Cold Call Reluctance

insurehound

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What is wrong with me? I never had a fear of cold calling before but now I am so nervous to pick up the stupid phone and cold call! I know it works, I know it's a numbers game, I know rejection is not personal...UGH!

But no more putting this off. I have downloaded my Manta contact list and will cold call some people come hell or high water. I'm just surprised that it makes me this nervous when it never did before. Oh well.
 
What is wrong with me? I never had a fear of cold calling before but now I am so nervous to pick up the stupid phone and cold call! I know it works, I know it's a numbers game, I know rejection is not personal...UGH!

But no more putting this off. I have downloaded my Manta contact list and will cold call some people come hell or high water. I'm just surprised that it makes me this nervous when it never did before. Oh well.

I don't believe there is anyone who doesn't experience call reluctance once in a while. It can be especially bad if you have not been doing it for a period of time and then try to go back to it. To overcome ti it is a simple case of "mind over matter." You have to make up your mind that eating matters.. :)
 
Call reluctance usually comes from either believing that what one does is not a highly valuable service and worth the time of others, which you need to do some soul searching and find out why you are in insurance and how you help your particular niche client, or it comes from lack of preparation, whether its product knowledge or what to say. If its product knowledge, then you need to study, and block off some time in the week to dedicate to learning what you don't know. What don't you know? Ask yourself, what are still unsure about when it comes to whatever your cold calling about? What are you afraid of not knowing? Write that down, research it, and try to find out what else your lacking in.

If its objection handling buy a piece of posterboard, write out what you would say and mount it in front of your desk.
 
What is wrong with me? I never had a fear of cold calling before but now I am so nervous to pick up the stupid phone and cold call! I know it works, I know it's a numbers game, I know rejection is not personal...UGH!

But no more putting this off. I have downloaded my Manta contact list and will cold call some people come hell or high water. I'm just surprised that it makes me this nervous when it never did before. Oh well.

What type of a script are you using?
What are you selling?
How did you target your list?

One thing that may help is focusing on a reasonable goal. For example, try focusing on making at least a specific amount of calls each day. This won't encourage you to rush through the calls, but it will give you a way to measure your efforts that is within your control. You can't control what people on the other end of the line will say, but you can control the time you spend calling.
 
Funny, this just showed up in my email from Ari with Unlock the Game, some cold calling guru who never has a shortage of emails to send. Here it is:

Once you know what problems you solve, you also know exactly what to say when you make a call. It's simple.

You begin with, "Hi, my name is (your first name). Maybe you can help me out for a moment?". How would you respond if someone said that to you?

Probably, "Sure, how can I help you?" or "Sure, what do you need?" That's how most people would respond to a relaxed opening phrase like that. It's a natural reaction.

The thing is, when you ask for help, you're also telling the truth because you don't have any idea whether you can help them or not.

That's why this new approach is based on honesty and truthfulness. That's why you're in a very good place to begin with.

When they reply, "Sure, how can I help you?", you don't respond by launching into a pitch about what you have to offer. Instead, you go right into talking about the core problem to find out whether it's a problem for the prospect.

So you say, "I'm just giving you a call to see if you folks are grappling (and the key word here is 'grappling') with (insert the problem you help them solve)?"

No pitch, no introduction, nothing about you. Just step directly into their world.

The purpose of the question is to open the conversation and develop enough trust so they'll feel comfortable having a conversation.

The old way of cold calling advises asking lots of questions to learn about the prospect's business and to "connect".

The problem is that people see right through that. They know that you have an ulterior motive, and then you're right back up against The Wall.

These ideas may be hard for you to apply to your own situation at first because trying to leverage calls based on what we know about our solution is so engrained in our thinking.

If you stay with it, though, you can learn to step out of your own solution and convert it into a problem that you can articulate using your prospects' language.

And that's the secret of building trust on calls. It's the missing link in the whole process of cold calling.

Listen to your next mini-lesson on how to begin your cold call with your prospect's core problem:

5 - Begin Your Cold Call - Ari Galper's Unlock The Game
 
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