Waiting to Call Prospects?

Everyday all over the world sales professionals are waiting.

What are they waiting for?

They are waiting for the right time to call prospects.

No matter how much they visualize calling prospect after prospect on the drive to work, they quickly fall prey to a berating little voice that always suggests to keep waiting for seemingly good reasons:

• If you call too early in the morning, you’ll be considered a noisome pest. Go get a cup of coffee and plan out your day. If you fail to plan, you know you are planning to fail.

• Better check your email before making any calls. You never know when an existing client might need assistance. You should not keep existing clients waiting.

• It is almost time for the office meeting to start. If you get started on making calls now, you’ll feel rushed. You won’t have success with prospects if you are feeling rushed. They will think you are rushing for the sale, and you will lose the deal.

• People are getting ready to head out for lunch. No one wants to be bothered by a sales person, when he is getting ready to leave the office. People are just returning from lunch. They do not want to be bothered by a sales person, when they are trying to get settled in.

• Now would be a great time to call, if only you felt more confident in your script. If you do not feel confident, the results will not be worthwhile. There’s no sense in putting time into making calls, if you are not going to get the good results you desire. It would be more advantageous to get online and learn about effective sales calling techniques.

• Calling certain prospects could really influence your business in a big way. When you have mastered the new techniques/scripts you learned, you will be able to advance very quickly. It is best to master those techniques before calling such influential prospects. You do not want to ruin your opportunities just because you were not better prepared.

• You need to be really organized before you make those prospecting calls. After all, once you make all those calls you are going to have a host of new business. You had better organize your files and desk and put together an effective calling regimen.

• It is too late to call prospects. They are getting ready to leave work. Arrive here all the earlier tomorrow morning, and you can get all those calls completed before noon.

If any or all of those suggestions sound familiar, you probably know what it is like to hear a voice chastising you on your drive home from work because you did not make the calls you were supposed to make that day.

Strange, is it not?

It sounds quite like the voice that talked you out of making any of those calls all throughout the day.

Learning how to “seize the phone” requires investigating the voice that talks one out of making the necessary prospecting calls that advance anyone’s sales business.

There are plenty of programs to assist sales professionals become more efficient during the call, and certainly it is always beneficial to hone one's skills.

But too many of the sales professionals I have met and clients I have worked with report that it is not the sales process that trips them up — it is getting themselves to actually pick up the phone.

There always seems to be a reason why it would be better to call later.

Most sales professionals understand on a gut level that waiting for a better time to call is only cheating them from further expanding their sales business today.

But getting past a relentless, fear inflicting voice inside their heads is no easy task.

Of course, if it were, top sales professionals would not be so desperately needed or so highly paid.

From my own sales experience, I have learned that the best time to call prospects is as soon as I think about calling them.

Waiting for a better time usually results in one of two things — never finding the right time to call those prospects, or waiting so long that by the time the call is finally placed, those prospects are already doing business with someone else and no longer requires the suggested product or service.

In my book, Carpe Phonum - How to Seize the Phone, I reveal how to walk right past that inner critic and all its nagging reasons to wait and call later.

Click here to learn how to call your prospects even when you lack courage!