Cold calling sucks

Cold callings sucks

So don’t do it! I have been in sales since I was young. I sold stickers at school when I was 8 and the nuns at my private school made me donate the money to the church. My parents agreed with them and my sticker sales in elementary school came to a halt.

The reason I did so well and had kids lining up to get stickers from me was because I decorated my folders and showed them  off to my immediate market, I built a buzz in the playground. I also made it a point  to promoted the daylights out of my stickers and made sure I gave more value for the quarter I was charging.  It worked.

It started with a few sales and me having to cold call on my peers but from that point it was relatively easy. Fast forward 30 years and here we are. Promoting and giving more value to my clients than what they pay for.

I stopped cold calling because it is painful. There was a point in my early professional sales career that I made myself love cold calling. Today, I use tools that help me learn about my clients before I call them and we have done a good job at Pritzer setting up our website and landing pages to increase our search engine visibility.

Here are a few things you can do to minimize the pain of having to cold call and instead make a connection and increase your warm prospect base.

Social Media
There is no reason why you should “cold” call anyone. With the explosion of social media sites we can learn all we need to know about our prospects and their companies. Use Facebook and LinkedIn to become familiar with the company and the person you plan on calling.

Visit their website
Visit their website and see what they are all about. What do they do? Who is their ideal client? How long have they been in business? In what part of the country is their company located?

Make them call you
I know this post is about how cold calling sucks so I want to talk about ways of getting potential clients to call you. This process will not make your phone ring immediately (exceptions is using paid ads – paid ads may give you fast results but that’s for another post). By setting up an effective online marketing campaign or local online marketing campaign, you will able to target your perrfect client. If you keep appearing in front of them when they type in specific search terms the likelihood of them contacting you increases tremendously.

This takes more effort and it takes time to establish. How long it will take will come down to who manages your local online marketing and how good of a job was done setting up your website and niche specific landing pages.

Promote the daylights out of your service/products
I decorated my folder and showed it off and kids wanted to do the same thing. Promote your business any chance you get. Wrap your trucks, hand out t shirts or hire sign spinners. However you do it…DO IT. Promote, promote,PROMOTE.

Ask for referrals
A large percentage of my client base comes from referrals. Asking for referrals can be difficult to do but if you are proud of your work/service/product it makes sense. You will be amazed how much people want to help especially if they like you. If you don’t ask, you will not know.

Unfortunately there is no magic sauce to never having to make initial contact and yes, cold calling sucks. Although if you set up your website and landing pages correctly and provide great content potential clients will be calling you. Until that happens make it a point to get to know your prospects BEFORE you pick up the phone to call them.

Good Selling

Byron

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