Sales Strategy

Don’t Avoid the Sales Phone Calls! March 30, 2016 (1 comment)

Merrick, NY—It’s easy to forget (ahem, avoid?) making customer calls. Need to invite a bunch of customers to an event? Yes, but you haven’t yet. New jewelry comes in. Do you know who to call to invite to see it? Sure, but have you done it? Probably not. Instead, you did the easy other ten things to do on your list and then ran out of time.

If not now, when? Tomorrow? Maybe. But the longer it goes, the less the chance it will get done.

What if you made calling customers a priority? What if you had the satisfaction of knowing that you were always on top of the calls? What if you made more money because you made more calls?

Stephen Key, co-founder of InventRight and author of the One Simple Idea series, is an entrepreneur who in just a few short weeks doubled his income by committing to making sales calls. In an article for Entrepreneur magazine, he credits The Wolf of Wall Street movie, where he watched Leonardo DiCaprio’s character make call after call in a dedicated fashion.

But even if you commit to sales calls of any sort, you need an actual plan. This smart article by Jeff Shore of Shore Consulting has some good tips for making sales calls (mostly) easy. Here is an excerpt from an article he wrote in Entrepreneur magazine:

The Plan. Like any project that needs to get done, break it down into smaller, more manageable pieces:

First, The Prep. It’s ok to be uncomfortable with the idea of sales call. If it is, own it. Know that you’ll be glad when it’s done but that you’ll also feel a really great sense of accomplishment. Have the right attitude. As Shore says, “You can choose an attitude of triumph before you begin making calls. Give the bad attitude of discomfort a face -- and then hit that face with a brick!”

Second, The Calls. First organize your calls, then set small goals and rewards. “After 10 dials or three conversations (whichever comes first), do something such as buy a cup of coffee, or handle a pleasant task. Creating mini goals provides more than incentives -- they provide milestones for tracking and measuring progress.”

Decide in advance that you are going to work through them and do not stop. “This enables you to build momentum,” he says. “When you finish call number one, you must immediately begin dialing call number two. The prep time that many people take between calls kills momentum.”

Third, The Celebration. Enjoy your victory! Do something nice for yourself. Have a cupcake or spend 10 minutes on Facebook. But don’t linger!

Fourth, The Next Prep. “Now, positively and intentionally decide to make that next round of calls, either later in the day or some time in the coming week. Make the mental decision to embrace the discomfort before it comes back around. This is “playing from strength” and it will change your world,” he says.

Give it a try and see your sales numbers increase! Read both articles in their entirety here and here.

Top image: Valueaddedacademy.com