Cold
Calling Can Help Woman-Owned Businesses
By
Felicia Sharp
Staff Writer
| Cold
calling was, is and will always be the number one best
practice in the world today when it comes to getting business.
You are at the liberty to come to any conclusions you
might like but it is the undisputed king if you thought
about the Return on Investment, the effectiveness and
the long term ramifications of the act. Not only does
it get business directly out of the efforts undertaken,
but also makes way for some sound networking foundations
and lets relationships bloom. So, if it is that good,
how does one master it?
1.
Become adamant, almost rowdy: Just get out there,
mark a territory to be mapped out in an entire week. Then
set out the number of calls to be made and start barging
into those offices. You are certainly not welcome, but
if you are a seasoned sales pro and charm lingers on you
like your perfume does, you might be in for a lucky day.
The gatekeepers will try to stop; you might solicit cold
stares; you would be made to wait for hours perhaps and
hell, no one would even want to ask you why you have come
in the first place – nothing ought to shake you.
Just be your adamant self, results should surface. Successful
business women and moms know this.
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2.
Perseverance will deliver: No matter what happens,
no matter what they say, no matter what became of your previous
calls and even if you hate every moment of this exercise –
keep at it. Just don’t give up. If you had thought of
doing 10 calls on a particular day, you will complete that number.
You would be surprised at the kind of response you would be
getting.
3.
Be Inspired: Know that every call you make gets you
closer to your sale. Each call has a dollar figure attached
to it. If only you knew that prospects have their own reasons
for declining your proposal and that they don’t hold anything
against you, what keeps you from asking the next person about
your product or service?
4.
No sale, will at least talk: When you barge in and
present your proposal, it might turn out that the prospect might
just not want to buy at this point of time; might already own
something similar; might need more data or information to make
decisions – the reasons can be many. The attitude you
must have is to walk out of the place knowing that even if you
couldn’t make the sale, you could at least make friends
with whomever you met. Seasoned business women are very good
at doing this!
5.
Numbers game, belly-to-belly and more: Sales is a numbers
game. If you are not meeting X number of people per day that
should lead to Y commissions, well, you know why you aren’t
making any money. The more people you meet, the more money you
make. Hanging on to those few prospects you had managed to talk
to and then counting on them to make the purchase until eternity
is just not going to the cut the ice.
Cold
calling just takes effort, time and persistence -- a burning
desire to succeed. If you have it in you, why should you even
consider those expensive ways of marketing on popular media?
