It seems like a daunting task to pick up the phone, dial the number of some random person, and hope that you can convince them that what you are selling is exactly what they need. Salespeople do this everyday though, some with success and some not so much. SalesHacker.com had an interesting article about cold calling and I’d like to share a little from it. The first part was as a cold caller you must be able to embrace rejection. This may be very difficult, but you can learn a lot from it. Practice with some others and have them reject you. Make them reject you in the meanest way they know how so that no rejection from then on could be worse. Instead of hanging up after being rejected ask why. The caller may just hang up on you, but if you’re lucky, they may tell you some valuable information for you to use on your next call. I know that we’ve talked about this in class and how difficult it may be but if you have a positive attitude and want to learn from it, I think cold calling can be very effective.
That brings up the next point in the article, “focusing on immediate learning not immediate sales”. Like I said above even if you get rejected but you learn something for next time the call benefited you. One goal to set when cold calling is to gain at least one takeaway for the next call. It could be how you opened the conversation, the way you asked questions, or how you tried to close the sale. At first you want to stick with the same basic outline of how you think the conversation should go. This will allow you to have a constant with your cold calling approach. Make sure you take notes on how the call went and so that you remember your takeaways. Once you’ve done a fair number maybe 25 to 50 calls you can review your notes and alter your strategy. For me the main point is not to fear cold calling instead embrace it and use it to learn from so that you can become a better salesperson.
tothrm19 
Trinity Blank 
David
I like how you said to begin with consistency to gain comfort, and then move to adding what you have learned from other calls. Cold calling is scary, but it can be fun if you open yourself up to a little improv as well
I wrote a blog earlier on handling rejection and you outlined it great here. Cold calling can be difficult but is a great learning experience to dealing with people and the sales process.
This is a great post! I think that this job is so scary for people, but I like how you shared why it is a beneficial experience. You learn as you go and you never actually have to see the people you talk to face to face. I liked the tips on how to learn from cold calling and how to grow from rejection.
I’ve always hated the idea of cold calling. The idea of pitching a sale to someone you’ve never met or talked to before sounds like the worst social experience. However cold calling is an essential part of being a salesman. Embracing rejection is part of the key to being more comfortable and it really is, like you’ve said, a learning process as you go.