THE FEAR OF ‘FIRST CONTACT’

During a recent session of The Action Suite, we were discussing how to make the ‘First Contact’ easier and with greater success than that of the past. ‘First Contact’, also know best as, ‘Cold Calls’ have a couple of brothers that like to hang around. The first is ‘rejection’. The ugly brother that comes along for the ride is, ‘failure.’

These are two of the numerous emotions that we as human beings can suffer from and are based, as many emotions are, on fear. For those that have followed my blog for the past year know that fear, in the majority of cases is simply an acronym; False Evidence Appearing Real.

In the case of the ‘First Contact,’ and those two basic fears, failure and rejection, there are many things that you can accomplish if you have a strategy to eliminate the False Evidence Appearing Real. Which in this case is of course, rejection and failure:

Here are a few strategies for eliminating rejection and failure:

1. Change the task: You are NOT making a ‘cold call’. You are making a ‘first contact’. You do that every day. The barista at the coffee shop, a new server at the restaurant, the new receptionist at one of your client’s office, the person you are calling for the first time. By making that simple shift you create a whole new perspective on your task and more importantly, in your attitude.
2. Boy Scout: ‘Be prepared.’ Not only with all the materials you need for an effective presentation but also the preparation on your prospect? How well have you researched them? Do they even need your product or service?
3. Confidence: This is reliant on #2. The more prepared you are the more confident you will be. Answer the questions in #2 and you may find that you will solve the challenges that your prospect did not even know he had. Nerves are the byproduct of being unprepared.
4. Stick-to-itiveness: Go for the ‘NO’. Set a target for the number of no’s you are going to get that day. Write the number down and every time you get a ‘no’ cross it out and count down to the next number. Ask yourself right now; If you set a target of 20 and you get 15 no’s at a certain point in the day, which of the following sounds more empowering? “Man, that’s 15 no’s already today.” Or: “I only need to get 5 more no’s.”
5. Pride: Are you proud of what you do? Sales is a much-maligned profession, but if you are not proud of what you do, who you do it for and what you sell, be it product or service, then why should anyone believe in what you are saying? Keep in mind a quote that I have read many times: “Nothing Happens Until Something is Sold.” You are the one that drives the economy. Be proud of it.

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” ~ Dr. Wayne Dyer