I was flying back from a small town in the South of England the other day. The flight was quite pleasant and I had just been delivering a very effective sales training programme for the sales team. One of the main thrusts of the sales coaching was helping the staff to overcome fear of cold calling and prospecting and empowering them to go out and win business.
So there I was, on the plane, drinking my coffee and reading the in-flight magazine when I chanced across a letter to a sort of Mile High Agony Aunt. It read something like this…
Dear MH Agony Aunt
I keep getting cold calls and they upset me. I’m a little mouse and I can’t say “No”. What can I do? It’s ruining my life, boo hoo.
Yours
Scared of Wimpsville
Ok! Ok! I know – getting calls at home can be upsetting for elderly people and all that but it wasn’t really the letter that interested me – it was the answer!!! It went something like this…
Dear Scared
I’m sorry to hear you keep getting cold calls. The first thing that you need to know is that cold calling is the worst job in the world. You should feel sorry for them. They are clearly not educated enough to get proper jobs. Now what you can do is…
Yours
Mile High Agony Aunt
Wow! And Wow! again. With people out there spouting verbal garbage like that is it any wonder that people who “fall into” sales jobs end up feeling a bit down on themselves. Crikey! If you rang someone and they said, “Are you a cold caller?” and you believed that, all you’d hear is, “Are you the shit on my shoe?”
Don’t be a wimp, be a cold calling winner…
Now, I don’t want to get into the rights and wrongs of cold calling people at home – not today anyway – but I do have a message for salespeople everywhere…
Hold your head up. Take a deep breath. Remind yourself that nothing happens in business until someone makes a sale. Think of all the good things that you can manifest in your life by being a great salesperson and go out and make today a great day.
Sell with passion.
It’s been several years since I wrote this blog post and since then many have pronounced the death of and danced on the grave of cold calling. I agree that business life is changing, I agree that sales has changed and I am at the head of the band, banging the drum that salespeople and business approaches have to change…
But this post isn’t about cold calling, it’s about sales mindset. We’ll save the cold calling debate for another day. This post is about how salespeople see themselves and it’s about how we approach our lives. Are you going to let others look down on you and effectively change your outlook and approach to life or are you going to hold your head up high, decide what you want and commit to taking massive action?
Go on, be a winner!
If you want to know more about how I can help your teams make more sales, check out my latest sales motivation talks here. And make sure that you’ve joined my free success newsletter for the latest, cutting-edge sales and success strategies, articles, audios and videos.
