How many of you Do telemarketing...The Dreaded Cold Calling?

I no longer cold call, because I'm not actively seeking new clients. But there are two basic ways to get over the nervousness and rejection:

1. Just pick up the phone and call. Don't think about it, just do it.

2. When you're not successful, don't take it personally. Remember, the person on the other end of the phone doesn't know you, and can't see you.

David Jackson

Those are to do with how you go about your business.

The only reason to be nervous or worry about rejection is if you're not confident in what you're doing.

People seem to think that cold calling means telephoning random strangers and trying to talk them into buying something you're selling.

If that's the case - you can rightly be nervous and concerned about rejection.

If you put some time in to finding the right people to call and are offering them something they already want in a helpful and subtle way - there's nothing to fear. Most people will thank you for calling, many will want what you have and those that don't will not feel bad that you called.

If you're having to struggle with opposition or resistance you probably are either calling the wrong people or saying the wrong thing.

It doesn't have to be this scary thing that will usually be negative like many people make it out to be.

You are in control of how you do it.

Much like dating - if you're afraid of rejection and nervous about girls - you probably won't approach many and if you do you'll probably sound stupid.

Someone else who is confident and likes to challenge whatever the result can do the same thing, get much better results and enjoy the process.

If you're nervous and don't like rejection - don't cold call strangers.

In my business work in the past I have cold called both household consumers and businesses. I was never selling anything over the phone. My job was to get myself leads to go out on and then sell someone.

To get over nervousness, honestly...It's not easy at first. I remember just sitting and looking at the phone dreading it. Naturally, you're cold calling to make money but what I would do to break this is tell myself the first 3-5 calls are throw aways. Meaning I would just tell myself that my goal is not to make an appointment but just to get on the phone and say my message. If they said "no", it didn't bother me because I had no expectations, I was expecting to hear that response.

After just a few no's, I was ready to go. Now that I have been rejected it wasn't so scary. Now I could focus on trying to get the lead this time.

I did this as well with door knocking. I would just tell myself, lets just get a few people to say no or shut the door and I'm ready to go. The problem is when we do cold calling, you're looking for results and when people reject you right at the start, you get discouraged and think this isn't going to work.

Just keep in mind that they're not rejecting you, they're rejecting the offer.

I will say this, I have called both businesses and consumers and consumers were a lot rougher.

Hope this helps,
Brad

I agree, the first phone call could be a missed opportunity. But if you can't get yourself to pick of the phone because of nervousness and fear, how you going to make sales?

I never went in with a defeatist attitude. I just wanted to get my feet wet. I found this has worked best for me and others. You don't go in with the attitude that you're not going to make it. Some people are scared to death of rejection. Why do you think there's so many courses out there on how to pick up women?

That's why even dating gurus will recommend to just go out there and do it, after a few no's, your anxiety goes down and you realize there's nothing to fear. That's when you step up your game.

Some people are just natural with cold calling. I did cold calling to bring myself in leads. I also had telemarketers that brought in leads for me as well. I just got paid more on my own generated leads.

I became very good friends with a lot of these telemarketers. Some of them never got nervous, they would probably call the president if you asked them. Then there were others that were like me when they first started. They just needed to break the ice. Not everyone out there can just pick up the phone and hit the floor running without the anxiety holding them back.

traditional cold calling "the hard sell" is not a good idea and doesn't even sound like something I would ever do...

although the friendly approach, sharing good information and talking to people who are actually interested is a great way to close more sales... you want them to show interest 1st

First off, I didn't run a telemarketing firm. Also the telemarketers didn't set leads for anyone else outside the company. I worked for a security company on contract bases where I would run the leads for them. They hired telemarketers that would set leads for me and a few others.

I got to know the telemarketers personally because I ran their leads. Trust me, I understand performance because I'm the one that went out to face-to-face customers 14 hours a day and met with their leads. Some were just crap. And those people who set crap weren't in the company more than 3 days.

It's not about quantity, it's about quality of the leads. I would tell them I would rather run 3 of their leads then run 10 crappy pushed leads.

You keep pushing the point of performance, and getting out there and doing it. That was the point of my post. Not to advise someone to give up or not perform but to get them to be able to pick up the phone.

Everyone has their own way of getting out there and getting on the phone. It sounds like you didn't have a problem doing it. Obviously, there's people out there that are paralyzed from fear to pick up the phone. My tip was based for people in this situation. Again, if you can't get yourself to pick up the phone, then sales and performance doesn't matter.

I've never done true cold calling, but I have done follow up calls for sales inquiries. Cold calling to me seems like it would have a very low return on investment, and be downright unprofitable.

i have never called people's homes. I have always made calls as one small business owner reaching out to another small business owner (who's products/services compliment my own). By the time i get them on the phone i already know who i need to talk to and at least a little bit about their business, and i do my best to make it seem as if I hand picked their business as the one i wanted to contact. i also make sure to give them a chance to tell me something about their business as most owners get excited about what they do (and love that i sound interested). then i tell them about what i do, and how working together would turn out to be a win-win for both of us. by this time we are usually talking as if we were friends and i proceed to make an appointment, follow up, send sample, etc.. for me (most of the time) the call would either flow just like this or it would end some time prematurely. Rarely, would the outcome be anything other than one of these two.

very far from the typical time-share salesman cold call some of you guys picture in your mind. cold calls can actually pretty warm if done right.

