Dealing with Cold Calling Angst

How do you get over the fear of cold calling?  If you're tired of that pit-in-the-stomach feeling of dread that overtakes you every time you sit down by the phone, here are a couple suggestions that may help you:

Research your targeted firms prior to making a call.
Having some knowledge about the company, their direction and challenges grounds you and gives you a context for the positioning your product/service offering.

Craft several customer-enticing messages.
Use the guidelines in my Selling to Big Companies book to establish credibility, pique curiosity and close with confidence. Create a script, say it out loud, rewrite it so it sounds normal and not salesy. Make sure it focuses on the difference you can make - not your product/service.

Practice what you'll say. Revise & redo.
Call yourself on your own voicemail. Listen as if you were the customer. See if you'd delete yourself. If so, revise it again. Then practice on your friends or colleagues. Get their feedback. Would they delete you? If so, when?

Role play what to say when you reach a decision maker. Figure out your common stumbling blocks and think of new approaches that would lead to different outcomes. Plan how you'll pass the "Tell me more" test.

Personally, I try to look at it as a challenge. I chose not to see my dead-end calls as failures. Instead, they are simply challenges to be overcome. I'm always searching for ways to be more effective.

Finally, do it despite your fear. I don't know many people who love cold calling. Over time, you'll do less of it because you acquire a customer base, but at the beginning it's tough.

I used to sit in my car for 1/2 hour before making live cold calls on customers. It sometimes took me forever to pick up the phone - or so it seemed. Yet I did it anyway, cause it needed to be done. And it does get easier, but it takes time.

Comments

[Shama Hyder]

We haven't had to do any cold calling yet Jill. We get all our clients through our blog. But if I ever had to-I know I would follow these rules! = )

[Steve Kayser]

I like your writing style, blog layout and design. Nice to see easy-to-understand and use content. How is your book doing? I publish an award-winning B2B E-zine with 135,000 subscribers. I'm always looking for great content -- particularly in the B2B Complex Sales environment. I publish every two weeks -

Best -- Steve Kayser.

PS. Do you know Nettie Hartsock? She's

[Steve Kayser]

PS -- Continued _ HAHAHHAHA - forgot to finish it before I sent Send. Nettie Hartsock is a veteran e-journalist that interviews B2B authors and does a nice job writing reviews. I thopught you might know her based upon some of your links.