Coffee is For Closers

I have had a very humbling past few weeks. I found myself in a situation where I needed to cold call (after cold e-mailing), a significant amount of people who had no idea I existed prior, and essentially asked them for money to partner with me at the upcoming Graphics Of The Americas.

What did I learn? I am NOT a closer. I won’t get the Glengarry leads, or win a Cadillac Eldorado, or the set of steak knives for that matter. Luckily I work for myself, or third prize would have been mine! Closers know what I’m talking about.

It wasn’t shocking to me that I had no sales technique because I am a buyer and used to being on the easy side where I control things. Once that flipped, not only did my world fall apart, but I also realized I had no idea about the art of sales, or any style.

A-I-D-A. Attention, Interest, Decision, Action.

I honestly think my biggest problem was confidence. I believed in the Print Media Centr partnership package I was offering, but not so much in how to make it happen. I was uncomfortable and I’m pretty sure I made a few people equally as uncomfortable. At one point I even stopped my spiel and asked for feedback. Awkward.

Then I decided I needed to first tell people who I was, and what Print Media Centr is, and why that should matter to them. So I tried that a few times but found myself rolling my own eyes about halfway through and wishing I would get to my own point.

About 15 calls in, I changed tactics again. This time I would just assume that the person had read my e-mail, and that I was calling to follow up and see if they had any questions. This went a little smoother, and I think it’s because I sounded confident. A few people even found the e-mail in their inbox and reviewed it with me. Then I got the “ok, well now I need to pass it along to the real person who makes such decisions,” but that was certainly better than crickets.