When it comes to cold calling, you either love it or hate it. But either way, cold calling is one of the most effective ways to generate new business for your startup. Simultaneously, cold calling can be intimidating and nerve racking. My company, Alumnify, builds alumni engagement software for universities to help them increase their alumni participation. So every day I’d wake up at 5:30 a.m. to practice my pitch before calling universities.
When I first started, I would easily get discouraged by rejections. But now I love cold calling and can do it in my sleep. Going into a situation full of opportunity, where you don’t have rapport with the person on the other line and can’t make judgements from their body language, really tests your ability to communicate professionally, openly and meaningfully with someone who could make a big difference to your business or the business you are selling for. I love the challenge of it more than anything.
Here are some tips that helped me significantly increase my close rate.
Use Rejection as Motivation
Overcoming rejection is arguably one of the most important techniques to increase your close rate. Get used to hearing “No” because it will happen more often than not. As Greek philosopher Epictetus said, “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
After hearing “No,” you can do one of two things. Get frustrated and upset, which will overall bring negative energy to your day; or welcome the next call with more motivation to close because now you have something to prove. I remember one day I was on a hot streak — closing prospects left and right — but then I ran into an individual who wouldn’t give me the time of day. He was extremely rude and didn’t want to hear anything I had to say. Although it was frustrating, I was able to keep my composure and switch the conversation to focusing completely on him and his pain points. The sale didn’t go through, but I was able to get feedback on how to improve our product, which was also very valuable.
Let Prospects Tell You Their Problems Before Pitching Your Product
That brings us to the most common mistake made when cold calling: Diving straight into the sales pitch. Many prospects receive multiple cold calls a day from vendors trying to sell them a product. For the most part, that is the last thing they want to hear when they pick up the phone. Instead, start the conversation with a question. “How are you doing?” or “What are you currently using for XYZ? What don’t you like about it?” By using the customer discovery technique, you can enhance your sales pitch because you know their pains and problems.
Visualize Yourself Closing a Deal
In his book “Psycho-Cybernetics,” Maxwell Maltz mentions how everyone is capable of developing their “theater of the mind.” This is a place created in your imagination where you can go for mental rehearsal and view “mental movies” that you create, direct and star in. Before I start my day of cold calling, I mentally rehearse closing a sale. This technique won’t make you automatically close the deal; however, your cold calls will become less nerve-racking and more natural because you have seen yourself executing the call many times in your head.
A version of this post originally appeared on Tech.co here.
