Cold calling techniques can be lifestyle enhancers.

Here’s how you might get ready for your calls. Go back and savor your biggest triumph in life. I don’t care how far back it goes. High school? Middle school? First year of college? Maybe it was your biggest commission just 3 years ago? While you were in the afterglow, how easy would it have been to do some cold calling on your A list prospects, even if they didn’t all work out?

What would your life would be like if every day started out that way? Well, it can. Cold calling techniques can go deep. Way deep. You can get a good dose of that mojo back using visualization practices, the province of life’s exceptional achievers. Suppose you’re feeling scared, or down, or just “realistic” (in your jaundiced view) because you haven’t made a sale in the last 32 work days. Your thinking gets polluted. You can reverse the trend by taking on the day as if you were every bit the successful person you want to be.

Step back for a moment and think how your prospect would respond if they saw you right after that most awesome of moments in your life. How did you feel then?

You were probably feeling optimistic. That never hurts. You might have been feeling invincible. Not the worst way for a cold caller to approach a prospect. Maybe you had a “what the hell” attitude: if you had missed a sale that fine day it wouldn’t have phased you a bit, whereas now you’re starting to take each “no” personally.

Before you make your next call, close your eyes and take yourself back to that triumphal moment. Soak it in. Feel the same physical sensations you felt that day. See what you saw then, hear what you heard. Walk through your next call mentally, and imagine it went great. You got a sales committment over the phone, as was practically inevitable. Don’t stop the movie in your mind. Keep it going, and taste the thrill of the win. Look at your next check, there in the theatre of your mind, and see the commission. That commission is the indelible mark of a winner.

Live your success before you make your next call. Open your eyes, take a deep, calming breath, pick up the phone, and see if your next cold call doesn’t get a serious boost from this success habit that’s also a cold calling technique.

Remember that a good cold caller is a good listener. The job interview offers you a unique perspective. You can listen to the potential employer without judgment, because you’re not drawing a paycheck and you don’t hate anyone at the company yet. If you’re too nervous to listen, you might want to consider interviewing for as many jobs as you can to conquer that fear, because nothing feels better than being in a good position to negotiate. And interviewing without fear gives you a massive advantage over your competition.

You can learn a lot about the company you’re going to work for by asking this question: “Suppose I knew that our product line wasn’t a good match for a prospect I was talking to, but I knew that our #1 competitor’s products were an ideal fit. How would you expect me to handle the situation?”

I can promise you this much. The answer will be illuminating and could even change your mind about working there. Before I go on I’d like you to put yourself in your employer’s shoes and pose the same question to yourself. All right, done? Good. Here are some scenarios that might play out from such a question.

One nimble answer is this, but only if it’s true. Let’s say there’s a secret project in the works that comes close to what your prospect wants. “I can’t discuss future products with you right now, but I will say you’re not the first to ask for features like that. Do you mind if I talk to my boss about this and call you back? Meanwhile let’s drill down into some of the features you were asking about…” This gives you a chance to do some market research while not losing a customer. Best of both worlds.

What if you don’t have anything planned or extant that meets your prospect’s needs? Here’s a crazy idea: send them to the competition with your company’s blessing. As an employer I can tell you that would be more than fine by me. Your prospect will remember that gesture for a long, long time, and they’ll be more than willing to listen to your next cold call when the product cycle matures. If your potential employer doesn’t have the integrity to do that, maybe you’d rather not work there. Maybe the product line isn’t as well developed as it should be.

Is your first instinct to lie and say the product will have those features (even when it’s not planned)? Hey-it might match your future employer’s response. If so, I hope neither of you ever works for me, but I have seen that dynamic in action more times than I care to remember.

The right answer hinges on your own view of the world as well as that of your future employer. These techniques go beyond cold calling and help you qualify not just prospects, but your future livelihood as well.

It’s a skill you can use to get a job.

And as with other cold calling techniques, you will vastly improve your chances of success if you research the prospect (future employer, in this case) before you make the call. My most notable success in that area netted me a great job–and a great wife, too!

I wanted a programming job near the small town in Southern California where I lived. I looked in programming magazines for vendors in that area, found a few, and narrowed down the list to vendors of products that interested me.

Research turns a cold call into a hot prospect

This meant that when I made my first cold call, I had tremendous confidence. And some things can’t be faked (or shouldn’t, at any rate). When I talked to the VP in charge of hiring, he liked me instantly because I could talk knowledgeably about products like his (I didn’t pretend to know his product in particular). He was also intrigued in my approach, because what I didn’t know was that he’d put out a job listing that I never encountered. So to him my call was kismet. Along with resumes of 100 people who had no interest in his product came 1 call from someone who understood it well. Guess who got the gig?

Oh, and the wife. It’s true, I met her there. She was chatting at the water cooler with a coworker when I came in for the interview. I saw a flash of a smile and was gobsmacked. I was attached at the time, but for whatever reason my girlfriend broke up with me that night. Less than 9 months later we were married in Las Vegas at the drivethrough wedding chapel. And it worked!