Making the Calls

About 6 months ago I had the opportunity to address Carolina Chapter of the National Speakers Association at one of their monthly meetings in Charlotte. The topic was Sales with an emphasis on how to prospect for business.

One young man in the audience, who had only been in the speaking business a short time, and did not have a sales background, contacted me a few days after the meeting so that he could set up an appointment to come to my office and pick my brain some more, which was just fine by me.

I talked to him for a couple of hours about sales; prospecting; the importance of “making the calls,” tracking your activity; using a script and handling objections. But most of all I emphasized that making the calls on a consistent everyday basis was critical.

Fast forward to two weeks ago. My wife, Linda, and I were at the National Speakers Association Convention in Scottsdale, Arizona. Sure enough, I ran into the young man who had come to my house for sales advice. He informed me he was “Making the calls,” and guess what: He was booking business; funny how that works!

With all the excitement about LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and all these other social networking sites, sooner or later you’re actually going to have to talk to somebody if you want to do business. Social networking sites are great for creating awareness and keeping your name in front of people; it’s called marketing. But it’s real hard to close a sale on Facebook.

This young man proved that there’s still a place (an important place) for making the calls. In fact, the last thing he said to me was, “I now have to get better at my technique,” to which I replied, “That’ll come. What’s more important is that you made the calls, because without that nothing else matters.”