Afraid of Sales Calls?
Afraid to pick up the phone? Afraid of being judged? Afraid you'll be a bother?
You're not alone if you ever have any of those or other worries around making sales calls. There is a reason sales is one of the highest paying professions in the world. People do not like to do them! Many would rather stay in a mediocre job with mediocre pay but no selling responsibilities than to ever do anything involving selling.
Part of it stems from the fact that everyone at some point in their life has been scammed or screwed over in a sales situation. Nearly every sales professional can get accused of all sorts of things simply for doing their job of facilitating the transaction. Many also have too many experiences of annoying salespersons calling at the most inconvenient of times, like when we're trying to enjoy our evenings.
Love salespeople or not, a sale is the only thing that actually moves money. Whether you're paying for a product or a service, borrowing, or even just asking for a gift, some sort of exchange of value or sale has to take place in order for any money or an equivalence to move. So mastering the skill of selling is critical to unleashing our pathway to financial freedom as business owners. Selling is also one of the few skills that can transcend across different industries, occupations, and economic situations.
The fears around selling are not usually difficult to overcome. As I wrote in my previous post comparing selling with auditioning, anyone can get better at selling. In the end, if we have a viable product or service, then so long as we're willing to put ourselves out there and contact enough people, selling becomes nothing more than a numbers game. We just have to remember that every business simply gets more no's than yes's!
Afraid of Cold Calling?
Whether you are new to having a business or you've been in business for years, every entrepreneur in every kind of profession at some point or another may need to do some of what is called "cold calling" or “cold outreach.” This is when you call or reach out to someone you either know or don't know, maybe even without warning, and if they answer and don't soon hang up, you strike up a conversation to see if you can help them—and thus have a reason to solicit your products or services. Sometimes the conversation is direct and to the point, other times it's like a delicate dance, but you'll soon enough know if they have a problem you can help them solve with what you have to offer. Sometimes you're calling the actual prospective client or customer; other times you might be calling someone who could refer you to clients or customers, which is also known as a referral source.
Since we're in a world where we can get by with fewer and fewer phone calls than ever before, many people want to stay comfortable hiding behind their keyboard as they cling to the hopes and dreams of the latest marketing gurus' latest marketing gimmicks. The idea of making any kind of unplanned phone call to someone, especially a sales call, tends to be something many avoid like a plague. The risk of getting personally rejected is too high for too many. Besides, would you ever call a stage director and ask them to cast you in a major role of a show they maybe haven't even been thought of doing yet? And pay you really, really well? Sometimes my work literally feels just like that if I'm calling soon-to-be clients who happen to be stage directors!
If you're someone who would rather throw your phone in water rather than make a sales call, check out this article about phone anxiety by Cari Romm at The Cut. Romm wrote: "The most effective way to combat phone anxiety, unfortunately, is to suffer through some time on the phone." Clinical Psychologist Alexander Queen advises changing the way you think about the call. "If your concern is being too much of a bother, for example, you might think things like, 'Well, why would they answer the phone if they weren’t able to talk?'" My business coaches have had comparable ideas when it comes to approaching sales conversations, such as showing up with an intention to serve rather than to sell. Rather than think, "I need to make the sale…" during the sales call, it's important to think something more along the lines of "How can I really help this person?"
Can't I just "Slide into the DMs"?
You can, but everyone else is already doing that, and they may or may not be having much success. In all seriousness, when is the last time you responded to someone's spam message and decided to buy? I get so many spam DMs from total strangers on LinkedIn that I’ve have had to take a break from the platform. So before you just send another email or direct message on social media, or "slide into the DMs" as some call it, it could be better to see if you have or can find a prospect's or referral source's phone number and consider making the cold call, at least to introduce yourself. And if you have any sort of previously established relationship, a thoughtful, deliberate call may yield better results than any email or social media message.
With fewer people making phone calls in the current era, it can be easy to stand out in the crowd for simply having made a call, especially if your clients tend to be older and are nostalgic for the pre-internet days when simply talking on the phone was the only means of talking to others in real time. More people than we might think may actually appreciate getting the call, even sales calls. In fact, personalized attention is a currency we all equally have the power to create from nothing.
If they do pick up the phone, and then if your conversation evolves into you having a reason to make an offer, even a flat out rejection over the phone is better than forever waiting for an email or message they may never respond to. And even if the answer is "No," then so long as you approached the call with a spirit of being of service and you made a positive impression—and you didn't talk their ear off—they might come back to you or they might refer someone.
I Couldn't sell to save my life at first...
When I moved into doing coaching six years ago, all I got from my initial trainings was a pretty inauthentic sales script. I received no actual coaching or instruction to help give me the confidence I really needed to effectively, and authentically, sell myself as a coach. I almost literally felt like I couldn't sell myself to save my life. And despite all the coaching industry's promises of financial freedom and the perfect entrepreneurial lifestyle, coaching is not the easiest service to just go out there and suddenly sell—I like to joke that it's easier to sell life insurance to a child than it is to sell life-changing coaching to most adults!
I didn't have a stable full-time job to hold me over until I could perhaps get clearer on my true ideal client when I was getting started. I was under the gun to make money immediately, and the pressure heightened with each failed sales call I had. It was almost like most of the prospects could intuitively smell the desperation over the phone. I failed to bring in enough to avoid losing more than you would want to know. Those initial struggles left me wanting to do my best to help my own clients get comfortable and confident enough with their selling so they would never have to envision such a worst-case life scenario. Everyone deserves a chance to get more comfortable with this skill so they can confidently earn what they deserve to earn.
Want to get better with sales?
Whether we're selling your artistry, your teaching, coaching or another adjacent professional service, we have to remember sales calls are not normal things most people do. They do involve a certain amount of deliberate planning an execution. And whether they're cold calls strangers or return calls to friends or acquaintances, they do take practice. Like auditioning, the process of selling has its own unique components that can feel uncomfortable, i.e. talking about and asking for money. But as Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "Do the thing, and you'll get the power."
If you want to spend the rest of the year priming your mindset for doing the thing, I can help. Send me a message and lets see which of my private coaching offers or upcoming seminars are best for you.