Ten Ways to Make Cold Calling Easy

Many sales professionals dread cold calling. And that dread, unfortunately, makes them ineffective when they pick up the phone to make the calls. If you're not careful, you can end up in a cycle, where your fear of cold calling creates more failure, making you hate it even more.

It needn't be that way. Fear (or hate) of cold calling is a very solvable problem, according to Wendy Weiss (aka "The Queen of Cold Calling"). When I spoke with her last year about this subject, she suggested the ten ways to overcome the fear of cold calling. They're adapted her book Cold Calling for Women, but they're useful for everyone who cold calls:

1. Make some phone calls. The fear that you're creating for yourself is far worse than the reality of cold calling so overcome fear by doing.
2. Make a lot of phone calls. The more calls you make, the more success you will have and the less you'll notice the ones that don't work out.
3. Prepare. Know the goal, what you want to say, how you want to say it and how you want to represent yourself, your company, and your offering.
4. Practice. Practice your cold calling conversation out loud and role-play with friends or colleagues. Then focus on your prospect rather than your fear.
5. Start easy. Begin with your less important leads. Once you feel more comfortable, start working on the more important leads.
6. Stay calm. If a prospect is rude, remember that they're probably just be having a bad day and then move on. Don't take it personal.
7. Don't project. Your priorities and your prospect's priorities are different. Don't read negative meaning into early conversations with your prospect.
8. Keep your perspective. Some things are out of your control. But what is within your control is continuing to prospect and continuing to make calls.
9. Make it a Game. Give yourself 1 point for every "no" answer, when you reach 100, give yourself a prize. (If a prospect says "yes," that's a bonus!)
10. Have fun. The fate of the world does not rest on you and your telephone, so loosen up and be creative.