Kindle Notes & Highlights
In my 30 years of selling, for 22 businesses, in 25 countries, the number-one challenge has always been to prospect, and especially cold call, effectively.
got the traditional three part sales training program: (1) “Here’s your cards;” (2) “Here’s your brochures;” (3) “There’s the door!”
However, reorienting your selling approach around your strengths, goals, integrity, and passions makes the selling process more natural, enjoyable, and attractive to your clients.
Part 1, “The Inner Game of Prospecting,”
Part 2, “Building Your Expressway to New Business,”
Worried about saying the wrong thing or sounding like every other salesperson? Not anymore, once you uncover what distinguishes you from your competition.
Part 3, “Transforming Cold Calls into Warm Calls,”
Part 4, “Cultivating Your Selling Opportunities to Close More Sales,”
Part 5, “The Winner’s Circle—Securing Your Position at the Top,”
A prospect is any person you perceive to be a qualified candidate who you target as a potential customer who could benefit from your product or service, or who can act as a conduit to connect you with someone who could benefit from your product or service and who has the power to make a purchasing decision.
Based on this depiction, cold calling would be defined as the act of calling on or approaching someone with the intention of converting him or her into a prospect and who … • Does not know you. • You do not know. • Is not expecting your call or contact. • You have never called on before. • You know very little if anything about, especially as it relates to their needs, situation, challenges, decision-making process, goals, company, or career. • May or may not be a fit with what you are offering.
After the feeling of relief subsides you may wonder, “Keith, if I don’t cold call, then exactly how am I supposed to generate more new business?” The answer is simple: by using a prospecting system that makes your cold calls warm. Interestingly, some of the prospecting you engage in may not involve a telephone or door-to-door canvassing. In this book, you will learn how to create your own prospecting system.
you will be doing more than picking up the phone and trying to squeeze your foot into someone’s door who really doesn’t want to speak with you in the first place.
Consider this. If you are comfortable with the activities you engage in, then you are simply doing what you’ve already been doing, which will produce the same results as before. However, if you are willing to do the things that make you uncomfortable—a new activity, strategy, or developing a new skill—then you will create new results.
• Instead of cold calling, develop a prospecting system; the corner-stone to more sales. • If you find what you’re doing to be uncomfortable, it’s probably the right thing to do to achieve greater results. • Because your competitors also experience reluctance to cold calling, becoming fearless provides you with a competitive edge. • One of the main reasons why businesses fail is they simply aren’t prospecting effectively.
• Become a fearless prospector • Uncover your passion for prospecting • Get yourself out of your own way • Discover what fear can teach you • Boost your confidence
Chapter 1 discussed how uncomfortable change can be, and introduced one mantra for generating desired, worthwhile results. That is, get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Here’s one way to reframe how you perceive mistakes and failure. Realize that you cannot fail. You can only produce unexpected results. The only true mistake or failure is not recognizing the opportunity to grow from these unexpected results in order to create new possibilities and greater success.
“I didn’t fail hundreds of times. Rather, I’ve learned hundreds of different ways to produce different results.”
Ironically, most of our fears are not based on logic or reality. They are not real. Granted, the feeling of fear is very real and I’m certainly not disputing that.
Consider the definition of the acronym for F.E.A.R., False Evidence Appearing Real.
Because fear is the negative assumption of the outcome, try shifting your focus to the positive outcome or what you do want to manifest, instead of what you are looking to avoid.
The quandary is that most of us spend more time focusing on that which we fear rather than the goals or dreams we want to create.
Let’s face it: We’re all pretty good at articulating what we don’t want to happen in our lives, yet fall short when trying to come up with a vivid picture of what we do want or our goals and dreams.
If you know what you don’t want and don’t know what you do want, then where do you think you are going to continually wind up directing your thoughts and energy? Your goals and dreams don’t even stand a chance!
Consider all the fears you may be experiencing around cold calling. Whether it’s the fear of failure, the fear that the prospect will not want to talk to you, the fear of looking bad, saying or doing the wrong thing, or the fear of rejection, are any of these fears actually occurring in the present moment? No they are not! The only thing that is real in the moment is the feeling of fear.
If your past cold calling efforts fell short of your expectations, instead of quickly formulating the belief that you’re not good at it or it doesn’t work for you, consider the alternative. You may have been working with the wrong tools.
When you focus on the present and on your desired outcomes, you will notice that your fears will lose their powerful edge.
Get out of your head. Once you get yourself out of your own way, you are then able to generate extraordinary results.
Here’s an exercise to try the next time fear has a grip on you. Imagine the worst-case scenario. What would really happen if your fears about prospecting actually came true? How bad would that really be and what would it truly mean to you?
Make fear your ally rather than your adversary so that you can learn and grow from it. • Top producers have learned what average producers haven’t: to feel their fear and
do what needs to be done anyway. • Things rarely happen the way we worry about them. • What you fear isn’t real. • Determine your healthy and pleasurable fuel source to ignite your passion and drive your prospecting efforts. • You are the greatest gift you can give to your prospects and the best-kept secret, so let it out!
