Pick Up The Phone and Sell. Alex Goldfayn

to customers when they bring you a problem or urgency.

      “You sent the wrong parts!”

      “You didn't send me enough!”

      “Where is it?! How do I not have this yet?!”

      “I need this now! Send it immediately!” Never mind that they waited until the last possible moment to call you to make their purchase. You have to drop what you're doing and do as they ask. There isn't really a choice, is there?

This is what happens when customers call you, which takes up most of your day, day after day.

      They're rarely happy.

      They're usually stressed out.

      There's almost always a problem.

      And when you drop what you're doing to help them, they proceed to beat you up on price.

      So you almost never have positive emotions when you talk to customers who call in.

      So who wants to make proactive calls for even more negativity?

      Many salespeople might think, I've got enough angry customers hounding me already, buddy, so no thanks – I'm not going to call them so they can scream at me some more.

      This is completely understandable.

      You're human.

      And you want to minimize the negativity that makes up the majority of your incoming customer interactions.

       The Good News Is: The incoming calls are full of problems and frustrations, but you make proactive calls to customers and prospects when nothing is wrong. You're showing up when there isn't a problem. And, after briefly catching up, you're asking what they need help with. Their reaction will be the opposite of the emotion on your incoming calls. These customers and prospects will be grateful, pleasantly surprised, relieved, and looking for ways to thank you.

      As a Result, You Don't Like the Phone

      Let's review.

      You're super busy.

      The phone rings all day, presenting perpetual problems that must be handled immediately.

Customers who call are often frustrated, flustered, or downright angry.

      And all of these reactive joys of being a salesperson come to you courtesy of …

      The phone!

      So who could blame you if your view of the phone isn't particularly positive?

      And who could blame you if your instinct is to avoid using the phone?

      The phone is a major source of daily work stress. It brings you anger, negativity, and condescension.

      Me: “Use the phone! Make proactive calls!”

      You: “No thanks, I'm good.”

      A few months ago, I was doing an interview with a client's salesperson.

      She told me that although she has to make phone calls as part of her job, she hates the phone – to the point that when she leaves voice messages, she does not give her phone number.

      Rather, she asks that people return her call with an email.

      Can you believe that?

      Her voicemail asks the customer to email her back!

       The Good News Is: The wins come quickly in this work. It doesn't take long to have a good, positive, warm, successful conversation. This will give you the energy and enthusiasm to make the next call. And the next. And suddenly, the phone will be actively making you money. It will be predictably growing your sales. You will find your dislike for phone calls lifting like a spent storm cloud.

      You Simply Don't Have a System for Using the Phone Proactively

This is probably the simplest reason of all:

       Nobody has ever armed you with a process for making proactive calls.

       How do you make them?

       When?

       How many is enough?

       Especially when the customer doesn't call back.

       Who should you call?

       What do you say?

       What about voicemail?

       What about cold calls?

       What if you don't have cell phone numbers?

       What about Zoom? And texting? And email?

      The phone-selling books from the 1970s and 1980s don't apply to today, because now the phone is one tool in a much larger digital communication ecosystem. And as discussed in Chapter 1, it's not like there are lot of phone-selling systems and processes at your disposal.

      Unless they are working with me, your company probably is not training you how to properly use the phone to grow your sales.

      So, the most obvious reason you're not making proactive calls is that you don't have a program for doing so.

      And nobody has ever taught you how.

       The Good News Is: You have a system now: it's the book you're holding in your hands. The system is to make a few proactive calls a day, every day – and your sales, opportunities, and pipeline will quickly grow.

MINDSET ISSUES FOR WHY WE DON'T PICK UP THE PHONE

We will dive deeply into these issues in Part 2, but the mindset blocks that keep us from picking up the phone have one common characteristic:

      They are our discomfort, not the customers'.

      It is our discomfort with the phone that keeps us from making proactive calls systematically.

      It is not the discomfort of your customers and prospects. They want to hear from you.

      It may be our projection of our discomfort onto our customers. That is, we believe our customers don't want us to call, for all the reasons we do not like making calls.

      Here are just some of the thoughts that keep us from picking up the phone proactively:

       I don't want to bother my customer.

       If she wants it, she'll call me, like everyone else.

       I don't want to waste their time.

       I don't want to make the customer angry or upset with me.

       If they get upset, I might lose the customer. And I've worked so hard to win them and then keep them.

       Does this feel like thinking that's conducive to selling with the phone?

       That's because it isn't.

       The Good News Is: Ninety percent of salespeople, in my experience, have these thoughts and fears and discomforts. That means as soon as you can overcome these discomforts, you will instantly vault yourself into the top 10% of all salespeople.

That's why I wrote this book:

      To arm you with a simple process for making proactive calls to grow your sales.

      To show you that it's easy.

      To show you that it doesn't take a lot of time.

      To