives are the minimum you want to take away from the call. For example: to build rapport, to gather information, to raise your profile and get your name out there, to agree a date to call back, etc. Make your list of secondary objectives really long so that you’ll always achieve at least one of your secondary objectives. In fact, one of your secondary objectives might be to screen out any prospects who are not likely to give you business. That way every call is guaranteed to be a success, even if they hang up on you – because you’ve just qualified them out, and you’ll know not to waste time with them in future!
5. You can not fail
There is no such thing as failure, only feedback. Feedback is important. It lets you know if what you're doing is working. And it helps you to improve so you get better results the next time. So there’s really no way you can fail – except to never try in the first place.
6. Make it almost impossible to feel rejected.
You never have to experience rejection again. Listen, the best salespeople never get rejected. It’s not because their prospects never say no. They just don’t consider it rejection. After all, what is rejection? It’s not an experience, it’s your interpretation of that experience. What has to happen in order for YOU to feel rejected? People often tell me, “I feel rejected whenever someone responds negatively to me – for example if they are abrupt, off-hand, or disinterested.” Why not change your definition of rejection to make it a lot harder to feel rejected?
7. Decide not to take it personally.
You can’t control what other how people behave towards you. You can only control how you interpret their behaviour and how you choose to respond. If a prospect is not receptive, don’t feel bad about it. What else could it mean? Maybe you’re just speaking to the wrong person. Maybe they genuinely don’t have a need. Maybe they’re just having a bad day! It could be any number of reasons, none of which have anything to do with you.
8. Pick up some momentum.
According to Newton’s laws of physics,“a body at rest tends to stay at rest, and a body in motion tends to stay in motion.” The hardest part is getting started! So make the first call of the day an easy one. Call an exiting client or someone who has given you business in the past. Then while you’re feeling good from the first call, move straight into your new business calls. Don’t stop until you’ve made your target number of calls. It really works!
9. Remember that your best clients were once complete strangers.
Before you begin your next canvassing session, spend a few moments reflecting on your best clients – the ones you have a really strong relationship with. Remember the first time you called them? How did it feel when they actually gave you an opportunity? How many placements have you made with them since? Ask yourself the question, “Which of the people on my prospect list will become my next best client?”
10. Ask yourself empowering questions.
Want to know the secret to positive thinking? Asking yourself the right questions is a fast and easy way to put yourself in a positive frame of mind. For example:
- “What do I want to achieve?”
- “Which of these companies will give me a vacancy?”
- “How many people can I help today?”
- “How can I use this time as an opportunity to serve others?”
- “How can I get the best result, and enjoy the process?”
- “How many people can I make smile today?”
- “What am I going to spend the commission on?”
- “What reward will I give myself once I’ve made my sales calls?”
11. To overcome call reluctance, use the carrot & the stick!
If you ever procrastinate when it comes to prospecting, it’s because at some level you associate pain to making sales calls. No amount of willpower is going to change that. Instead of trying to force yourself to do something you don’t like, you need to change your psychology so that you WANT to pick up the phone. We need to change our neuro-associations (the things our brain links pain and pleasure to) so that we associate pleasure to making sales calls, and pain to NOT doing it. Make sense? Great. Now this isn’t something you can achieve just by reading passively. It’s going to require effort and your part. If you’re serious about maximising your sales performance, then please take 5-10 minutes to do the following exercise. It’s important to write down your answers because it will reinforce the new feelings you want to create.