This reminds me of a time, years ago, when I worked for a software reseller. This company was small (50-60 employees), but catered to a very specific (and important) demographic which gave us control of a very valuable market share. Most vendors realized this and did everything in the power to get us selling their products. Despite our success however, we were never able to sell Apple products (e.g., Final Cut Pro). For years, we tried to get a contract with Apple, but were always turned down for one reason or another.

One day, in a meeting, our CEO was talking with our newest salesman (a young and ambious, fresh out of college type) about the situation. The conversation was something like this

"Why can't we sell Apple"
"It's alwasy this or that but they will never approve us"
"that doesnt make sense, they should want our business. Who are we talking to over there?"
"We have had a number of contacts over the years"
"why don't we talk to steve jobs directly?"
"hahahaha, yeah good idea...."

Of course this wans't taken seriously by anyone. Then, about 2 hours after the meeting the saleman walks in the CEO's office and says

"OK, we got the Apple contract."
"WHATT!! How did you do that?"
"I called Steve Jobs and talked to him about it."
"You did what?"
"Yes, I explained who I was, and why I was calling and he was very receptive. After a few mins of talking, he agreed that it was silly that we were not doing business already."

Needless to say everyone was impressed witht the initiative (it is not even the sales department's job to talk to vendors). The most impressive part was that he didn't skip a beat and he was not nervous about it. He didn'seem to understand why everyone was so impressed by the task. He told me it just felt like the easiest way to solve the problem.

Most people would be shaking in fear if i tried to make them "cold call" some big name like Steve Jobs. talking to this guy you wouldn't even think of it as a cold call.

since that day, i have had a whole new persepctive on b2b cold calls. they are really nothing to be scared of.

Holla,

Giving or Getting a Call, but if that is a cold call, then I possibly don't want to receive it.

People giving cold calls just make fun sometimes by giving wrong info about the product or service offered by their enterprise. There must be some new idea to be forwarded by them so that the receiver must appreciate what actually is about to be offered.

aanderson,

Great story about the Steve Jobs phone call!

I have to agree with what John said earlier:

I've always thought one of the reasons so many people are nervous about cold calling in general is that they look at what the phone call can potentially mean to them in dollars.

Will

Cold calling is a numbers game. You need to know how many calls it takes to get a sale, lead or whatever it is you are trying to accomplish. Let's say it's 10 calls to get a lead. You now know that if you want 10 leads you have to make 100 calls. Keep track of your calls and every time some one turns you down say "thank you" as you're now one call closer to your lead!
Another tip: don't say "This is John Smith calling from XYZ", say "It's John from XYZ"

Yes, the money in telemarketing is not doing the calling yourself. You'll want to hire telemarketers to do the work for you.

Think about it. Sending an email to a list of 110,000 subscribers takes 10 minutes. In that time, you will only be able to make what, 2 or 3 likely unsuccessful calls?

Start small. Hire a small telemarketing salesforce and keep track of the numbers - average number of calls per telemarketer per day, average call time, average revenue per call, percentage of orders for every 100 sales calls etc.

Fabian

I worked for a publishing company as a sales exec and part of the job was obtaining advertisers for various magazines under my name. If done correctly, cold calling is fantastic, I did it for 4 years and after that quit my job, travelled for a year then started working online where I am currently thanks to the various contacts I have made.

You need to find the best approach that works for yu when cold calling, I never use to promote the magazines with new customers, simply asked the client 10 questions, by the time I reached question 6 I already closed the deal.

By questions I mean:
You - What does your current copier (for arguments sake) do for you?
Client- It prints XYZ
You - Only XYZ and not ABC as well oh I see, would you like a copier that prints ABC and XYZ for the same price?

You get the idea, ask the client questions that makes the client question his current place of where spends his money. Its a mind game, and once you master that, the numbers game falls out the window.

ps. In addition to the answer above... I used to fire telemarketers all the time in their secon d or 3rd day... because they werent keeping up with the rest of the crew...

But you know something funny... even though they werent making 5-6 sales a day... they still managed to make 2 or 3 before getting let go of... just by accident.... even though their pitch sounded like crap, or like they were chewing on a cow tongue or something....

How much is 2 or 3 sales worth to you even if you think you are a worse telemarketer than the guys who got fired?

To them it was only worth 8 bucks an hour for 3 days... $150 bucks after taxes, maybe $180...

What do YOU make on a sale? Probably twice that much just for ONE sale or even 10 times that much...

Im telling you, anyone who really wants business can do this, and get sales even if they suck so bad that most call centers would fire them!

Mistake people make with cold calling is their presentation is about them which does not excite the prospect in anyway .

If you want to make cold calls easy then ask questions, be a problem solver not just some stranger who preaches at them.

Uncover their concerns, motivations and dreams by knowing these you can position yourself as a solution provider, after that getting them to take action is easy.

Roger

Humbledmarket,

I would highly recommend John Durhams WSO on cold calling. I was lucky enough to get a review copy and it is chock full of down to earth no non-sense tactics for picking up the phone and making the sale. There are many other reviews on the thread which you can read here http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...-one-year.html

This is an unsolicited endorsement of Johns Report, I believe those of you who would like to take the proverbial "bull by the horns" would be taking a big step in the right direction by checking John's report out.

Regards,

Steve