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In this post you will learn how Ari Galper unlocks the game of selling. I believe he has identified a fear that we all have felt when we have been selling. First let’s read an email I received back in June when I first heard about what Ari was doing.

If you’re like most people who make cold calls, you’re hoping to make a sale, or at least an appointment, before you even pick up the phone. The problem is, the people you call somehow always pick up on your mindset immediately. They sense that you’re focused on your goals and interests, rather than on finding out what they might need or want.

This short-circuits the whole process of communication and trust-building.

Here’s the benefit of changing your mental objective before you make the call: it takes away the frenzy of working yourself up mentally to pick up the phone. All the feelings of rejection and fear come from us getting wrapped up in our expectations and hoping for an outcome when it’s premature to even be thinking about an outcome.

So try this. Practice shifting your mental focus to thinking, “When I make this call, I’m going to build a conversation so that a level of trust can emerge allowing us to exchange information back and forth so we can both determine if there’s a fit or not.”

This is the first message Ari sends out to people who enquire about and register for his emails. After that he sends a series of emails taking you through the process and giving examples of people who found it useful. This idea of building trust is very important and makes the difference between a successful and unsuccessful sales call.

THE FIRST TIME

You can never expect to sell something the first time you meet your client or they log on to your website. Using this approach Ari is able to show how not to fear a cold call and to use the time to begin and grow the relationship you have with your client.

Here is how Ari starts to develop the new approach.

Let’s return to the goal of a cold call, which is to create a two-way dialogue engaging prospects in a conversation.

We’re not trying to set the person up for a yes or no. That’s the old way of cold calling.

This new cold calling approach is designed to engage people in a natural conversation. The kind you might have with a friend. This lets both of you decide whether it’s worth your time to pursue the conversation further.

The key here is never to assume beforehand that your prospect should buy what you have to offer, even if they’re a 100 percent fit with the profile of the “perfect customer.”

If you go into the call with that assumption, prospects will pick up on it and “The Wall” will go up, no matter how sincere you are.

Avoid assuming anything about making a sale before you make a call.

For one thing, you have no idea whether prospects can buy what you have because you know nothing about their priorities, their decision making process, their budget, etc.

If you assume that you’re going to sell them something on that first call, you’re setting yourself up for failure. That’s the core problem with traditional old-style cold calling.

Stay focused on opening a dialogue and determining if it makes sense to continue the conversation.

DOES YOUR CLIENT NEED YOUR PRODUCT?

You can see how he proposes a new way that does not assume the client even wants or needs your product. He recommends you start a conversation as if with a friend and by building that relationship without using the ‘hard sell’ your client will feel relaxed and the Wall will not go up.

Now, suppose that you’re on a call and it’s going well, with good dialogue going back and forth. You’re reaching a natural conclusion… and what happens?

In the old way of cold calling, we panic. We feel we’re going to lose the opportunity, so we try to close the sale or at least to book an appointment.

But this puts pressure on the prospect, and you run the risk of The Wall going up again.

Here’s a step that most people miss when they cold call. As soon as they realize that prospects have a need for their solution, they start thinking, “Great, that means they’re interested.”

What they don’t ask is, “Is this need a top priority for you or your organization to solve, or is it something that’s on the back burner for a while?”

In other words, even if you both determine that there ia a problem you can solve, you have to ask whether solving it is a priority.

Sometimes there’s no budget, or it isn’t the right time. It’s important that you find this out, because months later you’ll regret not knowing this earlier.

PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER

Have you ever wondered where the “numbers game” concept came from?

It came from someone making a call, getting rejected, and the boss saying, “Call someone else.”

But with the new way of cold calling, it’s not about how many people you call. It’s about what you say and how you come across.

Do you remember the definition of insanity - continuing to do the same thing but expecting different results?

If you go on using the same old cold calling methods, you’ll go on experiencing the ever-increasing pain of selling.

But if you adopt a new approach and learn how to remove pressure from your initial cold calls, you’ll experience so much success and satisfaction that it’ll really change the way you do business, bring you sales success beyond your imagination - and eliminate “rejection” from your vocabulary for good.

I hope you are getting the message that this approach to selling is very ‘person’ based and not targetted on ‘making the sale’.

So if you want to learn more about how to take the fear out of selling have a look at Ari’s site www.unlockthegame.com where you will be able to register for free emails and look at his products.

In my next post we will look at the issues of Influence and Persuasion, using the work of Robert Cialdini. Please make sure you set up your RSS feed so you will automatically get updated.

I hope you found it useful to take a look at how Ari Galper unlocks the game of selling.

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Tags:   ari galper · cold calls · game of selling · trust building3 Comments