Without a doubt there is a huge gap between dreaming about success and actually achieving it. What holds back so many small business owners and entrepreneurs? There are certainly many factors but one of the main culprits is business development.

Put simply, many new business owners, especially those in services businesses, greatly underestimate how difficult it is to attract consistent streams of new clients. This comes as a surprise to many entrepreneurs, especially when their business model only requires that they add two or three new clients each year. Intellectually we think to ourselves that this can’t possible be all that difficult.

What makes this deceptive is that getting our first few clients is usually fairly easy. If we’ve done anything close to a reasonably good job of developing a network of clients, a few of them will throw some work our way.

However what most fledgling consultants and advisors fail to realize is that their network doesn’t have an infinite amount of business to give them. After the first rush of activity it’s likely that you’ve received most of the business you will get. Returning to to this group in 6 months is likely not to yield much more gold. The reality is that you can very quickly lap the track if you are not bringing new people into your circle of relationships. This is where things often start to fall apart.

Which is why systems become so important. Systems for getting new people to raise their hands and express interest in who you are and what you do, and systems for building trust and credibility through regular contact.

Without such systems, small and solo services providers are almost always doomed to failure. The initial clients go away, pleased with the work you’ve done, but unable to offer you more. This puts you back at the starting gate. From this proverbial square one, you must once again start the process of trying to get that next piece of business. Since the cultivation time for developing prospects into clients is often considerable, the repeated cycles of feast or famine become inevitable.

Although it’s not particularly difficult to set up a system that will alleviate this problem, so few business owners do. Which raises the question of, why?

It’s my belief that many people think that it is too complicated and too much hard work. I find that ironic that these same people are willing to work extremely hard servicing their clients, but are unwilling to do so on their own behalf.

What do you think?

According to reports out from Sales & Marketing Executives International, sales teams can increase their productivity by up to 45% if they are looking at themselves in mirrors as they make their calls.

Vanity? Not really. Apparently by looking at oneself in the mirror it counterbalances the one sided nature of cold calling by psychologically introducing another “person” into the conversation.

Sales teams that use mirrors report lower turnover and increased job satisfaction as well.

Have you used mirrors when cold calling? Did they work?

I did a small experiment the other day. I obviously get my hair cut on a regular basis. But do you actually ask your hair stylist about people she knows who might be good for you to know too? I never did. Surprise, surprise…she’s got some interesting contacts.

Ditto for my dentist. And my chiropractor. And the teller at my local bank.

Now naturally you don’t want to leave your common sense at home…by which I mean don’t always be having “relationship building” conversations with everyone you meet.

But, I found that I tended to be on the other end of the spectrum. Unless there was an obvious business agenda I never probed to find out if these people knew others that would be good for me to know.

It’s a cold calling (actually a warm-relationship building strategy) that I need to remember. How about you?

Your prospect, whether he/she be a purchasing manager or a senior executive, the thing that they’re the most worried about is making a bad decision. In fact, the fear of making a bad decision usually out weighs the benefits that would come from taking the initiative or exploring a new option.

If I had to sum it up in one word, “embarrassment” is the key fear that these people have. And as good sales people we need to never forget that. Thus the key for selling in the b2b marketplace is to make it “safe” for your prospect to buy. They have to be convinced that they won’t be embarrassed if they do what we want them to do.

How do we do this?

Well, there are probably a lot of ways, but one of the most important is what is referred to in marketing circles as “social proof”. This simply means “who else that I know and respect has used this solution?” The more social proof you have, the easier it is to sell your products or services.

 Testimonials are probably my most powerful form of social proof. When we’re selling on the phone this means that you want to “name drop” whenever you can. 

“You know that concern is a valid one and it’s something that I was talking about with Jimmy Rogers over at XYZ Corp. You know Jimmy, don’t you? He basically has the same job as you. Anyway, he was concerned about delivery dates and I had to really convince him that we could meet his time frame. They actually were on a tighter schedule than you.  Anyway, I got him to agree and we met the schedule right on the number. Never missed a deadline in over 2 years of working with them. And as you know, they’re one of the world leaders in your kind of business.”

Obviously I just made that previous statement up as I’m sitting here writing this to you, and you would probably say it far more elegantly. But I’m sure you get the point. Social proof is one of the most powerful tools we have for making it safe for our prospects to invest with us.

I’m about to sit down and write a script for one of my sales coaching clients and this is a good reminder to me that I need to incorporate “social proof” into the script.

