How to Get Warm and Fuzzie from Cold Calling

Doors slamming in your face, listening to dial tones or dealing with nasty gatekeepers are all experiences that keep winners from being champions and failures from being successful. The perils of cold calling can turn the best sales people frigid. Consider these few ways you can take the chill out of prospecting and warm up customers to make sales sizzle!

Work the Neighbors

Salespeople know better than anyone that time is indeed money, yet few reps maximize their territory for best results. Put your territory to work and increase sales by developing new accounts that are geographically desirable. Since you are already in the neighborhood visit the offices or businesses near your existing accounts. Large office buildings are a haven for new business without having to drive across town. Cold calls feel a lot warmer when you are working with the company or account next door. Just think of it as helping the neighbors keep up with the Jones's by buying!

Reach Out and Touch Someone

Considering the amount of sales opportunities they contain, the yellow pages should really be called the green pages! Sales people often avoid this wealth of potential customers that is literally delivered to their doorstep. Yellow pages are a powerful qualification tool if you know how to use them. Most reps just start smiling and dialing. This shotgun approach will result in a hefty phone bill and few prospects. Narrow your vision by considering groups or categories of candidates for your product or service and use the different sections of the yellow pages to find them. The advertisements are another way to qualify customers. Just look for areas of specialty or unique offerings in the ads that tie well to your product or service.

Special Interest-Special Opportunities

Professional associations or special interest groups are a great source of leads. If you sell medical products or farm equipment, industry SIC codes will reveal groups that share your passion! The library and Internet are filled with rosters, contact names and meeting times for these organizations. If your product or service is more general, find groups that are of interest to you, this way, you will be having fun and making money! Attending these meetings will introduce you to people where conventional prospecting methods might fail. Support these groups by exhibiting your products, sponsoring their events or placing an ad in their newsletters or join the club-the membership directory alone is worth the investment.

Prospecting can be intimidating and an often frustrating part of selling. Use your creativity and try these ideas to fire you up for cold calling and success! Anita M. Sirianni, The Professional Sales Coach is a popular consultant, writer and sales trainer with over 18 years of success in sales. Anita provides customized sales, customer service and communication programs for a variety of industries and organizations worldwide. The author of over 200 multimedia training programs, Anita delivers real-world ideas that help reps improve performance today and tomorrow. For more information please visit www.anitasirianni.com or call (800) 471-2619.