Marcus Cauchi: nobody likes cold calling.

Cultivate a positive prospecting culture or face extinction, Marcus Cauchi warns managers.

If Darwin were alive today, he would probably say that recession is Mother Economy’s way of weeding out those who cannot adapt. His advice: put yourself in danger of making some sales or face extinction.

Nobody likes cold calling. The cold hard truth, if you don’t cultivate a positive prospecting culture in your organisation, you could go the way of the Dodo. 

The recession has drubbed balance sheets. Dead certainties have fallen out the bottom of pipelines. Hot leads have evaporated into thin air. Dependable clients have stripped back their budgets, whilst others have gone to the wall.

If you aren’t up on last year by at least 20% you are exposed. Personal networks wearing thin, last favours cashed in and marketing departments struggling to connect with qualified prospects are all clues that what you are doing isn’t working. Procrastination kills companies. Cold calling is now essential.

Challenging

The challenge – most salespeople would rather drink a warm cup of sour milk than make a cold call. In terms of fear, cold calling ranks up there with public speaking and death. For many, it seems death is preferable.  Why else would so many salespeople moan when they have no prospects and expect a miracle to save them?
Interestingly, it is not the activity itself. Many of us could spend hours if not days on the phone. The real problem is what we believe. Mindset is critical to cold-calling success. What a salesperson believes subjectively is more important than what is objectively true.

Don’t go the way of the Dodo.

If they believe that they will be given a hard time by the prospect, they will inevitably be given a hard time. If they believe that no-one will buy from them, guess what, no-one will buy.  They will attract a delay or ‘think it over’, rather than a clear no – and certainly not a yes. 

Break the programming

Your job is to break the programming. Changing attitudes starts with a change in behaviour. You do something enough and your attitude towards that behaviour will change. Managers must set their teams cold-calling goals each day and ensure that they are being met. Start with a little and often, a few every day at first. Track these habits and hold your people to account if targets have been missed. 

Making calls is clearly not enough. They must bring in contracts.  However, as much as people dislike making cold calls, most of us are not particularly fanatical about getting them either. Here are five tried-and-tested tips that create a pressure-free call for both seller and buyer and deliver more customers.

1 Do the hard stuff first… and the rest of the week is a breeze

• When you avoid doing something you don’t want to do it affects your ability to do everything else.
• Do your calls in the morning.
• Phone early to get around gate-keepers.
• Give yourself a reward for making your calls.
• Track what works.

2 Never sound like a salesperson

• The best way to avoid being treated like a salesperson is to not act like one.
• Find out if the call has come at an inconvenient time.
• Appeal to the prospect’s nobler nature. Explain that you are as averse to making cold calls as they are to getting them.
• Ask permission to speak for 30 seconds and let the prospect know that they can end the call afterwards if they don’t find what you say of interest.

3 Never sound like the competition

• Don’t push features and benefits. It’s what everybody else sells and prospects don’t buy them.  Find out what the prospect needs.
• Deliver a 30-second commercial that highlights the problems that your product or service helps overcome.
• If they see a fit, contract for 2 more minutes.  Ask and get permission to talk further.  Always ask for permission.
• If they don’t, you are probably wasting your time and theirs. Move onto the next call.
• Remember there are loads of sick puppies out there that need your help.  Some will buy, some won’t buy, so what… onto the next!

4 Qualify hard and close easy

• Be careful who you engage with.  History has taught me a valuable lesson, the more positive the prospect, the more unlikely the close;
• Ask great questions to help them discover the cause of their pain. The more painful the problems uncovered the quicker the close and the bigger the fee
• Challenge the prospect to explain why they need your help
• Do not commit to doing anything unless you know why you are doing it. Your time is precious.  Do not get involved in pitches, proposals and tenders unless there is a clear positive future between you and the prospect
• All prospects lie.  Find the truth.  Remember prospects know that you can lie to a salesperson and still go to heaven

5 Always give the prospect a way out

• Avoid feeling under pressure, don’t apply any.
• Find out regularly if the prospect wants to continue the call.
• When you get a meeting, give the prospect an opportunity to get out of it before the end of the call to eliminate cancellations and no shows. Some people agree to a meeting just to get you off the phone.

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