Phone sales can be intimidating for the most seasoned sales professional. Without an understanding of your mental focus, intimidation can quickly grow to feeling of inadequacy and fear; ultimately leading to an abandonment of the sales process. Intimidation and fear, however, are “fictional goblins under the bed” and only exist in your mind. Awareness and consistency can help keep negative feelings under control and build a winning attitude.
- Don’t Take It Personally
After a few attempts at reaching a prospect without results, it is normal to start feeling a sense of rejection. Humans naturally have a tendency to seek approval and will react to feelings of rejection by stopping their attempts to reach out to the prospect.
Studies have shown that it takes an average of 12 valid sales contacts, not voice mails or messages, for a new prospect to become a client and the number of valid contacts is magnified with the size of the account. 80% of sales reps, however, stop calling after the third or fourth non-returned call resulting in numerous lost opportunities. Disassociating your ego and need from approval from the sales process is essential to staying focused on attaining your goals.
- Treat Every Call Like Your First
Never make a prospect feel as if you have been pursuing them or have had a hard time getting through to them. This immediately breaks any rapport that you may hope to build with a client and puts you in an inferior position. Keep the same excitement, enthusiasm and motivation that you had on your very first call regardless if it is your fifth or fifteenth attempt.
- Know Your Sales Ratios
Not every call is a sale. Know your call, sales kit, demo and close ratios to help stay focused on your daily, weekly and monthly goals. Understanding that rejection is part of the process helps maintain perspective. Every “No” that you receive is one call closer to a “Yes”.
- Stay Consistent
Don’t allow feelings of rejection to stop you from achieving your goals. Set a daily plan of cold calls, follow-up calls, client calls, sales kits and demos based upon your current sales ratios and your monthly sales goals. Don’t allow feelings of rejection to sway you from your consistent schedule designed to build your pipeline.
- Prepare
Write down possible responses to various types of rejection from leaving a message to losing a sale. The right response can sway your prospect’s mind and turn a No into a Yes. Practice your responses in front of the mirror until you are comfortable.
- Stay Positive
Any contact with a prospect is good contact. The No that you are receiving today only indicates that that the product or timing is not right for the prospect at this time. Look at every rejection as an opportunity to plant a seed for future sales.
- Celebrate Your Accomplishments
Keep track of your daily accomplishments. Are you meeting your daily goals? Did you close a deal? Did you help a client? Focusing on your daily achievements helps put your minor setbacks in perspective.