Cold calling is an essential tool for many business owners – and to do it successfully requires good nerves, a thick skin and, of course, an ability to sell.
However many people, despite its importance within their business, shun away from cold calling and find it extremely stressful.
Dita Peskova, cognitive hypnotherapist at YouniqueTherapy.com, suggests six techniques that can help you become a more confident and far less stressed cold caller:
1) Breath!
Everyone has different rhythms of breathing that will keep them relaxed. To find yours place your hand on your belly and breathe in, feeling your stomach raising. Breathe slowly in and out, making the exhale longer than the inhale.
The goal is to develop a way of breathing that can calm you down and you can use just before your cold call. If you add this way of breathing into your daily routine, it will release anxiety and stress, as well as having a positive impact on your general health.
2) Spin It Around
This technique uses your imagination to reprogramme your brain and stop the anxiety:
Identify the emotion you want to get rid of, close your eyes and ask yourself:
“If this feeling was somewhere in my body, where would it be?”
“If the feeling was and object, what would it be”?
“If the object was spinning, in which direction would it be spinning?”
Imagine the object spinning and ask: “If I were to make this feeling better, would I make it spin slower or faster?”
Make the object spin at any speed you need to in order to feel better.
3) Change Your Perspective
Do you have a voice in your head that tells you, for example, “I can’t do this”, “I can’t achieve that”, “They will think I’m a failure” etc.
Here’s how to weaken the voice:
Whenever you hear anything negative that your mind tells you, repeat it again in your mind but put the word SO in front; “So, I can’t do this?” “So, I’m worthless.” “So, I can’t achieve it”. The statements will gradually lose their importance because you break the pattern of how they are presented to you. You can also change the tempo, the tonality or even imagine someone really funny telling you the negative thought.
4) What if the worst happens?
Imagine the three worst case scenarios that could happen when making your call. Write these down and imagine how you would get out of these situations in the most positive way so that you can be proud of how you did. Let your imagination run loose, but be realistic.
This will teach you how to react on the spot and be more spontaneous when something unforeseeable happens.
5) Drop Negative Feeling
This technique works on the basis that every negative feeling has an opposite, positive feeling. For example, for anxiety it can be joy/peace/confidence.
Start by closing your eyes and imagine a situation that makes you anxious. When you feel the levels of anxiety raising, identify where in your body you can feel the anxiety.
Now, imagine the anxiety is a layer that you can drop through into another layer of emotion. Breath out and let go of feeling anxious and change it into another emotion. What emotion do you feel?
Keep repeating the exercise until you start feeling nice, pleasant emotions inside you. This will show you that you can be in control of anxiety and teach your body how to reverse the feeling into something pleasant.
6) Believe In Yourself
Many people sabotage themselves by believing they are not good at what they do. Believe in yourself; you may not be the best cold caller but you are working towards becoming better and better with every new opportunity.
Learn from difficult experiences – with every attempt you will improve. Remember to note down what worked for you and do more of that next time. Feedback is the key to improving.
By using these six techniques you can overcome your fear of cold calling and take your business to a new level.