But this needn't be the case for you…
While cold calling may seem like a job that never gets easier, the truth is that you can change your approach to these calls right now and immediately start seeing the results.
Why should you change your approach to cold calling?
The answer to this is simple: Cold calling is one of our main ways of bringing in new customers, and even if we don't convert these prospects to customers we've still beaten our competition to the punch.
Cold calls are a way for us to start fresh relationships with clients (free of history) and they open the doors to countless possibilities and opportunities.
How do you change your approach to cold calling?
It can be difficult to disregard your past experience with cold calls at first. You've faced irritation from prospects whose time is becoming increasingly limited, the demotivation of continual rejection, and the feeling of unpreparedness throughout the whole process.
This is not how cold calling should be. Instead these calls should be informative, professional, respectful, honest and straightforward. The point of cold calling shouldn't be specifically to make a sale, but rather to open a dialogue between yourself (representing the company) and the prospective client, and perhaps, at the prospect's discretion, schedule a meeting where your company's offerings can be looked over in more detail.
Your approach to cold calls should be to educate your prospective clients and generate an interest from them in your company's products or services. This means you have to be fully prepared to answer any questions they may have, including why you have specifically contacted them.
Preparing for a cold call means establishing the correct person to whom you should speak, preparing your company introduction, any questions you may want to ask (as a salesperson you should always be asking questions…), and anticipate and prepare answers for any questions the prospect may have for you.
Once you get into the habit of fully preparing for your cold calls, understand that they hold real value and really become excited about this, making these calls starts to become much easier and your success rate (of making meaningful contact with prospects) will naturally start to increase.
Staff Training is presenting sales training on 29 October in Durban. Email info@StaffTraining.co.za for more information or click here to view dates for this workshop in other cities.