Is The Thought Of Cold-Calling Keeping You Awake At Night?

Does the thought of selling bring you out in a cold sweat?  Does it conjure up images of pushy double-glazing salesmen who simply won’t take no for an answer? 

For many small business owners, the very idea of cold-calling can feel incredibly stressful.  On the one hand they know that they need the income, but at the same time they don’t want to appear ‘salesy’.  The prospect of having to ‘tout their wares’ makes them feel demeaned and somehow smacks of desperation, turning even confident people into jibbering wrecks.  Even if they can pluck up the courage, they can’t be sure that all their discomfort will even meet with the desired, and sometimes necessary, results.
The truth is that most business people, although they are experts in their own fields, are not natural-born sellers.  Maintaining a steady stream of clients though, is essential in keeping their businesses alive, but is there any way to avoid those awful cold calls?  Yes.

The aim of marketing is, essentially, to attract, maintain and satisfy clients and customers.  If done correctly, it has the ability to draw those clients and customers to you in such a way that the need for cold-calling no longer exists.  In order to have this effect, however, your marketing strategy must satisfy a number of key criteria.

The first thing to bear in mind is that before they will actively seek out your services, your prospective clients will need to understand precisely what it is that you have to offer.  Are you a general business consultant or do you specialise in a particular area?  Do you only work with certain types of businesses or those of a particular size?  What range of services do you provide?  If you don’t tell your would-be clients these things, how can they decide whether you are the best man for the job?
The next thing to consider is whether your business or service is distinctive enough to stand out from all the others in the market place.  If it isn’t, then your marketing efforts will fall short of the mark.

Thirdly, are the benefits that you are offering to your clients clear?  Remember that people come to you because they have specific problems that they need to solve.  These could be physical, emotional, psychological, financial or practical issues, but whichever they are, your clients need to be absolutely convinced that your solution will provide them with benefits which will put an end to their pain.
With all of these things in place as part of your marketing strategy, you can become somebody with whom clients will actively wish to work.  Because your business proposition is clear and effective, the time-consuming and often expensive task of bringing in new, profitable and qualified clients will become a thing of the past, as will those gut-wrenching cold calls!