When you drop in on businesses, you immediately fall into one of two groups: Friend or Foe. There are ways to disarm people’s initial threat assessment of you, to give you time to warm up to them. One way is by acting dazed and confused when you walk in, and THEN asking the front desk if so-and-so is there. That brings us to having a name before you walk in. This won’t always be possible, but if you can use tools like Linkedin to get a name of someone to talk to, you’ll be ahead of the game in getting past the gatekeeper. You can usually do this pretty quickly right before walking in, but a little recon wouldn’t be a bad way to spend a few hours one day.
Your mission is not to sell anything. It is mainly to build relationships and learn more about their business. Follow-ups will always be a crucial part of closing the sale. Most cold calls will not result in a sale, but if you approach it like a game, and remember in Baseball if someone hits it 3/10 times they’re in the Hall of Fame. A similar ratio in sales would be incredible, but you have to treat every follow-up as its own cold call that just gets a little bit warmer over time.
Relax, be confident, and face forward. You’ll make this. This’ll be good.
