Smart Calling Part Two: Rejection

Rejection. No one enjoys rejection (no one in their right mind, at least). One of the things the author talks about in this book is how to eliminate rejection, specifically in a sales/cold calling role, but it can apply to a lot of things. The easiest way to avoid rejection is to have two goals for every call. A primary goal and a secondary goal. Your primary goal is for the other person to do something that might be a little too much to expect. They won’t do it every time, but they’ll do it more often than if you were aiming lower! The secondary objective is something that is very achievable, it doesn’t have to be an action for them to take at all, just something that can be accomplished every time. When you structure your goals in this way, what happens is after every call you can look back and see that, even if they don’t take action like you hoped, you at least accomplished your secondary goal. This makes every call a victory and allows you to feel better about what you’ve done at the end of the day. And you can apply it to anything, not just sales calls!

This next part is more specific to sales, and that is working with personal assistants instead of trying to get past or get around them. When a personal assistant answers the phone, a lot of salesmen try to avoid “wasting time” talking to them and try to get right to the decision maker. This is a huge mistake. Not only are you making a bad impression on someone who works very closely with the person you are trying to talk to, but a lot of times they actually have a lot of power in the decision making process. Even if, at the end of the day, they don’t make the final decision, they still have the ability to choose whether or not your call gets through to the one who does make those decisions! And that will (and I mean will) make the difference between getting hung up on, and a possible opportunity.