If in doubt, make the call.
It’s time to put to rest the belief that unless you know exactly what it is you want to say to a sales prospect, you should not call them.
The problem I have with this is that far too many people use it as an excuse to get them out of making sales prospecting calls. For many salespeople, the task they never get over is the task of making the call.
Now that I have many of you questioning me on what I’ve said, let me build on it with a couple more thoughts. In my training of thousands of salespeople the last 15 years, I’ve found that a majority of salespeople have a fear of making the prospecting call.
The fear then has a way of growing with each day and week. Once a salesperson begins thinking they don’t have the information necessary to make one call, then they start thinking the same thing on the next. Before you know it, they’ve allowed themselves to believe they’re not ready to make any calls, and then the disease of not calling really begins to kick in.
The salespeople who are great prospectors are never hesitant to pick up the phone and make a call. They don’t have the level of reluctance that many other salespeople have.
The best way I know to overcome this reluctance is by not allowing it to enter your mind in any manner. The way you train yourself to do that is by simply making the call regardless if you have the information or not.
It’s time now for me to put the big disclaimer out there. I know very well there are some industries where the prospecting pool is quite shallow and the sales process is quite complex and the ability to grab a prospect is extremely difficult.
I get it. I’ve been there, and yes, for those situations, you do have to have your act together and know what you’re going to say if you get voicemail or get them live. The reality is, though, that this category is far smaller than most people think. This is why I’m a huge proponent of telling salespeople — if in doubt, just make the call.
Copyright 2012, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.
One Response
I could not agree more. This is almost the distinguishing factor between the glass half full and half empty theory. The attitude you want to look for is the one of “I don’t care if I am calling the wrong person, they can point me in the right direction” or “I don’t care if they say no, as long as they say something” compared to “They would never meet with me” or “They are too big to buy from us” etc.
I cannot tell you how many times I have sent my sales team into meetings where it was a simple “stop by to drop off a card” visit which turned into a deal because they were in the right place at the right time or the prospects just decided to be kind to another human and talk to them face to face. As one of my top sales reps always says “It’s funny how lucky you get when you actually make cold calls”.
Just make the calls and good things will happen, guaranteed!