Cold Calling - Why sales people hate it!

I recently ran our cold calling course entitled Generating New Business by Telephone. This was delivered to a group of well-seasoned van and truck salesmen who weren't really expecting much. I had got the job as their Manager had been on one of my courses 10 years previously. As the course started and I went through the volumes of calls I expected them to make in a day (100-200) they looked even more sceptical. The problem with cold calling is if you are not taught the correct techniques and don't put in the hard work and discipline it simply doesn't work. If you try without the right correct coaching things go wrong quickly and people give up blaming the whole process saying, 'cold calling doesn't work'. The beauty of this PTP course is that having explained the techniques, the trainer (in this case me), makes live calls on a hands-free phone using lists the delegates had generated during the course and as pre-course work. I much prefer this demonstration when things go wrong (too often on this course things go too well and participants just think the trainer is magically good at cold calling and they could not see themselves emulating this success). Fortunately on the first 20 calls I had a rough time! I was blocked by gatekeepers and told by decision-makers they had no interest quite abruptly and in some cases people were quite rude. This is where I surprised the delegates by saying, 'When cold calling this is exactly what to expect and the good news is that it will put off your competition from ever making these calls'. Persevering, I carried on and managed to talk to decision-makers who were in the market for vans and trucks and wanted further information and appointments. After some role play, the sales people started making cold calls and to their surprise were very successful, in fact dare I admit it, they had a better success rate than me! Between us we had made just over 100 call attempts in 6 hours and spoken to the decision-maker 19 times and got 11 people interested of which 6 were deemed very hot leads (One of the hot leads was coming to view a new truck the following day - now that is a hot lead!). They all agreed if they could generate 6 hot leads everyday they would be extremely happy! Of course, you can't make cold calls all day everyday but even when salespeople are busy, it was agreed that a minimum of half a day week should be done hopefully generating 6 leads. This will ensure all salespeople have a continual flow of new leads to work with self-generated by their own cold calling efforts. This course is designed especially for B2B and we do not deliver training designed at calling people cold in their homes. (For more details click here.)

Benefits of attending PTP's Cold Calling Training course:

• • Greater confidence generating new business by telephone
  • Effective techniques for telephone prospecting
  • Development of an individual style
  • The ability to make direct contact with the decision-maker
  • Genuine leads generated on the course

Praise for PTP's Cold Calling Training Course: