Turn Cold Calling Into Hot Prospecting

After spending 20 years working in sales and a good proportion of that in new business sales, I can tell you that a lot of seasoned sales people hate to prospect. It can be time consuming, laborious, boring and very often damaging to the ego.

The real question though is; is it difficult? My answer to that is an emphatic, no. It can appear difficult if you do not really know what you are doing or have no plan to follow or if your definition of difficult is something that may entail rejection but we are not talking about explaining Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle here.

The first thing you need to do when setting up a prospect session is have the right attitude. Many times I have seen seasoned sales people start off hunched up over the phone expecting defeat and feeling miserable. Then when the first couple of calls go badly they will cheerfully announce that they were right after all and that this it is waste of time. Brilliant!

So it is crucial before you start to have a positive mindset and a PLAN!

Probably the biggest clich in cold calling is that it is a numbers game. It is also very true, the more calls you make the more success you are likely to have but you have to follow a plan because without it you will be beaten before you start. So here we go, with the 10 tips to tremendous prospecting.

1. Have good material. Do not sit down with a Yellow Pages in front of you dialing number after number. Find as much information about your target company and the person you need to speak to beforehand. Calls that start, Can I speak to the person that arranges your training please? are doomed to failure. A call that starts Can I speak to Bob in HR please its Tim from A Daring Adventure is infinitely more likely to get passed a gatekeeper. If they ask you what it is about tell them it is of a personal nature. A fib? Well not really, it should be very personal when you are talking about coaching.

2. Block out time. Do not attempt to hit the phones for 5 hours non-stop. Take breaks at least hourly. Have a walk round, get a drink, boil an egg, anything that breaks your state. Then just before you sit back down, focus on how many calls you want to make in the next hour or however long and just do it.

3. Keep stats. These can be important as you do more prospecting as you will get an idea of how many calls you need to make to get an appointment. It can also encourage you to beat your own personal best each time. Stats can prove to be highly effective. Of course as you fine tune your skills your conversion rate will increase exponentially.

4. Get comfortable. Some people prefer to make calls stood up or even walking around whereas other prefer the more traditional way. Whichever you are most comfortable with is fine as long as you come across as enthusiastic and awake!

5. Forget about rejection. The person that just yelled at you has probably had a bad day. The cat could have been run over by a dustbin lorry or they could have just spilled a cup of coffee in their lap or maybe they were just diagnosed with Green Monkey disease. I dont know and neither do you, so thank them for their time and move on to that next juicy prospect that is just bound to say yes please

6. Have a script. Every successful sales person I know uses a script be it written down or in their head. Know exactly what that first 20 or 30 second pitch is going to be and make sure that speech is relevant and demonstrates benefits of your service without giving chapter and verse. Conversations that start off ah and er usually end up in a speedy good and bye.

7. Check they are free to talk. You may have been passed through inadvertently to somebody that is in the middle of drawing up plans to conquer the world by a week on Friday. So simply ask are you free to speak for 2 minutes Bob about something that is going to help you and your business be more efficient and profitable? If Bob says no hes got the world-conquering thing to finish ask for a time that would be more convenient.

8. Do no try and sell! This is very important; Telephones are for making appointments not selling. Give the reasons why you should meet and then assume the meeting.

9. This is a skill. Skills need fine-tuning and practice, do not expect immediate success. Even Tiger Woods needs to practice, and so do you.

10. Enjoy yourself. Remember, this isnt life or death, its a few phone calls, a few opportunities to chat to interesting people and most importantly, a chance to make some friends, some lovely money and feel wanted again.

One final thing. If you wait until you need customers before you start to prospect you are already in trouble. You should be filling your pipeline as a mater of course because this is a process that takes time and nobody likes talking to a desperate sales person.

Tim Brownson is a UK Qualified Personal & Business now living coach in Florida. He has 20 years experience in sales, advertising and customer service. He is an NLP Master Practitioner and Hypnotherpist and specializes in one-to-one coaching to improve business performance and help advance careers. He welcomes feedback at http://www.adaringadventure.com

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