Cold calling would never be my first recommendation for success, but there are times when you may have no alternative. So, why not learn how to do it well if you have to do it anyway. There are a few simple things you can do to do it better and have greater success. If you're fairly new in the industry your sales manager will force you to do it, and if you've been in the industry awhile but you've never learned how to market yourself you may have to do it. If you're like 84% of all sales people you have call reluctance. You hate doing it you get poor results and it damages your fragile ego.

There are five things you can do to start getting results from the cold calls you have to make until you learn how to market yourself. The first thing you must do is work on your self-confidence. The people you're calling are neither better than nor less than you, they're just people just like you who've made mistakes and have faults just like you no matter how successful they may be now.

You should be sold on your service yourself and have absolute confidence that you have what they want. The reason people aren't excited to hear from you or see you, is that you don't have a succinct and attention getting core marketing message that conveys the emotional impact of getting what they want. Don't make the mistake of calling to introduce yourself because that's presuming the other person wants to hear from you or see you and you aren't giving them a reason to. Set a clear objective that benefits the person you're contacting before you make the contact. Make your message so clear and eight year old would get it because people won't work to try and figure out where the benefit is for them. Whatever you're asking them to do should clearly be to their benefit.

Block time to make your calls and stick to it no matter what. Open up your day planner or electronic planning tool, and block out 1 hour at the same time each and every day to make those calls. When that hour comes make those calls no interruptions or excuses allowed. And if you're trying to reach executives, professionals, or small business owners call them very early in the morning before anyone else gets to work because they'll pick up the phone themselves thinking it's someone they know.

You will have to develop the habits that will make you succeed at cold calling. These habits are: self-confidence, a powerful core marketing message that matches the person you're contacting, a commitment to taking action, and doing all these things with enough frequency and conviction that they become a habit that leads to increased insurance sales success.

If you've gotten yourself in a situation where you think you have to cold call, then the only way to do it well is to be prepared. Adapt what works in other industries and make it work for you. Develop your own procedures and techniques that work for you and then practice them by making those daily calls. To succeed at cold call you have to do it every day. When you don't you'll procrastinate and talk yourself out of it the days you're supposed to do it. But if you make yourself do it every day before you can do anything else it will get done.