Discover the hidden secret to cold calling success • Learn the importance of a positive attitude • Manage your mind-set for maximum productivity • Eliminate cold calling reluctance • Get excited to cold call
What would it mean to you if you could develop … 1. An infallible introduction that will make the receptionist your biggest fan? 2. An initial prospecting approach that would allow you to dance right into the hearts of your prospects? 3. A surefire process to get more of your voice mails and calls returned? 4. A prospecting system that runs on autopilot so you never have to worry about the results? Instead, the results happen naturally. That’s how much faith and confidence you have in yourself and in your prospecting system.
Change what you do, and, more importantly, change how you think.
Warm Wisdom To achieve greater success, managing a positive mind-set and healthy attitude toward cold calling will have more of a profound impact on your performance than what you do or the cold calling activities you engage in. Just think of the slogan the army adopted that reinforces this truth. “Be all you can be,” not, “Do all you can do.”
Consider one of the objectives of a cold call: to create a feeling within the prospect that stimulates interest and motivates them to take the next step and hear more about what you have to offer. Therefore, it’s critical that you are transferring the right feeling and attitude to your prospects.
• I’m a stranger. Why should they talk to me and give me their time? • I don’t want to say the wrong thing. • I don’t want to come across the wrong way. • I’m not going to come across professionally. I would rather meet with them face-to-face, because I present myself better in person. • I’m not comfortable with my prospecting approach and I don’t want to look bad. • They’re not interested. • I don’t want to be intrusive. • They’re probably happy with their current vendor. If they weren’t they would call me. • I hate being cold called! • I don’t want to have to close hard or push something on
...more
The fact is, most of us focus more on what we don’t want to happen rather than what we do want. When I coach people and ask them to describe their ideal life or career, most often they’ll start telling me what they don’t want. For example, “I don’t want a stressful job, I don’t want to waste my money, I don’t want to be in a toxic relationship, I don’t want a boss who’s going to micromanage me, I don’t want problem customers, and so on.”
• Cold calling is informative. It lets the prospect know where they can locate the best product/service they need. • Cold calling is beneficial. I can share all the incredible advantages of my product/service with the people who can benefit from it most. • Cold calling is a way to genuinely deliver value, educate my prospects, serve people, and improve people’s lives, regardless of whether I make the sale. • Cold calling enables me to become a prospect’s trusted expert or advisor so that they can make the best purchasing decision. • Cold calling is a way to prevent people from making
...more
The Least You Need to Know • If you want to become a top producer, start thinking like one. You have the power to choose how you think. • The relationship you have with each prospect is established before you begin prospecting. • Prior to cold calling, focus on the reasons why you love to cold call and the benefits your prospects can realize. • Direct your thoughts toward what you want to create (pleasure), rather than what you want to avoid (fear, pain, or consequence). • Rather than exploit all of the reasons why you won’t succeed at prospecting, develop the reasons why you will! • Changing
...more
Thinking Like a Top Producer In This Chapter • Learn how to think like a top producer • Connect with your prospects on a deeper level • Remove the pressures that cause cold calling paralysis • Uncover the primary objective of cold calling • Harness the power of positive thinking • Become resilient and handle rejection like a pro
After talking with her about this sales call in more detail, it sounded as if there were some holes in Mary’s selling strategy that may have cost her the sale. I suggested that she look at this experience not as a failure but as an opportunity to learn and grow. As such, she changed her outlook. Mary felt better using this experience as an opportunity for continuous improvement. Together, we identified the areas that needed refinement and changed her approach when presenting to a prospect.
Mindshift is the action of identifying a limiting belief, thought, perception, or assumption and changing or shifting that belief and how you think in a way that would accelerate your success, support your goals, and move you forward. The benefit is when you change your thinking first, the byproduct is a change in behavior that is likely to continue effortlessly.
Instead of making the prospect untouchable, make them human. This will even the playing field when calling on prospects you consider to be at a different level than you. Now, rather than feeling intimidated when calling on them, you can connect with them. Prospects are people too!
Let’s now consider that these people hold other positions as well. They are not only a top officer. They are a PTA member, golfer, sport enthusiast, cook, friend, soccer coach, and parent. Being a top officer is just one of the roles they play in their life.
On a very basic level, there are five ingredients needed to create a sale: 1. The salesperson. 2. The qualified prospect. 3. A need or want that the prospect has. 4. The product or service. 5. The selling strategy or procedure you follow that guides a prospect to the natural conclusion of the selling process, the sale.
While many salespeople would say the selling process is about the customer, they wind up making it about themselves. How do I know this? Look at some of the limiting beliefs that contribute to cold calling reluctance that we mentioned earlier.
• I don’t want to say the wrong thing. • I don’t want to look bad. • I don’t want to be a nuisance. • I don’t want to impose. • I don’t want to be rejected or hear “No.” • I don’t want to blow it! I, I, I, I, I! Look at the first word that begins each preceding statement. Making the selling and cold calling process about you is the number-one road-block to successful prospecting and the number-one cause of cold calling reluctance.
Once you shift your focus and energy toward making it about the prospect, it will immediately relieve you of the unnecessary pressure to look good and perform.
