Part I

In the challenging markets of today many salespeople and business owners are focusing more and more of their efforts on cold calling to secure sales appointments and to win new business. Cold calling is an area of selling that many sales and business people can be very uncomfortable with.

As a sales motivational speaker and sales author one of my core focuses is helping individuals and teams to be more motivated and more confident and to deliver sales excellence and positive sales results on demand.

To help you to get and maintain the right sales attitude here are 7 tips (of 23) that will help you to be a more confident and successful when making proactive business calls!

1. Tip 1 Know why cold calling is important to you and remind yourself constantly.

   Stick pictures that remind you why this activity is important to you on your PC. Make notes in your diary to remind yourself why it and the results that you get from it are important to you. Spend time focusing on your reasons for taking positive cold calling action every morning.

2. Tip 2 Make calls consistently, even when you have enough business.

   Make cold calling one of your sales success habits. Make it something that you do all of the time not just when you don’t have enough business.

3. Tip 3 Make calls every day (or every week).

   Ten cold calls every day of the month is easier than saving them all up and trying to make 230 on the final day of the month! 10 calls every day means positive sales habits and positive sales habits mean consistent sales success.

4. Tip 4 Keep a sales log book and record your successes.

   The most important things in your life are worth recording. That’s why many top salespeople keep a sales success logbook. Record what works, what doesn’t, what you learnt, what you’re proud of, how you are going to do things differently next time…

5. Tip 5 Know your cold calling ratios…

   Keep a record of your dials to conversations, conversations to meetings, meetings to opportunities, opportunities to deals etc. Knowing this powerful information will enable you to measure your progress and your skills.

6. Tip 6 Get your (motivated) colleagues involved in “inter-mate” competitions.

   Don’t wait for your manager to organize competitions to get you fired up; organize them yourself and set your own expectations and standards higher than anyone else could ever set for you. It’s your sales results that will benefit.

7. Tip 7 Reward yourself for activities completed and maintaining a positive attitude, not just when you get results.

Many salespeople only reward themselves for results. You should reward yourself for displaying the right sales behaviours and doing the right sales activities also. These positive behaviours and activities will ultimately bring top sales results so it is these superstar behaviours and activities that you need to reinforce.