Pick Up The Phone and Sell

CHAPTER 23YOU KNOW HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE WHO CAN BUY FROM YOU – CALL THEM!

Unless you're just starting out in sales, you know hundreds of customers and prospects.

But most salespeople assume that calling automatically means cold calling.

Early in my client work, I would suggest making proactive calls, and nearly every time, salespeople reacted with, “I hate cold calls.”

We are so uncomfortable with making phone calls that we instantly jump to the worst possible kind of call – one where we don't know the person we are calling, and they hate us!

Let me clarify preemptively: when I say make proactive calls, I mean call people you know when nothing is wrong.

I acknowledge that a minority of salespeople must make cold calls. That's that job, and that's how they make a living.

I also accept that many salespeople feel they've arrived at a point where they've called the customers and prospects they know, and now they must move on to calling people they do not know.

I would like to suggest to this latter group of salespeople that you know a whole lot of customers and prospects who would like to hear from you. And they would like to buy from you and work with you.

In this part of the book, I lay out all the different categories and groups of customers and prospects who you know and can call.

CURRENT CUSTOMERS

You are working with them now. They are buying from you – and they can buy more. ...