Cold calling changed my life. Tips to master the craft.
“Please don’t pick up, please don’t pick up.”
The little voice in my head was freaking out.
“What if I forget what to say ? What if he hangs up on me ? What if I don’t know how to answer his questions ?”
Looking back on that fist day as a realtor, I laugh at how a pussy I was. I was scared of getting out of my comfort zone. I was desperately trying to avoid rejection. If I hadn’t changed my mindset right then, I wouldn’t have lasted long.
I hear a lot of salespeople who hate on cold calling.
“Cold calling doesn’t work” , “I don’t like to be intrusive”, “People are always mean to me on the phone” blah blah blah
The truth is you only hate it because you suck at it. If you were making a sale every 2 call you’d be loving it.
You would be cold calling in the morning, cold calling for tea, and throwing cold calling wing-dings on Fridays.
The reason I hated it when I started was that I was scared of rejection.
Cold calling can be brutal. It doesn’t take much effort for someone to just hang up, so they will. That’s fine, you can’t please everyone.
You just have to get used to rejection. To seek situation in which you can easily be rejected. Get used to being uncomfortable.
Treat cold calling like a game.
I tried to be the most likeable person to make it hard for people to hang up on me.
Cold calling changed my life because it made me love rejection.
I believe cold calling is a sport. You can learn it, you can train and you can master it.
If one wants to become a true cold calling JEDI, one must :
Practice.
Tough training, easy war.
Every young sales padawan needs to train. Sounds obvious right.
Set a a routine. Block time in your schedule to cold call and stick to it.
I used to do 1 hour sessions :
- 10 min of script rehearsal
- 5 min of power posing and positive mental affirmation (more on that below)
- 45 min of non stop cold calling.
As soon as they hang up (THEY hang up, not you), you get on to the next one.
At the end of the session you take a little break to go over your results, have walk around your office, and repeat.
I hate to quote the Wolf of Wall Street but “These phones ain’t gon dial themselves !”.
The telephone is you’re best friend because it can get you in the ear of any prospect on the face of the earth. Provided that he also has a phone of course.
The cellphone is a weapon of mass lead-conversion but it is worthless if you don’t know how to use it. So train.
Be prepared.
Preparation is half the work.
If you want to maximise your chances of having a successful cold calling session, you have to prepare before hand.
1) Mental preparation
When I first started cold calling. What made me nervous was that I thought people hated talking to me. I convinced myself that whoever I was calling didn’t want me to call them.
If you phone someone with that mindset, you will try to exit the conversation as soon as possible. This isn’t good if you’re in sales.
In comes power posing and positive affirmations.
Power posing : You can trick you’re mind into feeling more confident and calm by tweaking you’re body posture. This trick I got from Amy Cuddy’s TED talk which I really recommend.
Positive affirmation : To overcome my fear of calling, I used to repeat this sentence in my head.
“The person I’m about to call wants to talk to me, this is the call she has been waiting for all day and she will be so glad to hear what I have to say.”
Sounds dumb but it worked brilliantly for me. It made me more confident before I actually started calling.
The last little pro tip I would give in regards to the mental preparation is to smile.
Smile before the call, smile while you are calling and smile after the call. You will sound nicer and you’ll end up having a good time calling strangers. Smile is free and has a great ROI so do it.
2) Being equipped.
- Know your script.
This is what distinguishes your average sales guy and a real cold-calling pro.
Having a script is great to make you feel more in control of your interaction and to help you handle the basic objections.
But you have to be able to deliver it like it’s spontaneous, if not you will just sound like a salesperson.
Who wants to talk to salespeople ? No-one.
So learn that stuff by heart, repeat it until it sounds genuine.
Here again practice is the key. Rehearse your script and you will be fine.
- Organise your tools and work environnement.
Always have a large number of prospect on your session’s calling list. You never know, sometimes half of them won’t answer and you don’t won’t to be breaking you’re flow to go and look for some more numbers because you just ran out of prospects.
Keep you environment tidy, clear it from any distraction.
Always have a pen and a notepad lying around.
You might want to clear some space to walk around, I enjoy moving while talking on the phone.
To conclude :
I wouldn’t be the (sales)person I am now if it wasn’t for cold calling.
Familiarising with rejection on a daily basis really helped me strengthened my character and refine my sales game.
I really recommend to every sales person to get on the phone and start cold calling. Not only is it a great sales tool but a great exercise to train yourself to face rejection. And we know how life is full of that.
