I’m going to show you how to overcome your fear of cold calling and stop acting like a little six- year old Susie (that little bitch).
Cold calling is a double-edged sword. It’s extremely important to drive and control sales, but it makes salespeople freak out like crazy. They come up with all sorts of excuses as to why RIGHT NOW isn’t the time to pick up the fucking phone and get prospects on the line.
And the single most important reason they avoid calling?
The fear of rejection.
That’s it. Nothing else. Think about it for a second. If all prospects were nice and funny, would it be that scary to call them? Would you still feel anxious?
Of course not!
So, let’s get this fixed right away so you can make some calls (and some cash) today.[#Z]
All throughout my career, I encountered salespeople who had cold calling anxiety. They came in all shapes and sizes: young and old; male and female; skinny and buff; huge breasts and skinny little fuckers; senior and junior levels…
Yes, I know a ton (emphasis on A TON) of senior salespeople that would literally shit themselves when they got on the phone to call a prospect. Ring rust isn’t only in combat sports.
So, I want to share a story with you. It was during my time at Liberty Global (one of the world’s biggest internet service providers). As an outbound manager, I was responsible for multiple call centers within Europe. At one center in Zurich, Switzerland, we had to re-hire 50% of the team (a team usually consisted of 30 agents).
Normally, you’d always have three to five inexperienced new hires, but that wasn’t a challenge. All you had to do was have them shadow a veteran and monitor how he makes calls. Then, after a week of this, the new guy makes his own calls.
But it’s a whole other situation when more than half of the team is inexperienced — and you still have to keep the sales coming. I couldn’t just give these guys a script and let them do their calls — they’d piss themselves. And, honestly, I had no intention of working in an open office with that kind of “aroma”.
Instead of all that, I created a fun challenge. Everyone was split into teams of three. The objective: Fail as hard as possible during the cold calls.
I gave them some ideas, like to talk to the prospect with a high-pitched voice. Or to talk super slow and stutter. It was mad fun!
They were allowed (hell, commanded) to suck.
And they did.
They were forced to deal with rejection after rejection — but they had a blast coping with it.
After lunch I told them to switch. Grab their scripts and try to close some deals instead of failing them. They transitioned from total sissies to fucking animals! They were on fire![#Z]
Here’s what you can do: Get some co-workers and create a funny fail challenge
As I explained in the example above, take one to five fellow sales guys and see who can fail the hardest. Act like children, but still try to sell.
You can…
- Speak extremely slowly
- Speak in a high-pitched voice
- Stutter (d-d-d-does this s-s-sound i-i-interesting t-to you?)
- Integrate movie quotes (You: “I know that you’re not interested sir, but as Ezekiel would say, ‘The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of the evil man, Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness.’ You know what I mean?”)
The movie quote is still something I challenge my buddies with.
Create a list of everything that could go wrong
Brainstorm and write it all down. Once you’re finished, think about what the consequences could be. How would it affect your life?
Example: A prospect could say, “I’m not interested”. Now what? How would this affect your life?
Set a goal of calls made — not number of meetings scheduled or number of deals closed
Commit to this number and follow through.
Create a list of the objections you fear the most
And then come up with ways to handle these objections. If you need to, ask people on Quora, Reddit, or hit up Google. If all else fails, ask a friend or co-worker.
Get a really good cold calling script
Not sure where to find one? I’ve got you covered. Mine is free for subscribers and it is really, really, really strong because it will get your target person interested in your call within the first five seconds of the call without letting you sound like a random, needy salesperson.
