Seven Steps to Cold Calling Follow-Up
If you're going to cold call, these seven steps will help you approach and talk to people.
1. Be Prepared
Know who you are calling and what your product or service is about. This can help avoid any awkward conversations about not finding "the right person," making the phone call more natural for both parties involved in the process.
2. Know Your Goal
Know why you're calling or why they should do business with your company, as well as what their potential benefits would be if they worked with you now or in the long-term future of work together in a partnership.
3. Don't Be Afraid of People
And by this, I don't mean you should completely expose yourself to strangers (you don't need to share everything about yourself with people you meet) but rather you should work on overcoming your fear of rejection. When the fear of rejection is gone, the fear of the unknown is also gone...and it opens up new opportunities for personal and professional growth.
4. Expect Rejection
With that being said, there will most likely be many people who don't want to buy or do business with your company, at least not right now. There will be many people who receive your call and aren't interested, at least not at this point in time. If you're not ready for that, there's nothing wrong with that...it just makes perfect sense and also means you have more work to do before it becomes a reality.
5. Be Anchored by Your Objective
The cold call is not about you...it's about them. It's always about them. Nowhere in your goal should it say "make money." This is also one of the keys to work-from-home success: make the objective of your business something that benefits others, not just yourself.
6. Be Confident
It does not matter what happens to you in the cold call process or throughout your business goals...you can still be confident and feel good about yourself. If someone calls and hangs up on you, tell yourself that they weren't ready and that's okay. If someone tells you they're not interested, don't take it personally. It's important to maintain confidence when dealing with strangers because if you show insecurities, people will sense it, accept it, and most likely take advantage of your weakness.
7. Enjoy the Outcome
Regardless of whether or not you get a new customer or a new partnership, enjoy the outcome no matter what it is because there is no right choice…there's only learning opportunities.
So there you have it...seven easy steps to cold calling. If you have any additional tips, feel free to share them below.
About the Author:
Michael Smith is a work-from-home entrepreneur and author of "The Seven Step Cold Calling Process", "Cold Calling Made Simple", and "Cold Calling Made Easy: Basic Cold Call Techniques". *** For more information about Michael check out his Google+ profile and blog *** Also, if you liked this article, please share it on Facebook or Twitter with the buttons below.
You can see more of my articles here or on The Passive Voice . Thanks!
About the author: Mike is an entrepreneur and freelance writer. I currently run a small business which helps other businesses grow. In addition to that, I teach others how to work-from-home using my "Passive Voice" system. My passion is helping people start their own home-based businesses. You can learn more about me and read some of my articles by clicking here or on the picture below to go to my Google+ profile page.
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Image: shutterstock/lucid_sunrise See the original article here: http://www.etsystudio.com/hk-en/listing/47896921/seven-steps-to-coldcalling-followup?ref=shop_home_active_1 ******************************************************************************* This article was originally published by Work From Home Success on October 7, 2012 and is republished with permission under Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives Licence 4.0. --- Photo: Getty Images
By Don Willits Can you really make it as a freelance writer? You bet! That is, if you do it right. And I'm going to tell you exactly how I did just that. I took the leap into becoming a freelance writer in 2000, after working for a number of years as a technical copywriter at Hewlett-Packard Co. Before that, I worked for other companies in marketing, advertising and journalism--all jobs where I'd written professionally. Back then there were no MOOCs or books on freelancing. But I did have a reasonably good technical background, reasonable social skills, and a keen enthusiasm for writing. And most important of all, I had a plan. Which was all the more important given that I had no clue what I was doing. But one thing led to another--and after learning from my own mistakes and watching others make them all over again--I when I knew what to do, and how to do it right. My first steps as a freelance writer came about by accident when a technical communications manager at HP's Personal Systems Group asked me if I could help him with some articles he was writing on CAD/CAM Windows-based software for use in business of all sizes.
Conclusion:
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