Cold Calling for Cowards

I suggest you take a look at a book by Jim Camp called "Start with No."

It's primarily about how to negotiate, but sales are a type of negotiation, right? And what he has to say about making cold calls could change your entire outlook.

Camp does not believe in win-win solutions. He doesn't believe in win-lose or any other variation either. He believes in controlling the negotiation (or sale, if you will) by not being "needy" and by making the prospect open up by asking questions.

The best way to show you how this approach works, since it would take too long to explain it here (read the book), is to quote what Camp used to say to prospects when he was trying to build his consulting business:

"I'm not sure that anything I do fits with you. I don't know. So if this doesn't make any sense just tell me and I'll get off the phone. Is that fair?"

More often than not, he says they asked him to proceed.

Could this work for you? What if you said something like:

"I'm not sure anything our firm does can improve your insurance program. So if what we can offer in terms of alternative markets, risk management strategies and competitive quotes doesn't make any sense just tell me and I'll get off the phone. Is that fair?"

One more quote from Camp's book:

"In those early days I worked with insurance companies and their sales staff, and I could guarantee that after eighteen hours of training, a group of a group of thirty salespeople would net ninety valid appointments with just two hours of calling apiece. That's an incredible return on investment of time, as anyone in that field knows."

Check it out.
 
jwhit98 said:
I suggest you take a look at a book by Jim Camp called "Start with No."

It's primarily about how to negotiate, but sales are a type of negotiation, right? And what he has to say about making cold calls could change your entire outlook.
Click to expand...

1 post to plug this book? Picking it up from the library.
 
I've read Cold Calling for Cowards. It's 'okay'. It tries to be a "motivational" book.

In my opinion, it doesn't hold a candle to this one that was written in the late 60's:
The Secret of Selling Anything by Harry Browne
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00M19W20Y/ref=cm_cr_ryp_prd_ttl_sol_12

If you've read other selling books, you're probably tired of the false promises that never quite work out. You're probably tired of being told "you can do it if you just believe you can."

You're probably tired of reading about tricks that made a particular sale ~ tricks that may have been appropriate to a particular situation, but not yours ~ and even if they were appropriate, how would you have thought of them at the right time?

If you've read books on selling before or listened to "sales experts," you're probably tired of being pumped with hot air ~ told how you must "come alive," be full of enthusiasm, dominate the world around ~ all the things that don't happen to be a part of your basic nature.

Well, this book isn't anything like that. In fact, this book was written to refute many cliches of selling that have been accepted without question for years.

This book will prove to you, I hope, that the stereotyped image of the "born salesman" is a mistake. You don't have to remake your personality and become super-enthusiastic, super-aggressive, domineering. Not only are those traits not necessary, they are actually a hindrance to making sales.

And you won't have to develop that uncanny ability to come up with the right answer at the right time ~ that super-human knack of having the brilliant flash of insight that is so prevalent in books on selling. Sure, given several days to think about it, the writer of a sales book can always come up with a solution to a sales problem. But how does that help you when confronted face-to-face with a question that must be answered now? This book will show you that you don't need such skills.

This book can truly revolutionize your selling career ~ but only because it will show you that you no longer need to waste your time developing skills that are of no value to a salesman. For example, here are some of the points that will be made in the course of this book:

-- Contrary to the accepted mythology, enthusiasm is not a virtue; it destroys more sales than it creates.
-- "Positive thinking" is an unrealistic fallacy. The salesman who thinks negatively has a far greater chance for success than the so-called "positive thinker."
-- Sales success does not come from convincing people to buy things they don't want.
-- The salesman who always has an answer for every objection is also probably plugging along with a very low income.
-- Extroverts don't make the best salesmen; they are invariably outsold by introverts.
-- To be a good salesman, you don't have to be a "smooth talker".
-- Another all-time sales fallacy is the statement "When the going gets tough, the tough get going". When the going gets tough, I usually take a vacation.
-- The desire to be able to motivate others is unrealistic and foolish. A really-great salesman will never try to motivate anyone.

