Ryan Dohrn answers a question from Jen in Detroit about lacking confidence on prospecting calls. He recommends accepting that early calls will be rough, using a written script, recording practice tracks on your phone, and role-playing with a partner to build confidence.
Hey friends, how are you? Ryan Dohrn here, your global sales coach, and we're answering your listener questions sent in to ryan@ryandohrn.com. All right, first question from Jen in Detroit. Ryan, I'm just not feeling confident on the phone when prospecting. Any advice? I would sure appreciate. Well, Jen, you know, prospecting first and foremost is about just getting over that hump. It's those first few calls just to get yourself kind of going and really realizing that, hey, you're going to get some ugly people on the phone. It just kind of is what it is. I say it all the time, if sales was easy, everybody'd be doing it. One of the things that most people hate is cold calling. Now, some of you would say, hey, don't even cold call, don't even waste your time. I think that's bad form in the sales business. We do need to reach out to people, setting up meetings, getting people excited about what it is that we have to offer. So, Jen, the first piece is taking a deep breath and just realizing those first 8, 10, 15, 20, 30 calls Gonna be a little rough, but you're gonna live and you're gonna learn and you will survive, but you will get some nasty people on the line every now and again. Okay, that's the first thing. Second thing is write yourself a little script to follow. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. Now, you don't want to sound like you're reading a script, but it's a— okay, write it out. Then the third thing you want to do is you want to practice. So when I'm writing out a script, I'll use my cell phone. I'll write out what I'm gonna say, then what the client probably will say, then what I'm gonna say. And then what I'll do is I'll start a voice recording. And what I'll do is I'll record their part on my phone. So I'll kind of quietly say to myself or read my part, then I'll record their part. I'll be silent and silently read my part, then I'll record their part. And that gives me kind of a track to play with. Now, last piece of advice, and most people don't like it, and that is you got to practice with a partner. You're gonna have to role-play a little bit. Now, Call it practice, role-playing in and of itself. Usually, a lot of times it's not a waste of time, but people make it a joke. It's not a joke. Professionals practice and amateurs wing it. So Jen, those would be my thoughts for you. Take a deep breath, write things down a little bit, create a script, maybe use your phone and then practice with a partner. Prospecting friends, I'm sorry, a lot of you are gonna send me some hate mail on this. People say, oh, prospecting is a waste of time. Prospecting is not a waste of time. Cold calling is not a waste of time. If nothing else, I'm going to leave a voicemail to share my charisma with that potential client and then ask them, if nothing else, to call me back or email me back. Friends, remember, if sales was easy, everybody'd be doing it, and they're not. We're the chosen few, friends, that have found careers that'll feed our families for a lifetime. Keep those questions coming, ryan@ryandohrn.com. Love to train your sales team. Come to speak at your national sales conference. Reach out to me, ryandohrn.com. Take care.
