“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change” – Wayne Dyer
When something good happens to you, how often do you consider the importance of your own thoughts and behaviours in making it happen, as opposed to sheer luck? How often do we consider at all how important a good mindset is when priming oneself for a day and even, perhaps, a lifetime of success?
The same can and does apply to seizing success in a sales career and in particular when approaching the tougher, less glamorous facets of the job, such as the seemingly lost art of cold calling. Learning how to personally foster one’s approach to such a situation can help enormously to create favourable outcomes.
The three key ways of doing this:
1. Smile + Dial
“Whether the person is sitting in front of you or whether they’re over the phone, they can really sense where your mind is at” says Ben Calvert, Sales Development Specialist at SalesStar. A seasoned professional when it comes to prospecting and calling clients, Ben understands that in order to knock a call out of the park, it starts off with a shift in demeanour that can go on to make all the difference.
Making a good first impression is vital to fully maximise the opportunities available to you in a call. This means the same high energy and big smile you would sport during a face-to-face meeting, serves you just as well on the line because it gets your head in game.
Ben likes to get up and pace to stay alert so that he can really participate in his calls, but this is totally up to the individual. Either way, whatever helps you to buck up and say, “I’m winning business today” and really believe it, is what you need to fully engage with. People can hear a smile through the phone, just as they can tell when the person they are talking to is open, attentive and genuinely motivated by what they are trying to sell.
Which leads well into the next point;
2. Know your WHY
To make a sale, you need to have sold the product to yourself first. What this means is that you need to know why you are doing something in order to anchor its purpose. Without a firmly rooted purpose, the call is adrift and you will struggle to make your point. Purpose comes from belief in the product. If you’re already convinced of it, you will take the path of least resistance when trying to convince somebody else.
Aligning your personal goals with the business’ can help assure this. If the ‘Why’ is relevant to you and you believe in what the business stands for, you will not half-heartedly sell it to anyone. Better still if the company already gets results, you will have the backing of support from a repertoire of clients and friends. This can really help to cement the values of the company as well as help you stay true to the message you are trying to get across.
3. Commit
If you cultivate a personal desire to achieve a goal – from there, the right energy will follow. This means abandoning counterproductive mindsets and self-limiting beliefs that make you less likely to succeed. “Everyone is usually willing to take a call, especially if you’re willing to help them,” says Ben.
If you go in with this thought process, you will reap the rewards. But, for example, if you think people don’t want to talk to you and you still try to initiate a call, your belief that they will be less receptive will be reflected in your communication during the call – making you less effective. This is called a self-fulfilling prophecy, a well researched concept in which an outcome is actually more likely to occur if an individual believes it will occur, for better or worst.
Commitment to the call no matter how well you believe you are coming across, will portray you as someone who is totally driven and dedicated to whatever you are trying to sell. This tenacity itself will have profoundly memorable effects on anyone you call, irrelevant if they wanted to talk in the beginning or not. After all, they may remember you, or even better – the product.
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Many of the toughest professionals in the business have an aversion to picking up the phone because it is something that has been built up to be this scary, unforgiving chore and which, as a result, is largely avoided.
When we do pick up the phone our attitude comes across the moment you say ‘hello’ and so, unsurprisingly, dooms, or sets the call up for success from the get-go.
So, make sure you get into the right headspace before every call. This could be a pre-call routine or ritual. Make sure you get clear on your WHY, smile and then fully commit.
Remember “It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves”- Edmund Hillary.
