Here a few ways to enjoy cold calling customers instead of dreading the dial tone.

Carrie Simpson, President

November 10, 2014

2 Min Read
Photo by Shaun HeasleyGetty Images
(Photo by Shaun Heasley/Getty Images)

The reason I have been cold calling for 20 years now is simple. I enjoy it. I find it fun. It doesn’t feel like work to me.

I can teach you, step by step, how to make a great cold call. I can’t teach you how to enjoy cold calling. If you can’t enjoy making cold calls, it will always feel like the worst part of your day. Find the joy in the task, and you will become as great at cold calling for your CSP as you are at any of the other parts of your job that you already enjoy.

Here are some ways to reframe the task in front of you.

Approach cold calling with the right attitude.

Every day I talk to smart, driven, interesting people who are focused on growing their businesses. All of them are tackling interesting problems that I may myself experience as a business owner or stakeholder. Approach cold calling with enthusiasm for learning, connecting and helping people achieve their goals and you will soon start to look forward to the time you spend calling. Share your best practices and ask about theirs. Go in to each conversation with an open mind and the goal of learning something new.

Relax — this is step one in what can be a very long process.

Cold calling is about making a connection that may or may not lead to a sale. Take the pressure off of yourself (and your prospect) to need to get to any meaningful place on call one. Nobody is invested yet. You’re inviting someone to a movie, not proposing.

Be a passionate evangelist.

Selling your services should be as easy as breathing to you.Start talking about why you have chosen to do what you do, instead of what you do. Do you sell cloud services, or do you solve complicated business problems using game-changing technology? Live in that second space and you’ll soon find that call one and call 100 don’t feel any different, because you’re sharing your vision with anyone who will hear you out. Good luck!

Why don’t you enjoy cold calling? What are the aspects of cold calling that push you away from wanting to pick up the phone and dial a number?

Carrie Simpson is founder and CEO of Managed Sales Pros.

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About the Author(s)

Carrie Simpson

Carrie Simpson

President, Managed Sales Pros

Carrie has 20 years of inside and field sales experience. She is the founder of Cold Calls Lead Generation, a business to business sales appointment setting firm. For fourteen years she has helped technology companies sell more, more efficiently. Carrie spent two years building the Managed Services lead generation program at The Eureka Project before founding Managed Sales Pros, a sales cycle acceleration firm that focuses exclusively on the managed services ecosystem. She was named by MSPMentor as one of the 250 most influential people in the technology channel for 2013.

Carrie still cold calls daily. She is responsible for client strategy at Managed Sales Pros and is available for consulting, training and speaking engagements. Carrie’s client list includes MSP industry guru Robin Robins, RMM vendors AVG Managed Workplace and Nable by Solar Winds, Network Security firm OpenDNS, the document management startup ITGlue and emerging and established MSPs from Seattle to New York City.

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