Who's Calling?

One of the most frightening challenges many people have is to pick up the telephone and speak to a decision maker they don’t know, and make an appointment.

And when you think about it, you are calling a decision maker, who is generally a very busy person, with numerous, weighty responsibilities, and asking them to spend some time listening to you. It’s asking a lot when you look at it that way…

So, the question is, why should they agree to see you or I? In answering that, it’s useful to ask ourselves a question: If a total stranger were to call and ask to set a time to see you, what would it take for you to agree? I’m willing to wager, they would need to get your attention and tell you how meeting with them was going to show you a way to either ‘avoid pain’ or ‘gain pleasure’ through your product or service – and tell them confidently and quickly!

Examples of this may include how they could avoid loss (of money), gain time/money. Or avoid losing customers to competition. Increase their customer base. Prevent loss of market share. Increase market share. And if you can’t, do any of those things, why would they want to meet with you? What’s in it for them anyway? If you don’t know the answers to those questions, from your customer’s perspective, find someone to help you brainstorm some ideas and find the answers. It could be the best time you invest in your business this month!

One of the greatest challenges when new business phone calls need to be made is, people have often already worked themselves into a less than useful state of mind. You may done this yourself. Time comes to make the calls. Just before you do, you’ll grab yourself another coffee. Then someone you asked to drop in some artwork calls in, so you look at that. Back at your desk, there’s a message from a friend, so you’d better return that call. Then before you start, you need a tidy desk. Of course, if your business cards aren’t alphabetized, that may slow you down. Your pencil looks a little blunt, so best remedy that. Actually, now is probably a good time to check your stationery supply and get a new pen, because you don’t want that failing you. OK, a quick visit to the bathroom and you’ll be ready to go…

Oh, look at the time! They’re probably at lunch now. Better diarise a time this afternoon to get right on to those calls. OK, so I’m exaggerating, but you get the picture. If we are not prepared, and don’t have a structure that allows us to confidently make the calls, of course we are likely to delay the process.

Many years ago when I started out in my own business, I was selling a US designed product that came complete with a structure for making cold calls. I read through the scripts and thought, “There’s no way I could say that. That’s not my style. Things are different in Australia.” So instead, I started doing things ‘Franks way’. After a period of time not achieving the types of results I was after, I went back to those scripts and thought, “Well, I’ll try it once. Can’t do much harm trying it once.” The difference was immediate!

In Australia we have something of an aversion to working from scripts, and there are a couple of reasons for that. One is, the script wasn’t written by us, so it may call on us to use slightly different language – and that feels uncomfortable. The other thing is, we have no doubt been on the receiving end of a call from a telemarketer who was so determined to stick to their script, they didn’t hear a thing we were saying.

Neither of those those things should prevent us using a well-crafted script as our base. The key is, to learn it so well it becomes second nature, so you can listen to, and work with the person on the other end of the phone. In avoiding making a start, people only deepen their unresourceful state of mind. Before picking up the phone, that state of mind needs to be changed. There are a number of ways to do that, and often individuals know their own system best of all.