Call Reluctance

It's all about your 'mindset' if you beleive that it is not your idea of fun then it wont be, and it will become more of a problem day in day out.
The huge advantage you have personally, is the fact that you can motivate yourself to make the call. Many of your competitors will have the same mental block on cold calling. So consider this, although you cant see them, play a game in your mind, visualise that you are beating them to the call. Its you or them and im sure i know which one you would rather it be. Talk loudly, rapidly with enthusiasm. GET EXITED. Then each call you make thereafter will be more fun.
Why? Because you should find that it starts to become a pleasure for them to see you, which in turn will make you feel happier with c,calling.

Jackie, do you have any flexibility to try other marketing approaches? Maybe dropping in isn't the most effective way for you to make a first contact. My experience has been that small business owners are usually too busy to talk to someone who just dropped in. Even if someone might be interested, they may just not have time at that moment.

Do you have any other alternatives? Could you give a bit more information on how you target the businesses you stop in to see? Maybe if we had a bit more info, we could suggest some alternatives to go along with the great posts about making cold calls more enjoyable.

Kathleen

I'm no longer working with that particular company. With that said, I would still be interested in learning more about making cold calls more enjoyable.

To answer your question... I think that many agents cold calling businesses have flexibility when it comes to marketing approaches. What do you have in mind?

Jackie,

You've got a very popular thread here! I was amazed that you'd changed jobs already, but then I looked back over the thread and realized it had been resurrected a couple times!

I think marketing alternatives vary based on what you're selling. I've known reps selling copiers who had some success just starting on the top floor of a building and knocking on doors all the way down. But, they didn't necessarily need to talk to the business owner, so from that standpoint, it was a bit easier. And, a lot of the time the "gatekeeper" they first met could easily tell them if the copier was driving everyone nuts by breaking down all the time.

What caught my eye was your saying that you were selling consulting services. I think in that situation, you have a much greater opportunity to identify some target markets. You could identify markets based on industry, company size, revenue, length of time in business, etc.

Then, you could cold call on the telephone. That is still a pain in the ah neck, but at least you're making better use of your time. You can make a lot more phone calls in a day than personal visits. Then, when you're going out in person, you have an appointment with a human being who has set aside time to talk to you.

You could also join the local Chamber. Having something in common is a great ice breaker. You can call the contact for your targeted companies, explain that you're calling them because they are the Chamber contact for their firm, explain what you have to offer and ask them who in their organization you should talk to. Its a warm call to start with, and a lot of the time people are very willing to help you out.

Guess I could go on and on, but you'd get bored. That's the type of thing I was thinking of. But, again, it really depends on your product and your market.

What alternatives have you used in your new position? Is any of the above applicable to what you're doing now?

Kathleen

Not at the time no.

When I worked for that company I did use the phone to find out what companies met our minimum requirements. This saved a lot of time.

As for personal visits, that was the job description. Talk about school of hard knocks!

I agree 100%. For anyone facing "Call Reluctance" I would say jump in with both feet and make a few calls. Before you know it you'll be in the swing of things.

__________________

This seems to be a well traveled thread about a popular term in selling, call reluctance. I've been hearing that term for years. Maybe I'm just thick, but I don't understand it exactly. It seems, though, that it probably is being used here to describe either of two things.

Is call reluctance a convenient term for call avoidance? Okay--I think I could understand that. I know reluctance means unwillingness according to Webster. So if a person has a job in sales and is unwilling to approach new prospects, then that person would have to work either a warm market of people they know or meet through networking, or, have a job in sales calling on existing accounts only. But if their job function included going after new business as in cold-calling, and they were unwilling to do that--well..the job would certainly be in serious jeopardy.

Or...is call reluctance being used to describe doing something reluctantly because you have to do it but you hate it. Who wants to do that? I wouldn't want to do something that I hated to do unless I had no other choice. Now if someone put a gun to my head I wouldn't have a choice. But I think we have more than one choice as to how we make a living.

Okay..so maybe I'm not so thick. I think back to the time when I first heard the term "call reluctance". It came out of the mouth of a sales manager. And come to think of it, I'll bet the next twenty times I heard it, it was either from another person in management or from some sales author telling people how to overcome it. But, you know, I don't think inexperienced salespeople invent that term to describe what they have. I think we have been fed that.

I'm just thinking out loud here because advice has been labeled the greatest of all conversation stoppers. And--I don't want to see the thread stop. But-what would happen if we pretended that we never heard the term, call reluctance? What if we took the attitude of hey--I didn't invent those words--some guy behind a desk did? Maybe the same guy who coined the phrase "attention deficit disorder" and started a freakin' movement.

IMO, the sources of "call reluctance" are many (fear, laziness, etc.) but the term represents a lack of inclination towards making a sales call, for whatever reason.

Gary, at the risk of being a tired cliche....a rose (or in this case, maybe more aptly a STINKWEED) by any other name... I don't have the benefit of formal sales training, and actually, I never heard the term 'call reluctance' before visiting SP, but the minute I saw it, I knew that feeling it was describing..."oh, just for once, can't all my customers just CALL ME???" [yeah, right!]

If you like I will be happy to officially rename it for you....but I fear the effect will be the same. OK, how's about telephone torture, phone phobia...um...calling consternation...hang-up horror...dialing dread, tele-terror..... Well, you get the idea.

Truthfully, when I first started out on my current project, I was sure I was going to be primarily cold canvassing. Someone had told me not to call first because it's too easy to get shut out, but after only about 4 or 5 days with that approach, I quickly rethought my strategy. Cold calling is KING in my book, now. I don't find it that unpleasant because it always pays off.

Those are great! I love it!

Two things... first, "long live cold calling."

Second, I believe you hit the nail on the head. You have a "mental concept" of cold calling that encourages not discourages the activity. IMO, that is the remedy for "call reluctance."