If you have ever been in Sales — or owned a business, or managed a business — you have almost certainly been in the position of having to phone up someone — a person you do not know — to discuss a business issue. Likely the dreaded Sales Call, or worse, the COLD CALL.
Cold call. The phrase strikes a huge number of us, I suspect, as just short of terrifying. Cold call. Cold indeed; that is how we feel, staring at the telephone, writing our notes, trying to organize our thoughts before punching in those numbers.
It ain’t easy, friends. But… what is it exactly that we worry about?? Mostly I think it is our fear of looking foolish, or being rudely rejected, of offending.
Bear with me a second to make a point here that may help.
When I was a young artist just about to go into a roomfull of strangers to draw live for the first time — I was terrified! Yow! This sketching thing had always been done in private, now, just me, and all the time in the world to do it. Not now. No! Gotta get in there and at least APPEAR to know what I am doing and draw real good, and do it real fast, and impress these stone-faced unknown people. Akkk! Scared, baby, I was way scared.
And then… something happened. I do not know exactly how.
Somehow I had the idea of… pretending.
Yes. I was told to just PRETEND TO BE CONFIDENT. What? What is THAT about?? How can that help, or make me draw better or — okay, okay. So I will try it. I got nothing else.
I did not want to look foolish. I did not want to offend. I did not want to be ridiculed or rejected. Lots of ugly results could happen when I went before all those strangers to draw live. They may not be impressed. They may laugh or make fun or criticize.
So I did the Pretending. I actually made myself FEEL confident by Pretending to be confident. And a tiny miracle took place. Within a few seconds I actually WAS confident. I can do this! Hey, I have been drawing most of my life, which maybe none of these people have experienced, so sure, sure, I can do this.
And I did. Have been doing so for decades since then. The crowd was impressed and supportive and fun. It felt fantastic. And STILL does!
And finally my point here — just PRETEND. Pretend you are confident on that call.
You have a good product, a terrific service to offer. That other professional on the line NEEDS to be aware of what you have. It will help their business, help their sales, aid their staffing, improve their bottom line. Sure. That is why you need to make that call.
Sound stupid? I bet. I thought so too, all those years ago. And I was wrong. It is magic, and it will very likely work for you in Cold Calling and in other difficult moments to come.
THE THEORY — The trick is to FEEL the way you will need to BE in the task to come — our subconscious minds do not deal with words that much. But it is accessible to Emotion. The subconscious believes you when you feel strongly, and sends up energy and belief to help you succeed in the task at hand. At least, that is my theory on why this works so well. I do hope it works for you, too, friend.