Perhaps all of this sounds so far removed from what you've heard about selling through the years that you wonder how it could possibly be true. I intend to demonstrate the validity of these statements in two ways.

First, my own experience verifies their worth. Almost invariably, in any selling experience where I've found myself, I have outsold everyone else around me ~ usually while working far fewer hours.

In addition, I've seen these principles work for a few others, too ~ a very few, for they are unknown to most people.

But there is nothing mysterious about them ~ and that brings us to second way in which I will demonstrate their validity. I will prove them to you. We will deal with life logically and carefully in this book. Everything will be proven in terms of the real world as it is ~ in ways we can both understand.
Click to expand...
 
jwhit98 said:
I suggest you take a look at a book by Jim Camp called "Start with No."

It's primarily about how to negotiate, but sales are a type of negotiation, right? And what he has to say about making cold calls could change your entire outlook.

Camp does not believe in win-win solutions. He doesn't believe in win-lose or any other variation either. He believes in controlling the negotiation (or sale, if you will) by not being "needy" and by making the prospect open up by asking questions.

The best way to show you how this approach works, since it would take too long to explain it here (read the book), is to quote what Camp used to say to prospects when he was trying to build his consulting business:

"I'm not sure that anything I do fits with you. I don't know. So if this doesn't make any sense just tell me and I'll get off the phone. Is that fair?"

More often than not, he says they asked him to proceed.

Could this work for you? What if you said something like:

"I'm not sure anything our firm does can improve your insurance program. So if what we can offer in terms of alternative markets, risk management strategies and competitive quotes doesn't make any sense just tell me and I'll get off the phone. Is that fair?"

One more quote from Camp's book:

"In those early days I worked with insurance companies and their sales staff, and I could guarantee that after eighteen hours of training, a group of a group of thirty salespeople would net ninety valid appointments with just two hours of calling apiece. That's an incredible return on investment of time, as anyone in that field knows."

Check it out.
Click to expand...

About 30 years ago I was the VP of Sales for a tech company and was prospected by Jim to attend one of his sales workshops (he was a franchisee of Sandler Sales Institute at that time).

While I was interested in learning more about the sales process I would have passed except he ended our conversation with something along the lines of 'it's OK for you to say No, I have lots of others waiting to sign up for this'. I thought for a minute and signed up my entire sales staff for the seminar, not because of the hook but because I realized if he could get me thinking with just that line there were lots of things I could learn from him.

I spent the next year attending his seminars and truly learned how to sell-Jim, at least at that point in time, was prone to over exaggeration but the elements of the Sandler Sales System and his approach changed my entire perspective on selling for a living.
 
:idea:
Justin Bilyj said:
Whoops! I thought the book was "Go for No"I haven't read Start with No.

Still can't beat this free resource by Sid Walker, Psych Yourself Up for Prospecting, http://www.sellingwithoutwrestling.com/psychyourselfupebook.pdf

His book "How I Conquered Call Reluctance, Fear of Self-Promotion & Increased My Prospecting!" has got some nice reviews on Amazon...
Click to expand...
:idea:

Wonderful material to print out and put up around you to remind yourself exactly what and why you are doing all this.

And it's free? Most of the time I get an Amazon link and I have to buy, NTTAWWT(hopefully everyone knows the Seinfeld reference here)

Some of you all are doing the Lord's work in here. I promise after I achieve a little success and finish getting all my licenses, promise to post feedback and results from tips on this board. You all make the days better and lives better of everyone in here, cannot thank you all enough.
 
Rick Deckard said:
:idea::idea:

Wonderful material to print out and put up around you to remind yourself exactly what and why you are doing all this.

And it's free? Most of the time I get an Amazon link and I have to buy, NTTAWWT(hopefully everyone knows the Seinfeld reference here)

Some of you all are doing the Lord's work in here. I promise after I achieve a little success and finish getting all my licenses, promise to post feedback and results from tips on this board. You all make the days better and lives better of everyone in here, cannot thank you all enough.
Click to expand...


Yes, I'm familiar with that episode. So, did you just come out of the closet(not that there's anything wrong with that)?:err:
 
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