The Biggest Problem With Phone Prospecting Can Easily Be Overcome.
If you ever have to sit down for a session of phone calls you know how hard it is when you first begin. Experienced sales people who are great at closing will tell you that hitting the phones and making cold calls can be intimidating. The issue is usually 90% mental. It's like getting ready for an early morning run.
It's so easy to just prep and procrastinate. My best sale when I was working in Yellow Pages came on my one of my worst weeks in Yellow Pages. I couldn't get it together that week and we were told that if we didn't have a sale, we'd be working the phones the next day; every day until we set 10 appointments. The campaign was going into overtime and we were all worn out.
I was on my third day of phone calling and was extremely depressed. My supervisor, a pretty smart man came by and in front of everyone told me that we were all going to play video games that day. He never took his eyes off me or stopped smiling. It was 9 o'clock in the morning, the tension was thick.
He walked into his office with the expectation that we'd follow; so we followed. He fired up a game on his PC and began to play. As his fingers moved smoothly across the arrow keys and shot down the ships that attacked him. He talked about the object of the game. “In order to win this thing, I had to figure out the rhythm of the saucers at each level. The problem initially became clear, I had to warm up on the first few levels before I could get the timing down to hit the big boss.” he said as his fingers flew across the keys.
“My son told me that I shouldn't worry about these little saucers. They should be considered target practice.” My supervisor looked up at us and said the magic words that I'll never take for granted. “My son told me that nothing really cool happens until after the first 100 tries.” I wasn't the get the message right away but I got it. So did several others as we looked at each other knowingly. He saw that we understood the metaphor, and said with a smile “Well, what are you all waiting for, I've got a game to win. Go make your first hundred calls.
I've told this story loads of times at tele-seminars the inspiration of that story has never left me because it applies to so many situations. It illustrates the mental attitude of stamina. If you change your expectations to get through the initial barriers, you'll be able to last long enough to get to the goal. Whether its making it through the first 100 phone calls to get to appointments or closing a sale on the first call, the expectation needs to be one of tempered by the objective.
If you're running, you know that you've got to make it back home. The first objective is to make it to the turning point. If you're following up, you know that you'll need to get to at least five follow ups with a prospect before the relationship is valid and trust is engaged. If you try to rush the process in some cases because of pressure from your bosses, the results can be disastrous for the sales process.
So how do you get the most benefit from phone prospecting without going crazy? The secret is pacing. If you need to qualify a list of 500 suspects and secure 100 good prospects then from there secure 50 demonstrations to get 20 to 25 sales; the process might seem daunting.
When you know your averages and you've tempered your expectations with facts and figures, the best thing you can do is remind yourself of the averages. Before you start, remind yourself that the first 100 is your warm up. If you get a sale or an appointment during that practice session, call it a bonus. The best result comes from consistently going the distance. Set your sites on the goal.
Dennis Morales Francis is a small business coach and the author of “Double My Revenues In 12 Moths or Less” and "Push Button Profits! A 30 Day Program For Making $120,000 A Year On Auto Pilot" Head over to www.DoubleMyRevenues.com/money.html to get your FREE copy now before it's too late!
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