Someone convince me to cold call

Both cold calling and "cold visiting" are effective, but it's just that you have more reach (nationwide) when you're doing cold calling and you don't waste gas, time and effort going from door to door talking to prospects.

The drawback, of course, is that the closing rate is much lower (versus cold visiting). Also, it's a lot easier to take rejection over the phone than in person - "cold visiting" is definitely for people who have a thick skin and aren't afraid of rejection in person.

Paul

I really do know what that is like, and the whole topic is actually more complex than most people think it is; at least when you analyze the finer points. When you just act, then the details are fairly simple.

I have noticed in just about any kind of "method" of dealing with human behavior you can give advice like "be cocky" and that goes off in about a hundred different ways and many of them totally off center.

So, first of all, yeah it sucks to be rejected but you really have to consider a fundamental thing here; are you being REACTIVE? What that means to me, and it can be taken several ways, is that you tend to throw something out in front of people and wait to see how they react and then you react etc. Waiting for others to react in order to tell how you ought to react is not going to help you at all. You can think of it as being pro-active, or responsive; in other words respond to the world don't react to it.

If you have an expectation of either a sale or a rejection, then it is pretty likely that your expectations of failure will be qualified over and over. Think about it like this - if all you expected to get out of a cold call walk in was a business card; how many of those do you think you could get?

That is a reaction, and its a pretty easy thing to do. If you visited 20 places, I bet you could get 20 cards without a hitch.

So, out of those how many times do you think you could find the correct decision maker? I would bet at least half - many times there is no one with title of "web buyer" or such, they are often not there or too busy.

So, how many times do you think you would get a chance to talk with someone that makes purchasing decisions for at least ten minutes? Probably at least 5 times, and more than three wears me out a little. Those kind of meetings can turn into a half hour long talk. However, all you want to expect is about ten minutes regardless. You have to know who they are and have them at least know who you are; really nothing more than that.

Just getting to know exactly what they do, where they are and what kind of attitude you feel at their workplace is worth gold. As far as knowing your territory you would have accomplished a ton right here. I have done that, then gone back to referral meetings and found out more about a company with that information, then re-approached with an attitude that "I know I can help you out, because I know a lot about your company now".

BUT - at least three of those, if you get a sit in the office, you have your chance to say all sorts of things, and go for a close. People don't just impulse buy for the most part, so if you are closing right on the spot, that is fine but not my favorite client in my opinion.

Also, if you are hearing no and having a conversation about why not, and not now and all that; it's a lot better than no conversation at all. Again, people that say yes right off the bat make me a little concerned. If you were to walk into a used car lot and tell the salesman, "I want to buy that car for only $1000" and then all you got back was "Sure, here ya go THANKS!"; do you think you might later feel like you maybe paid too much? Actually you may never know, but it would feel weird "Would he have been so quick to react on $500" and then you think maybe you got screwed a little. So, its great to get a final close on a walk in, but if you did it without really knowing the deal first, I would be concerned more about that than getting a no.

So, basically - are you really thinking this out or are you just throwing something in front of them and hoping they will react the way you imagined it? Set your expectations a little high, but make sure you are not overwhelming yourself with them too high or else you are going to have a hard time keeping up your vision and your actions. That disconnect between expectations and your daily actions is primarily the thing that is causing anxiety in your calls. A seasoned salesman, can run around KNOWING that there calls will have a certain return, because they have a ton of time testing out their whole system. If you are just starting out to one level or another, I would just set goals of meeting people and building a list of solid contacts (actually the sales will come along with that if you just relax a bit).

One last thing, the classic "numbers game" is like 1/20 or 1/12 for starters. This is just a rule of thumb, but you call on 20 people and you are going to make one sale, just as long as you are making the effort. So, for every NO you get, you can be assured that you are one step closer to that sale. If you talk to 20 people, and nothing, its still in there; just means that you are probably going to make 2 sales before you reach your 40th contact. Again, this is just a mental game in your head. However, if you can contact 80 people in a week, then you ought to make 3-4 sales, and also your sales effort will get cleaner as you talk with more prospects.