Afraid Of Cold Calling? How To Fail Your Way To Fearlessness
Entrepreneurs often struggle when they start doing cold-calls. They hate calling others to drum up business and they're not good at it either. Their approach is too timid and they give up too soon when they encounter resistance. They don't manage objections well. And they don't bring home the bacon at the end.
Fear Of Failure
One of the guys on our team had this problem which was strange, because he was an audacious, bold and outgoing person. But tell him to sell on the phone, and he turned into a frightened little chicken.
The cause was obvious: fear of failure. He was scared of rejection. We both knew it. He also rationally understood that this fear did not serve a positive purpose, yet, he was stuck in it.
Turning Fears Into Reality
How could we get him unstuck? How could we shake him up and change his state?
I decided to challenge him with a new task.
"Fail with every call!" For the rest of the day, he should call people and make them hang up on him. His mission was to fail miserably.
To make it more fun, I told him fail in a different way with each call. "Start with speaking painfully slow and unenthusiastic", I told him.
Our little coaching conversation had turned into the center of attention in the office. Everyone on our team was looking at him when he made the first call. His discomfort was obvious. But he played along. Each... word... spoken... sloooowwwwlyyy... with... excruciatingly... looong... silent... pauses... in between. Painful.
Everyone in the office had to tap into the core of our brains self-control center not to burst out laughing. But there was no holding back once the other person hung up on him. The whole office was going crazy, including him.
The team came up with a new challenge for the second call: stuttering. "Hell hell hell hello, thi thi this is is is..."
After ten of these calls the atmosphere in the whole room had totally changed.
Changing Your State
I looked him in the eyes and said: "Now go and fucking get'em. Close deals. Take everything you got and make it happen! And have fun!!!"
Suddenly he was a different person. Total transformation of energy: fearless and unstoppable. A relentless machine.
What caused this transformation?
Not a new insight. He already knew that it was just fear holding him back. But he had now transferred that insight from a logical, rational level into an instinctive insight. He had emotionally internalized what he knew mentally by making failure real. And that led to the breakthrough in his behavior.
Use this technique with if you ever feel anxious about cold calling (or use it to help a colleague).
- Address the issue and verbalize it.
- Instead of trying to avoid failure, aim for failure.
- Be creative about different ways to successfully achieve failure.
- Have fun and be silly. It will unlock the secret vault of sales power deep inside of you.
- Now that you have experienced what failure feels like, realize there is nothing to be afraid of
- Now crush it and see how you can perform once you aim for success.
How did you lose your fear of failure in the past? Please share your stories and experiences so we can all let go of our fears and live more adventurous and successful lives :)
Wanna learn more about startup sales? Check out my free 30 day email course on startup sales success: http://close.io/free-sales-course/
Bio:
B2B Sales & Marketing
9yThere are many other customer acquisition channels these days. Anyways, 'old is gold'.
Transportation Planner at Mizkan America
9yThis is very true. I didn't feel comfortable with cold calling for new business until I made mistakes, failed and realized that the failure and "ruts" will always be there. It's how we choose to process them and learn from them that truly gives us the grounds to push off from and succeed.
Austin Commercial Real Estate Broker Helping Businesses Find & Negotiate the Best Office, Retail & Warehouse Spaces
9yFeel the fear and do it anyway! I like it. We need to embrace failure as a good thing and not a bad thing. You can have fear however it's important to not let fear get in the way of the outcome you desire.
Cultivation / Manufacturing / Wholesale account manager
9ynice refresher! have fun and be silly.
Marketing/Recruiting Coordinator at Nichols Cauley & Associates, LLC
9yExcellent advice, Steli Efti! Thanks for sharing this. I've been making cold calls for over two years with the marketing firm I work for and I still feel petrified every time I pick up the phone. I get through the calls and fake professionalism(sometimes), but I lack confidence and it holds me back from so many opportunities. This looks like a great strategy that I can implement into my daily routine. Very cool!