Make Cold Call Anxiety Your Revenue Generating Advantage

By Kendra Lee

You’re lucky when sales reps have cold call anxiety.

It’s unlikely you share my point of view.

I get it. All you see is a rep who is reluctant to call. They talk to fewer prospects and don’t set many appointments. 

But change your perspective and an added benefit becomes clear.

The Psychology Behind Cold Call Anxiety

Sales reps who don’t want to cold call operate from a place of fear.

Fear of being labeled as the stereotypical annoying salesperson by prospects. Fear of the prospect hanging up or, worse, being rude to them.

Like most phobias, it is not rational.

That doesn’t make cold call anxiety less real. It does change how you deal with it. 

You cannot tell your salesperson, “That’s ridiculous,” and expect the issue to vanish. That will only cause your rep to retreat further into themselves and not share future concerns with you.

Remember how I said earlier you’re lucky?

That’s because the solution to cold call anxiety is a gift for your revenue generation system. To turn your salesperson’s fear into a revenue generating strength and eliminate cold call anxiety, you ask Sales and Marketing to collaborate and create email campaigns.

How Email Campaigns Solve Cold Call Anxiety

Email campaigns answer three questions that paralyze salespeople:

1.     What do I say if a prospect answers?

2.     What do I say in a voicemail?

3.     What do I write in an email?

Even if they aren’t paralyzed by these questions, they spend valuable selling time searching through recent blogs, researching LinkedIn, and brainstorming reasons to call a prospect.

Campaigns streamline and simplify prospecting.

Each email in the series gives reps a new reason to reach out, without sounding scripted. Your salesperson is handed fresh talking points for every follow-up call or voicemail. 

It may not be the exact language you use in sales. That’s okay. Your rep can adapt the phrases from the emails to fit their style and manner.

Sales and Marketing Synergy Underpins Successful Revenue Generation Systems

Building a successful revenue generation system breaks down into three action-items:

1.     Market intentionally to get seen.

2.     Sell consistently to get heard.

3.     Optimize effectively to get traction.

Most businesses do one or two of these well.

That isn’t enough – and ignoring cold call anxiety shows why.

Marketing creates endless campaigns. Sales engages in non-cold-calling activities. But there is no meaningful traction because no one diffuses the cold calling issue. You aren’t optimizing your efforts.

Instead, your salesperson reaches out to prospects who contact your company first. Your rep effectively closes those inbound and referral opportunities. But think of all the new business they’re leaving behind because they’re only speaking to a limited pool of contacts. No outbound prospecting is happening.

Imagine the optimized version of events.

You address cold call anxiety through campaigns developed by your Sales and Marketing teams. Your salesperson calls the contact list, referencing the key messaging from the email campaigns. Prospects remember the marketing email and are receptive to the call. Your rep qualifies opportunities and converts contacts to sales qualified leads in the pipeline.

Success. New opportunities are in the pipeline.

How do Sales and Marketing create memorable emails?

Start with trigger events.

Get Sales To Help Marketing Build Campaigns Around Trigger Events

The number one campaign to consider from a Sales + Marketing perspective is a prospecting campaign based on trigger events.

This specific series is a great way to get the rep going because it is framed around problems prospects have, and their issues are a higher priority than general information about your company.

Most people don’t care about your company.

I’m sorry. I know it is harsh but it’s true. They care about what you can do for them. This means your emails and cold calls are dependent on nailing your trigger events.

Why trigger events grab attention.

The biggest, most urgent problems your target market is grappling with are your trigger events. Sales is supremely positioned to share with marketing not only what those problems are, but how prospects describe the issue.

Marketing turns this information into emails that immediately resonate because the messaging is grounded in real-life scenarios.

4 more B2B marketing email campaigns to run

1.     Invite prospects to an event.

2.     Share new offerings with prospects and clients.

3.     Highlight resources, interesting articles, educational blog posts, or positive reviews.

4.     Promote your solutions and expertise.

What To Do If Reps Still Don’t Want To Call Prospects

Sales and Marketing go through the process of developing campaigns and your rep is still apprehensive. Now what?

My advice is to combine your marketing emails with other proven strategies that make cold calling feel less intimidating.

Try role playing.

There is a constant element of the unexpected in cold calling. Your salesperson never knows how a call will unfold, and improvising sounds unappealing.

Role playing familiarizes reps with the unfamiliar.

You aren’t trying to anticipate every situation. You’re focused on what is likely to happen, with a few curveballs thrown in, to make your rep comfortable with thinking on their feet.

Get training.

Organizations use interactive, expert-led sales training programs, like KLA Group’s Sales Prospecting for Profits, to develop confident cold callers.

After completing our virtual course, participants know how to:

·         Develop attention-grabbing value propositions.

·         Initiate meaningful conversations with prospects that lead to meetings.

·         Overcome objections at every stage of the sales process.

·         Apply multiple cold outreach strategies, including cold calls, emails, and social media messaging.

·         Qualify opportunities before setting appointments.

Set goals and hold reps accountable.

It’s surprising how sometimes responsibility for a KPI or sales activity metrics is all it takes to inspire action. Work with your team to develop SMART goals, including one for how many cold calls they will make each week. Reserve time during your regular sales meetings to review how they are progressing.

Celebrate their successes. Coach to their challenges.

Guide Your Sales Team To Overcome Cold Call Anxiety

We covered a lot of ground – cold calling anxiety, email marketing campaigns, trigger events, sales training, and goal setting. Don’t let it overwhelm you – we can help.

If you enjoyed this blog and are eager for more insights, visit our website to explore similar topics and strategies.