A harsh reality for the sales professional is the necessity of cold calling. Having to cold call is like having to eat your vegetables as a kid. In order to grow big and strong in your profession you have to do it. So instead of making it something you dread, like eating your vegetables when you were a kid, put some ketchup on it and make cold calling fun. Yes fun. Once you make it fun you’ll find it one of the easiest parts of the job.

Relax!

Cold calling can be a lot of fun if your approach is relaxed. Forget your quota, forget the numbers, forget that you need to make president’s club to afford that vacation, and just clear your head of all those external pressures. You may not realize it, but all those pressures come through in your voice when you’re on a call. If you’re going door to door on cold calls, it will show in your voice and body language and that’s double trouble. This external stress translates into a more high pressure and anxious call directed at the prospect. The prospect can tell you’re thinking about what their business can mean to you and not necessarily how it can benefit them. This is no basis for a relationship and if you want to earn a prospect’s business, a solid relationship has to be established.

Once you free yourself to relax, you will come to realize that cold calling is a game. It’s a game about numbers and statistics. You will find out that no matter how good you are, there will always be those who will not take a meeting with you or say “yes” – ever. Instead of homing in on these objections, you will start giving yourself permission to quickly move on to the next call. Then it’s a game about who can get to the “yes” first.

Now some sales managers might frown on such an approach and hammer on and on about overcoming objections. However, a natural by-product of relaxing and allowing yourself to get through to the “yes” is that you will think more clearly during calls. You won’t be so anxious. You won’t be forcing yourself to think of what next to say. Instead, you will be free to focus more on your prospect and your listening skills will improve by leaps and bounds. This will lead naturally to an ability to think more clearly during those calls and overcome those objections.