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Recently I was in a sales meeting in which the owner of the company passed out an article on habits.

We discussed good sales habits, how to acquire them, and what kind of habits it ultimately takes to be successful in sales. What was interesting was that we didn’t have any “ah-ha” moments or unearth anything new. Everyone had a pretty good idea of what it takes to be successful and yet, most weren’t doing those things.

Something I’ve noticed over the years is that most people who aren’t doing what they need to do blame it on a lack of motivation. Many salespeople I encounter are constantly looking for motivation to go out and prospect and as a result, they struggle to make enough calls. Sure, most eventually get themselves to make some calls, but it’s rarely enough.

Here’s the problem with motivation: if you’re waiting for positive motivation to “feel like” cold calling, it’s not coming. Do you wait for inspiration to strike before you take out the trash? In school, did you wait until you were excited to do your homework? Of course not. Why not? Because you knew it wasn’t coming. The same is true with cold calling. You’re never going to look forward to doing it. And by the way, if right now you’re saying, “What?! I love to cold call !”, you can stop reading this article. For the other 99.99999 percent of you, keep reading.

So, the first point here is don’t wait until you feel like, or are positively motivated, to prospect. It’s not going to happen. Second, avoid the trap many salespeople fall into when trying to avoid the discomfort of prospecting. It’s what I call “tricking yourself” into “thinking” you’re prospecting when you’re actually not. What do I mean by that? Anything other than in-person, over the phone, or other “live” forms of prospecting where you are actually talking to a person who is a potential prospect, is not prospecting. The most common forms of false prospecting are: sending cold emails without an immediate phone call; messages on LinkedIn; hanging out on other forms of social media; and, going to the same networking events where you see 95 percent to 100 percent of the same people every time. Emails, LinkedIn messages and the like are fine for follow-up, but never as an initial prospecting contact. Look, at the end of the day, you simply need to figure out how many phone calls and/or in-person calls you have to make and then find a way to get yourself to make the calls. If this is something you struggle with, here are a few things you can try.

Tip #1: Focus on the long-term pain of inaction vs. the short-term pain of action.

If you’re like most people, and assuming you’re a person of good character and integrity, you’re hard on yourself when you don’t make the necessary sales calls, which is what you get paid for, and ultimately what you promised to do when you accepted your job. You beat yourself up, talk down to yourself, your confidence and self-esteem take a hit, you feel guilty, you have a bad day because you didn’t live up to your obligations, and your lack of sales leads to depression. It’s painful all the way around and all those bad feelings suck. And by the way, you should feel this way if you don’t do what you’re supposed to do and what you promised to do when you accepted the job. That’s the long-term pain.

All you have to do to avoid the long-term pain is make the calls and face the short-term pain of possible rejection. And by the way, stop kidding yourself, the short-term pain is never as bad as you think it will be. You’re not going to die, most people will not hang up on you, slam the door in your face, or scream at you and call you names, but even if some of them did, so what, what’s the worst that can happen?

In fact, not only will the short-term pain not be as bad, you’ll also get a reward. All the negative things that happen when you don’t make the calls will flip. You’ll feel better about yourself, have more self-esteem, more self-confidence, and that in turn will flow positively into all the other areas of your life, oh, and you’ll be more successful and have a lot more money.

Tip #2: Calculate how much money you make per call, whether you talk to someone or not.

Take the size of your average sale. Figure out how many calls you make to get a sale. Divide the amount of the sale by the number of calls. If you call and you get a busy signal, voicemail, someone says they aren’t interested, or any other number of things happen, just think to yourself, “Cool, I just made another 10 dollars.” Or, whatever number you came up with.

Tip #3: Related to the above, realize that every call gets you closer to a sale.

Tip #4: Focus on the intrinsic reward — imagine the ultimate payoff.

What are your goals and dreams? What does your perfect life look like 5, 10, 20 or more years down the road? The more calls you make, the faster you’ll move toward that reality. Procrastinating and wasting another day moves you farther away from that and closer to the opposite of that, closer to pain and misery. You can also tie it to something important like being a good example for your kids.

Tip #5: Take some caffeine, listen to motivational music, watch a video that motivates you.

Tip #6: Have someone hold you accountable.

Tell someone how many calls you’re going to make and if you don’t make the calls, you have to write a check for $500 to them or a political candidate you can’t stand or an organization you don’t like and would never support.

Tip #7: Make prospecting your #1 priority and get it done before you do anything else. Once you get your most difficult task out of the way, the rest of the day will be much easier.

Tip #8: Get completely sold on what you have to offer.

The first sale is to yourself. People will hear your conviction. Know that you are helping people and making their lives better.

Tip #9: Repeat several positive affirmations two or three times before making your calls.

Tip #10: Be prepared. Have a script that you’ve rehearsed well and know exactly what to do and what to say.

Finally, don’t expect to be perfect and do expect to face rejection. If being a great salesperson and making a ton of money was easy, everyone would be doing it.

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