Getting Over Your Fear of Cold Calling

Just Do It!

We’re not being cheeky; the number one reason for lack of appointments is lack of action taken, lack of effort. It’s something most reps don’t like to do, so they find any number of reasons not to do it.

A sales manager at wireless company captured it very well when he said “there is always a battery that needs to be driven across town just when its time to prospect”. Sometime the greatest creativity shown by sales people is demonstrated in the way in which they avoid making the appointment setting calls.

But as with any professional endeavor, there will be necessary aspect of the drill that are not meant to be fun, yet those who excel understand that they have to incorporate it into their game. The best way to minimize the grief is to improve your skills, master it and thereby have to spend less time at it while still achieving the levels required to be consistently successful.

The accepted wisdom is that reps do not like to cold call for fear of rejection. Strange because most reps have a closing to initial meeting ratio that is very much in line with their contact to appointment ratio, that is leads to prospect conversion; generally around one in four or five. Yet you never hear reps say they are afraid to engage with prospects or submit proposals because they may get rejected.

So why then when it comes to finding prospects? That’s a whole other posting. Simply, when it come to proposals, once all is said and done, just as they should with prospecting, they just do it!

Part 5 of the SalesMarks Sales Guide: 5 Ways to Get More Sales Appointments