How To Overcome The Fear Of Cold Calling

In this article today I would like to discuss several tips, tricks, and techniques that just about anybody can use to overcome the fear of cold calling.

Nobody likes cold calling right away. In fact most people absolutely hate it, I mean loathe it with every ounce of their being. You’re basically calling up strangers and trying to convince them to buy something from you when you know, you know they don’t want anything to do with you and consider you to be a rude and obnoxious waste of their time.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it, it’s no fun! But the fact of the matter remains that cold calling is a legitimate, and established, and profitable form of marketing that most major companies use extensively and so it will never truly go away.

If you have the misfortune of being hired to do cold calling you may be scared to death to do it, but luckily there are several things you can do to help lower your anxiety, overcome your fear, and ultimately grow to enjoy cold calling… as hard as that may seem, and that’s what I’d like to discuss in this article today.

The first thing to realize is that this is just a problem in your head. It’s a complete mental problem. There’s nothing physical about this. You can’t see the people, and they can’t punch you in the nose, so any problem you have is in your mind and therefore as soon as you get your head screwed on straight your fear will disappear.

So tell yourself that rejection hurts only for a second or two. Besides, you’re never going to see these people, and you’re never going to have to talk to them again… so what do you care?

One way to overcome your fear is to simply set goals for the number of calls you want to make each hour. It’s also a good idea to set goals on how many calls you’d like to make in a day. When you do this, it becomes a game and you stop thinking about the other people on the other end of the line and start thinking only about meeting your goals and beating your own expectations.

Give yourself a little treat whenever you meet your goals. It doesn’t have to be anything big, maybe take a coffee break or a quick walk around the office to stretch.

Another tip is to trick yourself into being happy with little things. Tell yourself that you’ll be happy just to introduce yourself to the caller. Tell yourself that as long as you can do that everything is okay.

Then once you get comfortable introducing yourself set the bar a little higher. Tell yourself “all I have to do is introduce myself and mention the name of the product I’m selling and everything will be okay”. Gradually increase this until you’ve become comfortable giving out your entire pitch.

So there you have several very easy tips that anybody can use to help overcome their fear of cold calling. No matter how you do it I promise you this; as long as you stick to it eventually that fear will go away and it will become just another job like any other.