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Business Development Consultancy |
| Accelerating sales growth |
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Cold Calling Comfort
Joint research by small business portal startups.co.uk and sales coaching company Pro Excellence has found that cold calling and prospecting are the main challenges for small to medium businesses when it comes to sales.
When asked 'what is your greatest challenge in sales?' 40% of responders chose cold calling and prospecting. So, why should this be? And, more importantly, what can be done to make these calls less daunting? It seems that many sales people who are successful at generating sales from existing clients are reluctant to make calls to generate business with new clients. The root of this reluctance is often more to do with individual attitudes and beliefs about the product or service, how they prepare for the calls, how they manage the responses.
Richard White, managing director of Pro Excellence says: 'We normally find that sales people who are reluctant to make sales calls become more confident once they are better prepared for the responses they are likely to get. We ask them to list the ten most feared responses and then we work together to develop standard responses which will become automatic. Anyone making regular calls will realise that the same responses come up again and again. We also encourage clients to focus on learning from their mistakes and failures so that each call they make becomes more effective.'
Although very personal, typical regulars on list of the ten10 most feared responses are:
1. We are happy with our existing supplier
2. I'm in the middle of something, can you call back?
3. Send me some information about your company/product
4. I am not the right person to speak to
5. Can you drop me an email
6. We are not spending any money at the moment
7. How did you get through to me
8. Voice mail
9. Secretary - Can I take a message?
10. What can you offer me that my current supplier does not?
When the individual lists the responses and begins to decide how they would best respond to them they find that it becomes less daunting. There is a realisation that the same responses actually come up repeatedly and, with a little preparation, it' not difficult to use them to move things forward.
Sales is a wonderful profession for personal development - to improve performance you are always pushing at the boundaries of the comfort zone. To succeed at higher levels is not just a matter of technique; you need to be able to control your thinking.
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