Effective Phone Calling and Prospecting
Overcome the Fear of Making Business Contacts by Telephone
With the apparent re-explosion in the home-based business industry in the last few years, it is becoming more and more common for people to be solicited by friends, family, vague acquaintances, and even total strangers for money making opportunities. According to a Direct Selling Association website revealing Industry Statistics for 2007, direct selling alone has seen growth in its US sales force of approximately 35% since 1998.
Effective Phone Calling and Prospecting skills are rapidly becoming essential for faster success among today's growing number of small business owners. While the home-based business industry, as a whole, is extremely vast and includes many different business types, one thing for certain is that nearly all types must rely on these very specific communication skills. Many are finding that their initial ideas of getting rich quickly can be more difficult than they first thought, especially when they go to pick up the telephone to make that first phone call.
On his Team Leadership audio recording, "How to Sponsor People," network marketing expert Tim Marks states that 80% of one’s success in sponsoring a new person into the MLM industry is dependent upon the initial contact, which according to him, should be done almost exclusively by telephone.
Making Business Contacts by Telephone, according to Marks, can give the caller the advantage of masking their more apparent fears and of not getting caught in a question & answer session which can easily occur in a face-to-face business contacting situation. He also states that the sound of fear in one's voice could even be mistaken for enthusiasm, which dramatically increases their chances of setting up a meeting with a prospect.
So how does one Overcome the Fear of Making Business Contacts and Prospecting by Telephone? Well, if they are one of the very few individuals who do not have this fear, they can consider themselves lucky. In his book, The Team Builder's Textbook: Building Communities in the Information Age, Leadership expert and best-selling author Chris Brady discusses the topic of how people will experience fear or anxiety in a contacting situation when they feel the prospect may react negatively, or if they perceive the prospect as having more influence than themselves.
To help alleviate these fears and anxieties, Brady recommends having a crystal clear vision of the goals one wants to achieve. He also educates people to understand that having courage is not having an absence of fear, but rather, courage is action in spite of fear. During many of his live training seminars, Brady elaborates by saying that “…all heroes have fear, but they do it anyway.”
If understanding these concepts still isn't enough to get someone to dial that number, then one can try some of these other useful tactics:
- Draw a picture of a dollar sign on a piece of paper and tape it to the telephone (this does become more difficult, however; as cell phones get smaller and smaller!).
- Make phone calls as a group with others who are in the business, or who are supportive.
- Set goals for how many phone calls the group is going to make.
- Have a competition where the winner is the one who either makes the first call or makes the most calls.
- Do not procrastinate, as that tends to allow one's fears to compound and become larger than they really are.
- Rehearse and practice a recommended script that has already been proven to be effective.
- Engage in positive self-talk which can help give a confidence boost right before making the call.
In addition to the tips above, reading books on success and self improvement can help to get one's mind off of their fears and has been known to dramatically increase one’s self confidence. Some of the timeless classics that deal with overcoming fears of communicating with people are:
- The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz
- Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
- How to Have Power and Confidence in Dealing with People by Les Giblin
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.
In today's small business culture, many people are looking to either become financially independent by owning their own home-based business, or they are just looking for a supplemental income stream. In any case, they will most likely be put in a position where good telephone skills will be a necessary asset.
For those who are affected by a fear of making business contacts with the telephone, they may do well to heed the warning of one of the world’s most inspiring writers of all time: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.” – Mark Twain.
I HOPE THEY DON'T ANSWER!
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