I had no money when I started my consulting business.
But I had a phone, and that's all it took to transform myself from an Indiana professor with a church-mouse salary, into an independent, flourishing, nationwide practitioner within a matter of mere months.
I contacted colleges and trade associations out of the blue, asking them to sponsor a new seminar I had created, and within 18 months my program had been successfully sponsored by 35 of them, which became my distribution network.
I didn't know ANY of the people I called, initially. Not one came from a referral. And there wasn't a sponsor that came to me during that time—I went to them.
Still, I was able to increase my earnings by TEN TIMES within a calendar year, buy my own home in pricey California, and start driving luxury cars and taking European and Hawaiian vacations, at will.
During my first few years of professional speaking, a major publisher noticed my programs and asked me if I wanted to write books. I did; six in five years, and four went on to become business best-sellers. Later, I would publish my second six.
And these books, in turn, brought me millions of dollars of added business.
This harvest of success came directly from the seeds I sowed with my cold calls.
If not for those frosty calls, made during one of the coldest Midwestern winters on record, I wouldn't be writing this article, and I might still be stuck in that quiet hamlet of 7,500 souls, where I was until I mustered the courage to dial my way out.
IN LIGHT OF THIS NARRATIVE, WHICH LOSER IS GOING TO TELL ME COLD CALLING DOESN'T WORK?
When you learn to cold call, you control your destiny.
You decide your activity level, and directly affect your results. You set your salary.
You don't have to wait for inbound calls to be generated from expensive advertising, and because you are proactively reaching out to prospects, you're enjoying several advantages:
(1) You fly under the radar of your competitors. I was at 35 universities and had six titles on the shelves of Barnes and Noble before my competitors even knew there was a category in stores for "sales" and "telemarketing." In other words, you're fast to the market, and that advantage can be amazing in its impacts.
(2) You can customize your offers to each prospect, quickly market testing them until you sort out the best one, and then focus on it. Try changing print ads or direct mailers with this frequency, and even if you did you wouldn't get the instant, rich feedback a cold call gives you.
(3) There's no downtime. You can keep calling until you strike gold, knowing that at any time you're awake, someone, somewhere in the world can be reached by your call and say yes.
(4) Cold calling is cheap and getting cheaper still. How many hundreds or thousands of unused minutes do you have left on your calling plans?
(5) Your competitors are afraid of the phone, busy taking to heart the wimpy appeals of so-called gurus who claim cold-calling doesn't work. Don't even think your prospects are being bombarded by multiple phone offers. It just doesn't happen, anymore, so you'll stand out among all of the cowards who are trying to find a "lazy person's" path to riches.
I could go on.
Once you learn to cold call you join the ranks of those who have tasted battle and savored hard earned victories. Everyone else may have an opinion, but unless they've ventured where you've been, they don't know what they're talking about.
Best-selling author of 12 books and more than 900 articles, Dr. Gary S. Goodman is considered "The Gold Standard"--the foremost expert in sales development, customer service, and telephone effectiveness. Top-rated as a speaker, seminar leader, and consultant, his clients extend across the globe and the organizational spectrum, from the Fortune 1000 to small businesses. He can be reached at: gary@customersatisfaction.com. |
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