Many sales professionals know what it’s like to visualize calling prospect after prospect on the drive to work. They envision handling any objection and closing all their prospects with fun and ease. But once they settle into their office chair, they quickly fall prey to a berating little voice that always suggests to keep waiting for seemingly good reasons:
• If you call too early in the morning, you’ll be considered a noisome pest. Go get a cup of coffee and plan out your day. If you fail to plan, you know you’re planning to fail.
• Better check your email before making any calls. You never know when an existing client might need assistance. You shouldn’t keep existing clients waiting.
• It’s almost time for the office meeting to start. If you get started on making calls now, you’ll feel rushed. You won’t have success with prospects if you’re feeling rushed. They’ll think you’re rushing for the sale, and you’ll lose the deal.
• People are getting ready to head out for lunch. No one wants to be bothered by a sales person, when he’s getting ready to leave the office.
• People are just returning from lunch. They don’t want to be bothered by a sales person, when they’re trying to get settled in.
• Now would be a great time to call, if only you felt more confident in your script. If you don’t feel confident, the results won’t be worthwhile. There’s no sense in putting time into making calls, if you aren’t going to get the good results you desire. It would be more advantageous to get online and learn about effective sales calling techniques.
• Calling certain prospects could really influence your business in a big way. When you’ve mastered the new techniques/scripts you learned, you’ll be able to advance very quickly. It’s best to master those techniques before calling such influential prospects. You don’t want to ruin your opportunities just because you weren’t better prepared.
• It’s too late to call prospects. They’re getting ready to leave work. Arrive here all the earlier tomorrow morning, and you can get all those calls completed before noon.
If any or all of those suggestions sound familiar, you probably know what it’s like to hear a voice chastising you on your drive home from work because you didn’t make the calls you were supposed to make. Strange, isn’t it? It sounds quite like the voice that talked you out of making any of those calls all throughout the day.
Learning how to “seize the phone” requires investigating the voice, that talks one out of making the necessary prospecting calls that advance anyone’s sales business. There are plenty of programs to assist sales professionals become more efficient during the calls, and certainly it’s always beneficial to hone one’s skills. But too many sales professionals report that it isn’t the sales process that trips them up, but rather, actually picking up the telephone and placing the call to Mr. Prospect. There always seems to be a reason why it would be better to wait and call later.
Most sales professionals understand on a gut level that waiting for a better time to call is only cheating them from further expanding their sales business today. But getting past a relentless, fear inflicting voice in their heads is no easy task. Of course, if it were, top sales professionals wouldn’t be so desperately needed or so highly paid.
One day, while musing through a book by Dr. Seuss, I Had Trouble Getting to Solla Sollu, one of the poems seem to jump out at me like a jack-in the box:
I learned there are troubles of more than one kind
Some come from ahead and some from behind
But I’ve bought a big bat; I’m all ready, you see
Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me
In the sales profession, most troubles come from ahead and behind the telephone. In honor of Dr. Seuss’ little poem, I refer to those troubles as the “trouble thoughts.” Trouble thoughts often bombard one before and after reaching for the telephone to make a prospecting call. In my coaching experience, I discovered the novice as well as executive relates to those trouble thoughts I described above.
Indeed, even sales professionals with very outgoing personalities can find themselves in a petrified state before picking up the telephone. It seems that no matter how much success they might have experienced, they still undergo sales call resistance. Some of my clients divulge that their previous outstanding sales history does little to convince them that they have what it takes to keep making prospecting calls today. There are even those who admit that a month after starting a new sales position, they have yet to place even one prospecting call. According to good ol’ Dr. Seuss, they simply need a big bat to give those troubles a little trouble.
From my own sales experience, I learned that the best time to call a prospect is as soon as I think about calling him. Waiting for a better time usually results in one of two things - never finding the right time to call that prospect, or waiting so long that by the time the call is finally placed, the prospect is already doing business with someone else and no longer requires the suggested product or service.
So how does one get oneself to the point that he can walk right past all those nagging reasons to wait and call later? Is it necessary to thoroughly examine his past and everything that has fueled his fearful feelings? I don’t believe so. The most effective method to change a present situation is to keep one’s focus on the present, not the past.
When sales professionals become aware that it’s actually possible to seize the phone, or as I say “Carpe Phonum,” when they lack courage, they stop waiting and start calling. In order to create that awareness, I use an analogy of a baseball player going up to bat, and naturally having the goal to hit the ball, run to each of the bases, and finally cross over the home plate and score.
Getting to first base involves coming face to face with the voice that talks one out of making all those calls. That voice must be presented, discussed and revealed as the liar that it is, before the sales professional can swing, that is, swing his position from one of standstill to action. He must learn to trust his true desires so he can easily move from the batting or starting position to first base.
Moving to second base requires learning how to detach oneself from the persistent voice that nags and distracts but never points one in the right direction. Every sales professional needs a big bat that effectively dismantles the seeming hold that fear has on him, so he can move on to third base.
Getting one’s feet firmly planted on third base occurs when the sales professional sees more to his business than the exchanging of goods and money. By opening his eyes to recognize the potential ongoing value he creates and the good that unfolds simply by contacting others on the telephone, he learns the greater aspects and opportunities of his business.
Finally, the sales professional must learn that getting to home plate is only accomplished when he takes his foot off of third base. It is necessary to come to grips with the fact that the sales process is a continual cycle, that everyday he must walk out of the dugout of fear, pick up a bat of immeasurable value, put himself in the game and start playing. Ultimately, it is the only way to cross the home plate and score the sale!
Tammy Stanley, founder of Carpe Phonum, shows how to seize the phone even without courage. To receive your free audio lessons from Tammy, visit http://www.carpephonum.com