Saturday, December 13, 2008

Cold Calling Mistakes - 8 Tips To Avoid

By Brian McCoy

1) Purpose Of The Call

Before you even dial the phone, you should have a clear understanding of your call's purpose and what your end goal is. What direction do you want your potential client to head in after the call? If you fail to plan, you won't achieve the goal for your call.

2) Don't Give It All Away Too Fast

This goal is simple. Do not give away all of your goods without knowing if the person will even take the time to look at them. If they want you to just send them the information so that they can get you off of the phone, don't do it. Do some digging to see what their level of interest is, or if they're just trying to get rid of you.

3) Poor Telephone Manners

Good phone etiquette seems simple enough to achieve. However, when you are in a stressful situation, you might not even realize what you are doing. Do not chew gum, snack, or attempt to multi-task while you are making a call. Your prospect will be distracted by your poor manners and they may get the wrong impression of you.

4) Listen To Your Prospect

If you want to get a good idea about what your prospect thinks, you need to listen up. Make sure to ask questions, rather than monopolize the whole conversation. If you don't listen, you won't have success.

5) Don't Make Your Fears Theirs

Just because your client is busy at the moment does not mean that they do not ever want to talk to you. Do not read negativity into somewhere that it is not. Just because you are afraid that they don't want to talk to you, doesn't mean that they don't.

6) Not Asking Enough Questions

There are certain things that you want to find out about a person to know whether or not you would even want to do business with them. So ask some questions. People love to discuss themselves, their families, and other areas of interest to them. People will respond more favorably to you if you show an interest in them.

7) Not Being Prepared

You would be foolish to enter into an important presentation with little to no preparation. The phone is absolutely no different. Take some time to think over what you have to say. It might also be helpful to role play with a friend or loved one. Find out what areas you need to work on and smooth out the rough spots.

8) Ask For It

You want to compel your prospect to action. It's not good enough to tell them, you want them to do their due diligence and look into what you're telling them. If you ask them to do something for you, then you have an opportunity to follow up with them and make sure that they did what you requested of them. - 16039

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