Prospecting Perspectives

How to go from Warm Selling to Cold Calling

For too many salespeople, there is a constant struggle that goes on in their mind. That struggle is between spending their time in the rewarding world of warm selling versus the unknown world of cold calling/prospecting.

Warm selling means meeting customers who are happy to see us and want our help.

Cold calling is rolling up on a farm and meeting someone who is busy and doesn’t want another salesperson calling on them.

Warm selling involves tangible achievements such as helping a customer understand a product or helping them help their customers. It feels like you are building on a relationship.

Cold calling involves an unknown response from prospects who may not even qualify as prospects. It feels like you are starting all over again.

Warm selling can be scheduled so the customer knows we are coming.

Cold calling is often unplanned for the prospect and can be at a bad time for them.

Warm selling has a positive spot in the mind of our salesperson and makes them feel accomplished at the end of the day.

Cold calling most often sits in a negative spot in the mind of our salesperson and feels like they have little to show for all their efforts. This feeling is made worse when their sales manager asks them, “Well, did you sell anything today?”

None of this comes as a surprise. You have struggled with the choice of how to spend your day: in the warm waters of calling on current customers versus jumping into the cold waters of prospecting new customers. As a sales trainer, the request I get most often is – “How do I get better at cold calling or prospecting?” The training starts in the mind of our salesperson. They have to get their perspective right before jumping in the pickup and heading out.

Perspectives on Prospecting:

The struggle is 100% inside your head. That doesn’t mean it’s not real. It just means that you need to work on your perspective of the struggle.
Identify the struggle. The first step in solving any problem is to identify it. Name it if you want. Call it the “Polar Plunge of cold calling” if it helps. But you need to realize it is there. Then, think about how you personally deal with that problem. You, me, and everyone else tend to avoid unpleasant situations. How unpleasant is cold calling to you, and how do you react to that unpleasantry?
Eventually, you will need new customers. You can’t avoid prospecting throughout a 30-year sales career. Avoidance is not a healthy strategy.
Learn how to stay motivated in the absence of results. The struggle is that early prospecting or cold calling feels fruitless. No different than beginning an exercise program or a diet. The early days can feel like there is no progress. However, after days, weeks, months, a little light starts to show at the end of the sales tunnel. Again, the way to mentally handle this is to identify this struggle in your mind. And persist anyway.
If prospecting still feels like an insurmountable challenge, set the smallest of goals for the day and blow them out of the water. Set out into your territory with the goal of talking to just one prospect, making just one cold call. That’s it. Tell yourself, I’m going to drive down one new driveway, introduce myself, and ask for an appointment to come back to have a longer discussion on how you help customers like them. That should feel like a very easy goal for today. You might think that is not big enough to move the needle on signing new customers. And you might be right. However, it is far more than you would accomplish if you avoided it altogether. Consistent, daily efforts have a wonderful way of building up over time.

All the best in your efforts to start new relationships!

Start today.

Tell yourself, “A year from now, this prospect might be the warmest selling relationship I have!”