The R.U.T.A. Report: Professional Cold Calls?

Are you professional enough to do cold calls? I mean walking in to place of business unannounced and striking up a conversation with a small business owner or professional? Do you have the confidence, expertise, experience and intestinal fortitude to do it? Is it time to put some life in your business and make a few cold calls? It could be…

The R.U.T.A. Report: Professional Cold Calls?
Are you professional enough to do cold calls? I mean walking in to place of business unannounced and striking up a conversation with a small business owner or professional? Do you have the confidence, expertise, experience and intestinal fortitude to do it? Is it time to put some life in your business and make a few cold calls? It could be…

I can see the cringing already. Are you kidding Jim? Cold calls? Professional? They are the opposite of professional. No they are not.  Let me tell you why.

Aside from the current regulatory difficulty of seeing anyone anymore, that this obviously overcomes, nothing is more exciting in business that meeting a new prospect. It’s the essence of business.

With cold calls, you can target the people you want to work with and then go after them directly.  You refer yourself in. That puts you right in your target market. Since almost no one makes cold calls anymore, you stand out immediately too… and frankly, in a good way. Courage like this impresses business owners.

You may have had the experience yourself with someone dropping by your office to offer you a product – office equipment maybe? Properly done, it is impressive. You can be impressive too.  

I’ve made a couple cold calls myself recently and it sure gets the adrenalin pumping – it’s “Extreme Selling”. It also works! The trick is knowing the right objective. It’s not necessarily to sell, it’s to meet under reasonable circumstances and set up a proper appointment.

You need a great short pitch, a smile, proper attire, a decent handshake and 2 minutes. It’s a rare person who doesn’t have 2 minutes to spare early or late in the day. The worst that can happen is that you leave a card and a brochure or letter introducing yourself to someone who now knows you are a force in the business. Especially if you want to get into the small business market, you want to try Cold Calling.

Learning how to do them well will make you a better sales professional, better at handling people, more alive and more helpful to the people you want to work with. It will also build the type of clientele you aspire to and strongly differentiate you from the also-rans in your market.

Developing your courage with “extreme selling” – cold calls - will separate you from average and make you awesome. I say it’s time.

The RUTA Report – Real Usable Tactical Advice – is provided exclusively to the Canadian Life e-newsletter each week by veteran financial industry consultant, speaker, writer and media commentator Jim Ruta. Starting at age 22, he led one of Canada’s largest insurance agencies by age 40. Jim has been featured around the world including the MDRT Main Platform and has several best-selling books to his credit. He is Managing Partner of Boston-based InforcePRO Software, a unique automatic presentation from existing policies system.

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