I was speaking at a business group of local companies, mostly owners. They told me that they needed more sales and more activity and their sales people were not doing it. They were not effective and not doing enough of it. He was tired of hearing that these salespeople said it was very hard and theywere not able to get enough meetings using cold calling. I said it was difficult. There’s nothing easy about cold calling. There’s nothing easy about cold calling if it is done 5 hours a day but it can consistently make a good amount of money. But to level the playing field, I suggested that we have conversations based on tangible value and expertise. That will help the salespeople with confidence and effectiveness. That the reason they were hesitating is because of a human tenet, they were afraid of fear of rejection and fear of failure.
The business owners, with a strange look, said “what is this about psychology and not just dialing the phone”? I proceeded to tell them why does one athlete become a champion over another?Determination? Talent? Is it skill? Often, especially in business, fear of rejection and failure is not recognized as a problem. But I suggested, together we would work as a team and help them to overcome this, and go forward in a more productive way.
As we chatted further, we started discussing other causes to the lack of cold calling problem (free “gifts of Knowledge”). It was brought up that perhaps it manifested itself in present day impediments to selling and prospecting. One idea was the vast numbers of distractions and how can we help eliminate some of them.
We started to “see” two monitors on their desks, there’s email, there’s the web for research, there’s the phone, there’s the iPhone for business, iPhone for personal,, there’s the CRM, the Web systems for expenses and commissions, there’s the travel systems, there’s the sales portal, there’s demo scheduling, there’s proposal rules with legal, security and pricing, etc.
So I said to the group, let’s try an experiment. Let’s create a step by step program to make them prospect better and generate more appointments, and be positive about it. Let’s create a couple of prospecting areas to sit at which they have none of the distractions, except for a telephone and a single computer screen, along with a pad and a paper. Just to create an air of listening to the prospect and focusing better.
The experiment showed promising results. It did produce a little more productivity, regarding cold calling and prospecting. But we also saw a little more enthusiasm in regarding to contacts new prospects. The added focus served the group well. The somewhat isolated environment actually diminished the fear of failure and rejection a little. The Reps were more focused, and in essence, more secure.
What do you do next? Send us an email and we’ll arrange for you to speak with Ed to chat about how these learnings can help build more sales just for your business.