SolveYourProblem
Article Series: Networking
How To Successfully Network Yourself
Cold
Calling and Email To Get More Contacts
Many people absolutely abhor the task of calling
people up without having ever had contact with them before.
The ‘cold call’ is the call that arrives out of the blue, with
no solicitation on the part of the receiver of the call, and
no prior business or personal contact with the person who is
calling. Cold calling is a very hot topic in the 21st century.
Why more so now than in previous business eras? The answer
is simple—email. Email is now the most common means of establishing
initial contact with a business and also frequently the first
contact where personal communication is at hand. Our culture
has pulled a complete 180-degree turn when it comes to establishing
communication. It’s almost considered rude to contact someone
by telephone for the first time if you haven’t at least prefaced
your phone call with one email.
To some of you, this idea might sound like a bizarre one;
however, take a step back and think for a second. How do you
feel when someone calls you and says, “Good afternoon, this
is Ray calling from (insert company name here) and I’d like
to…” For a lot of people, that’s the end of the sentence; many
people don’t even hear what it is that Ray wants because they’re
trying to figure out if a) if the voice sounds rehearsed, is
it a telemarketer? or b) if the voice is friendly, should I
remember Ray from somewhere? In most business domains, the
21st century is not the era of telephone calls. It’s the era
of emailing; it just seems to be the preferred means of communication,
especially when it’s communication that is just breaking the
ice between two people or two businesses.
If you solicit a company for something on the telephone, they
have to tell you either yes or no over the phone. Granted,
this is not as difficult as it is face to face, but it is yet
easier over email than it is on the telephone. If someone receives
a solicitation over email they can reject it or accept it via
a returned email or by calling the person back. Alternatively,
nor responding simply means ‘no’.
All this being said, there
are still many domains in which cold calling is necessary. Understanding the above-mentioned
situations is crucial to honing your cold-calling techniques;
you have to understand what the person you’re calling is thinking
in order to have the best result of the call. Since you’re
now aware of the type of situation, think of the things that
would make you most likely to positively respond if someone
were to call you up for the same reason. The bottom line is
that successful cold calling lies in having good people skills
and good manners.
In the 21st century, this means being warm, but in a very
business-like way. Think of your voice and your intonation.
Cold calling should resemble a firm handshake accompanied by
a genuine smile. Cold calling should be personable; you should
ask the person how they are doing today, but it should be done
in a professional way. Again, think firm handshake as your
analogy for the kind of speech you’re going for, not an inside
frat-boys’ handshake. Everything you do in your cold call must
be personable, but professional. Your voice must be kind, but
authoritative and down to business; you have to be interested
in the person to whom you are talking, but in a way that is
clearly business, and not personally, oriented. People, who
have this kind of telephone communication skill, especially
when it comes to cold calling, make the best business associates
for phone-related tasks.
# # # # # SolveYourProblem.com : 2007
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