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Will Rogers, the famous Cowboy humorist from Oologah Oklahoma once said that strangers are just friends he had not yet met. This is the view of the Master Seller. The last post spoke about how we should see strangers as ourselves and not be intimidated or shy in their company. The hardest part of cold calling is getting over this fear of having the door slammed in your face. And indeed that may happen. But trust that most folks will treat you well. And the few times this happens is an opportunity to laugh at how silly people can be.
The Master Seller knows that with rejection comes opportunity. Being awake to this reality, brings a smile and acceptance.
See strangers as yourself.
Trust they will treat you as you would be treated.
Knock on the door
Pick up the phone
Seek rejection, and leads that come as consequence.
The Master Seller revels in meeting strangers,
The opportunities it may bring.
Yesterday spoke about how “looking good” is a barrier to picking up the phone and potentially embarrassing yourself in front of a stranger. This fear focuses your energy, not toward the task at hand, but at the self’s fear of humiliation.
Put yourself in a prospects shoes. How do you treat sales people when they call you? Are you patient, curt, distracted or sometime curious about what they say? Might not it be that these are the same possible outcomes could happen when you’re the caller? And with these outcomes do any of them have anything to do with embarrassing the seller? From the prospects point of view, the seller is an after thought. And in the case of your prospects, so are you. So why be embarrassed!
Make a list of possible outcomes that might occur when cold calling. Spend a day marking off which outcome happened at each of your sales calls. At the end of the day tally them up and awake to what in reality happens. Note how predictable the cold calls become and how any “yes” or “no” needn’t raise or lower the value your self esteem. Often the greatest barrier to success is yourself.
The Master Seller revels in meeting strangers and the opportunities it may bring.
Success is a dangerous as fear
Both generating shame and laughter,
The worry of looking stupid.
Success and fear are phantoms that arise from the self.
More concerned about how you look,
The seller stops looking.
Yesterday posting spoke about the fear of cold calling.
Sales cannot be won without leads. And often times its the seller who must cold call prospects to hunt for leads. Yet it’s the fear of rejection that slows or stops sellers from success. Awareness of this fear is the start of realizing that fear as no more than morning fog to be cleared as the sun rises.
Review yesterdays teaching and ask yourself:
Do you have a prepared list of prospects to meet or call each day?
Do you have a prepared greeting that explains your visit unapologetically with confidence?
Are you prepared for rejection and ready to accept it willingly?
Unless you answer yes to all of these, both your overt concern for success combined with the fear of failure will debilitate your ability to cold call successfully. For those questions you answered no, plan a way to answer the questions yes, and approach tomorrow with the new found confidence of a Master Seller.
Friend or stranger, all are just people,
Two sides of the same coin
Yet greeting a stranger,
Qualifying their needs
Asking for an opportunity
Is the sellers greatest fear.
When first learning sales
every day something is added.
In the practice of Master Selling
every day something is dropped.
Less and less do you need to force things,
until finally you arrive at the no close, close.
True mastery can be gained by listening,
and letting things go their own way.
When a deal is in harmony
It advances with ease and grace.
When a deal goes sideways
There is confusion and doubt.
The changing of the guard,
A block on funding
Or stakeholder grudge can create the Great Illusion called fear.
Like a filled cup,
You must empty your thoughts before refilling it.
Allowing for possibility not yet revealed.
People often fail at the verge of success,
Give as much care to the end, as to the beginning.
