If you set out to use allegedly no-fail, pin-em-down-every-time language in your sales telephoning because some expert says you should and if you cringe when you say it—even if you deliver the lines as professionally as an actor would—you will find every excuse in the world to quit phoning.
When you work for yourself, you are the boss. You are not confined to a phone bank with rusty ashtrays, styrofoam cups of coffee and scheduled shifts. You don’t have a boss listening in on your calls and critiquing them in stern performance appraisals.
You are the judge and jury, and with every cringe-inducing line you recite, you become more desperate to escape the trap you yourself have set. You may tune in to Oprah or fall victim to a sudden headache. You may feel called to do the breakfast dishes or sort the recyclables from the rest of the trash. You may even resort to preparing tax records. After all, is there any activity more tedious, and therefore more noble, than making sense of your receipts?
Remember that no matter what you say on the phone, large percentages of people you call will not buy your services today. No matter how skillfully you develop the conversation and pressurize the “close,” only a small percentage of calls will yield assignments.
Success is in the numbers. Telephoning to offer professional services is about identifying the relatively small percentage of target companies that are interested in the type of services you offer and then actually making the calls! Anything that keeps you from making large numbers of calls impedes your success.
Sure, with experience you’ll feel comfortable trying out new lines. But you will never have slam dunk results that positively prove that aggressive scripts save the day. Instead, since it’s the numbers that work, you must make every effort to maintain your motivation to make sufficient calls. And nothing will destroy morale and deter you from phoning more than feeling pressured by “they” to deliver a sales pitch that makes you uneasy.
It’s the act of making calls that creates success much more assuredly than any specific, catchy word or line.
So let yourself off your own hook. Develop a sales conversation that makes you feel good so you do more telephoning.
Originally posted 5-11-09