One of the major problems with cold calling anybody is having the nerve to actually do it.

I have been a field trainer for more years than I care to remember and I have also been a field inquisitor on many occasions. For those who don’t know, a field inquisitor is a person who is introduced to a sales force as a ‘new guy’ who needs to learn the ropes so that he can be paired up with members who seem to be slipping behind in their results.

One of the most common problems for established salesmen, those who have a client base and have hit a comfort zone, is losing their confidence in cold calling. It might seem to be a bit strange that an established salesman could need to cold call but it happens more often than you might imagine. Clients sometimes die. Clients sometimes cannot be sold anything else. Clients sometimes run out of referrals. All of these things will lead to an inevitable erosion in the earning power of the salesman and reduce his value to the company.

One of the most common aspects of a (failing) established salesman is that they have lost their nerve where cold calling is concerned. Put them in front of a prospect on an appointment and you can’t fault them but if they can’t get that appointment in the first place, they are lost.

A typical scenario that I came across while ‘being shown’ how to cold call was that the salesman would say “I don’t have enough leads today so we will do some prospecting” and I would be shown some wonderful methods of prospecting.

A prospect is no good unless you talk to him! Over and over again I found that established salesmen never even tried to make appointments! Some would sit in their cars in nearby car parks and ‘work out’ what they were going to say. They would go into script writing in a big way and keep changing little bits as they practiced their latest version. THEY WOULD WASTE TIME BECAUSE THEY HAD LOST THEIR NERVE!

Far too many people feel that they have to launch into a soliloquy when they first speak to a prospect, they forget that what they are trying to do is ‘open a conversation’. The memorising of lengthy scripts is not necessary but it sure beats ‘knocking on the door’!

When you first speak to a prospect it is valuable to say as little as possible while trying to create interest.

“Hello. I’m Arthur and I would like to help you.”
“Hello. I’m Arthur, how can I help you?”
“Hello. I’m Arthur and I’d like to find out if I can help you. Is now OK or should I come back tomorrow?”

These are three simple conversation openers that seldom fail because:-
1 – they are short and to the point
2 – they do not make any sort of assumption or challenge
3 – they are unusual.

My own preference is to use the alternate close since I have found this significantly more effective but all of them work and none of them needs any sort of ‘rehearsal’.

The worst that can happen to you is that the prospect will refuse to talk to you in which case you simply say “Thank you” and walk out. You can go back another day and use the same approach – the prospect is still viable because you have told him nothing but probably roused his curiosity and made him think that maybe you aren’t a salesman after all. What salesman takes ‘No’ for an answer?

There is no need to fear cold calling nor is there any mystery about what to say.

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Tags: cold calling, comfort zone, prospects, salesmen, script writing