So let me know, what are some other methods you use to build trust and credibility and make it “safe” for your prospects to buy from you?

I think that great sales people really appreciate other great sales presentations. Much the same way as great copywriters tend to be great readers and admirers of  other great copywriters.

But, my oh my has the art of using the telephone to build relationships fallen by the wayside. It seems that callers are either 1)overly aggressive 2)total wimps or 3) can’t overcome the most basic of objections or push-back.

Granted the completely “cold call” is the most difficult to do well. However since most people are amazingly lazy they can’t get themselves organized to actually implement a marketing system even though it really isn’t hard to do.

BUT…it does take some planning. It does have more than one moving part (which just overwhelms people) so as a result they say “This is too difficult”.

What a bunch of wimps.

Since people are so scared to spend money and since they have LOTS of time on their hands, they go ahead and start calling blindly into companies.

Which isn’t a terribly idea, if…

You know what to say. What the objections are. How to gain credibility in the first 15 seconds.

But are most people willing to do that?

Nope. 

What a bunch of wimps.

What makes procrastination so difficult to overcome is that recognizing it is one thing. Doing something about it is an entirely different matter. However, I think that a lot of the old stand-by methods for addressing procrastination actually do work. 

One that I particularly like is to break a project down into a number of different components. While working on the overall project may be daunting, working on some aspect of it usually isn’t that hard to get started.

This has a lot of application for telephone selling.

Sitting down and saying “OK now I’m going to start to make my 12, 24, 36…calls can be so daunting that you never get started. Alternatively saying that “OK I’m going to make this one call to this one person is a lot easier.”

Something else I’ve done is put calling that one person on my “to do” list. I know having a to-do list is so 1980s but I get a lot of pleasure in crossing stuff off. When I look at my list during the day as I’m listlessly sitting procrastinating, tends to spur me onwards.

That’s why having on my list “Call Don” or “Call Mary” works well for me. First it’s simple. just one thing I have to do. Second, I get to cross something off the list. And that makes me feel good.

Of course we’re really trying to use some psychological trickery on ourselves by doing this and it actually tends to work pretty well. Once I make that one call to Don or Mary, then I’m likely to continue making those additional calls. Even if it doesn’t work, at least I’ve got one call made. And that’s better than just sitting around playing with my cat (although that’s fun too).

Give it a try and tell me if this works for you.

The chameleon is an interesting creature. It has the ability to blend into its environment. From a persuasive emotional perspective that’s what you want to do as well. You need to “blend” with each prospect. You do this by communicating with your prospects in a way that makes them feel comfortable with you.

There’s an old saying that “We like people who are like us”. This is a basic principle behind NLP. What this means from a telephone perspective is that you want to appear similar to the person with whom you are speaking.

If they speak fast you need to do the same. If their cadence is slow, you need to tone it down. Aggressive? Don’t back away, that will only make them convinced that you’re some sort of wimp. React to aggressiveness with aggressiveness. By standing your ground, you’ll impress your prospect although your first instinct is that this approach might just irritate him.

By adapting your style to the person you’re speaking with you’ll more quickly build trust and credibility and ultimately close the sale.

What do you think?

Personally, I’m a believer that a good script makes cold calling  a lot easier. If for no other reason than it provides you with a guideline for what the heck it is you want to say.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m in the midst of making a sales call that “perfect comment” often seems terribly elusive. What I can pull out of thin air as I’m sitting at my desk, can’t be found to save my life when I’m on a call.

And that’s where a script comes in handy. It’s a form of a safety net. Perhaps somewhat ironically, I find that when I have a script (and have reviewed it a few times) I actually don’t need it once I’m on the call.

Strange, but perhaps that human nature.

So what do you think?

Sure it’s bit like plowing a field with a mule.

But if you have extra time on your hands, and not a lot money to spend, it’s a way that actually will generate  you some new business.

If you do it right.

But…(and this is a HUGE “but”)…what exactly are  you going to say?

I’ve met a lot of real sales pros in my time. People who used the phone to build relationships and sell things that I never would have guessed could be sold over the phone.

And the one thing they had in common?

They knew precisely what they were going to say.

Nothing was left to chance. 

Which is why if you haven’t already, you ought to sign up for my 10 part mini-course on how to do this right.

Because as much as you may not want to cold call. If you’re going to do it, you really should do it well.