Do you have a strong discomfort with cold outreach?

Or much worse — do you avoid the phone as a prospecting tool altogether?

I’ve got six strategies to warm up any cold call and help you get over this big obstacle to prospecting.

1. If you have the ability to help someone, it’s your responsibility to reach out to them.

This is a home run play if you have the ability to help someone.

If I had a problem and you could help me with it, I would want you to talk to me. If you didn’t, I’d be upset if I found out later that you could have helped me.

When we can help someone, we owe it to them to reach out.

2. You don’t know until you have a conversation.

Why are you getting all wigged out about it?

You don’t know anything until you have a conversation with them. Don’t just sit there in your uncomfortableness. Take a small step: start with a conversation.

3. It’s only a conversation.

We’re not creating world peace or a perpetual motion machine, nor are we solving world hunger. This is just a conversation.

The prospect could blow me off, but it’s okay. In fact, I may call and only leave a voicemail. But you can’t close the sale if you never have a conversation.

4. What’s the worst that can happen to you?

The person gets upset. The person hangs up. Does that do anything to you? No. I still have two arms and two legs. I’ve yet to see a salesperson lose an arm or a leg, get stabbed, or get shot while cold calling.

What’s the worst that can happen to you? They reject you. It’s okay. Hey, we’ve all been rejected 10,000 times in life.

You know, if you look at great athletes, it’s amazing how many times they missed the goal, the throw, or the catch. And yet they’re still deemed a great athlete. Michael Jordan, without a doubt, the greatest basketball player ever to play the game, missed more last-second shots than he made. And he’s not known for that. He’s known for winning games.

5. Do they line up with your ICP?

I talk about this a lot — your ideal customer profile. You see, it may be cold outreach, but if the prospect lines up with my ICP, and I’ve helped other people like you, I owe it to you to reach out.

Set yourself up for success by targeting prospects in your ICP.

6. What else have you been uncomfortable doing at first?

There have been plenty of things in my life, for example when my kids began riding a bike, they were very uncomfortable — but they got over it. I’ll never forget, my son was a little bit afraid of climbing too high up on the monkey bars. But then he came to love it. Climbing up in a tree, same thing.

You see, there are a lot of things that we’re uncomfortable with at first, but once we get into it, we suddenly begin to enjoy it. Then you find out it’s pretty great.

How to Overcome “Bad” Leads

Without leads, there can be no prospects.

Well, I don’t believe in leads because they never work. That argument is so old, it’s unbelievable.

If you or any of your colleagues find yourselves using this excuse, you absolutely must read the following six items.

1. How do you know until you talk with them?

Until you have a conversation with them, you don’t know if it’s a good lead or a bad lead. It’s just a list of names. You don’t know enough about them — until you talk to them.

2. Your attitude going into the call predetermines the results you get coming out of the call.

It is amazing how I can have two salespeople prospecting: one likes to prospect and one doesn’t. I can give them virtually the same list, and you know what? The person who has the right attitude — the attitude of, I can help people, I know they need me to have a conversation with them — their results are gonna be dramatically different than the person who goes into it with a bad attitude.

You’ve got to check your attitude before you pick up the phone. It has a big impact on the results you get coming out.

3. Not believing is an excuse.

Not believing your leads are good is just an excuse. What you’re really telling yourself is, I don’t want to prospect.

Well, if I had good leads, I would prospect. Whoa there — you’re just trying to come up with a cheap excuse for why you shouldn’t have to prospect. Wrong.

4. Every lead has a 50 percent chance of becoming a customer.

They either become a customer or they don’t become a customer.

Now I’m an optimist, but that’s the way I look at leads. They’re either going to buy or they’re not going to buy. It’s 50/50.

5. If you don’t believe in the leads you’re getting, go get your own.

If you go get your own, then how are you going to argue that your leads are bad? You can’t, because you got the leads.

6. Make sure they fit your ICP.

I agree, it’s hard to believe in leads when they don’t match up anywhere close to what I’m selling. But the closer they are to your ICP, ideal customer profile, the more I believe in them.

When your leads line up with your ICP, there is no reason at all to not believe in them.

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