I hate doing the dishes. Let me repeat that…I HATE doing the dishes.
Not sure if you remember the movie Pee Wee’s Big Adventure but that scene where he is saving all the animals from the pet store fire and keeps walking past the snakes until the very end? That’s exactly what I do with the dishes. Now as much as I hate doing the dishes I DO enjoy having clean plates and utensils. It’s sort of the necessary evil if you want to have a clean eating experience. I compare doing the dishes with cold calling. I try and avoid it at all costs…it is not fun and I feel like yeah, I’ll make some calls today but tomorrow I’m going to have to make calls again… so why not just put it off?
When I’m actually doing the dishes I do enjoy the warm water on my hands. I do enjoy seeing the sink empty and I do enjoy the accomplished feeling after they are done. When I make a connection on a cold call I do actually enjoy talking to people, I get to introduce myself and find out about them and best case I let them know what I do and see if anyone they know would be interested. Worst case I get a no and can check them off my list. Even better yet, I get an appointment and lets take that one step further I get a sale.
Download “Generate and Use Referrals” from the book, Prospect the Sandler Way.
I hear a lot of people say “Cold Calls are Dead” and “Little is achieved on a cold call” but is that really true? At Sandler we say there are 4 reasons to make a cold call, it’s to either get a yes, a no, a referral or a “lessons learned.” With that said, would you agree with me that you gain at least one of those no matter what happens? So the gatekeeper stopped you from getting through, well what did you say and what did you learn? Bam lesson learned. The prospect said no and hung up, bam you just got a no, good job!
I can’t say I really started out being “good” at doing dishes, sure some would get clean and 98% of the time nothing would break but can someone be really good at something like cleaning dishes? Well yes. It could be sparkling clean, they could be perfectly dry and it could go into the cabinet immediately, it could be done efficiently and in a timely manner. So sure I hate doing dishes but if I’m going to do them, I might as well do it the best I can right? Saves me from having to clean off a fork with crusted food still on it right before I want to dig into my warm steak.
So can you be good at cold calls? Sure you can and we also give a lot of tips on how to do that but the bottom line is sometimes you just have to do them, its part of being in sales as doing the dishes is well part of being an adult.
What did I gain by getting the dishes done? Well, I have clean dishes for one, but I also have a clean sink that doesn’t smell and can have company over without feeling embarrassed.
What can you achieve by making some cold calls? Well, you can get an appointment, get a sale or…maybe…just get better at cold calls.
Want some tips and tricks on how to make an efficient cold call? Give us a call at 203-264-1197.
