I love to cold call. No, there is not a typo in that sentence. I love to sell and I love to cold call and this has served me well when launching and growing companies. I have met life-long friends, secured jobs, gone on free vacations and so much more simply because I picked up the phone and made a cold call.
But much to my surprise, I find most people don’t love to both sell and cold call. Which is why most business owners I know are constantly searching for "good sales people". Instead, I think they should be searching for how to be and recruit "good sales people" based on some of the new truths that are being revealed about what makes one great at sales.
Which leads us to the Girl Scouts and Pink, as in Daniel Pink.
The Girl Scouts are out and about selling their cookies and yesterday the New York Times profiled one of the top Girl Scout cookie sellers in Arizona. I sent the article to my sales team and some of my friends and family because the best part of the story is that the author of the best-selling book “To Sell Is Human”, Daniel Pink, confirmed that the system for selling Girl Scout cookies is a positive way to learn sales. The Girl Scout cookie sales also confirm his research that shows all types of personalities can be great sales people.
The personality type called "Ambiverts" has the most potential to succeed the fastest at sales (I have a link to Dan Pink’s personality test at the bottom of this post). And it ties in with why I am always trying to recruit new people into sales - people who often do not think of themselves as a sales person. You have to get past the bad stereotypes of sales and then with the right training anyone with the desire to promote a service or product they believe in can enjoy a profitable sales career (or business) with flexible hours and fun perks.
I have a track record as a top sales producer, both while working for other companies and while launching start-ups. But unlike Lady Gaga, I was not "born this way". I went to journalism school and am naturally shy. This is why I am a fan of Mr. Pink’s new book. It dispels many myths about what makes a good sales person. I don't fit the old stereotypes but according to Mr. Pink, those old stereotypes were not actually right.
In order to grow business at companies and to launch companies, you have to cold call. I grew a senior home care agency to $2.8 million in annual sales with a service that sold at $16 per hour (so it takes a lot of hours to get to $2.8 million). And, to make it even more of a challenge, the life-time value of a client was limited, as when they need senior care the clock starts ticking - on their life. My clients would die. This meant in order to excel, we had to constantly have new referrals flowing in.
I believed in what I was doing and went out and told people about it. I sold advertising before that and grew another start-up’s ad sales from $0 to $6 million in 4 years. I love selling. I have also helped a few start-ups get their sales off the ground just because I find it fun to do.
I share this as I see some new start-up companies that don’t go anywhere because the people who start these companies just can’t sell and they are afraid to try to sell. I’ll meet some of the same founders a year later and they are still pressed for sales and investors, just as they were when I first met them. I know they may have a better widget than anyone else but they simply don’t know how to sell it. And guess what? Even if you get money from somebody else to help you grow your business, that somebody else expects you to do the sales. So why not learn how to sell?
If you learn sales skills, it actually can be a ton of fun to sell.
Sales is just asking the right questions and then explaining how your service or product can then be the right answer. As long as you do your homework on your customer and know your service, you’ll be assisting someone else to increase their business or profitability and they will then really appreciate you for it. That is why I find sales to be very enjoyable.
So why do most people say they don’t like to cold call? It is like asking people at a party if they would like a shot of tequila (the cheap kind - almost everyone has one bad memory of going down that road). They get a weird, uncomfortable look on their face and say "no way". They run for the door.
There are simple reasons for this – it is because they either are not calling the right people, don’t have the right pitch or do not have an effective talk track that enables them to ask the right questions in the right way. And because they haven’t succeeded they lack confidence.
Back to the Girl Scouts of America.
It is not hard to learn sales and the Girl Scouts may just be the best company to learn from. For anyone who wants to learn sales, just figure out how to sell a Girl Scout cookie and you’ll be on your way to understanding how to excel at sales. And remember, Dan Pink’s research confirms the loudest person in the room is actually not always the best sales person – they can be the best but only if they work hard at learning how to listen more and talk less which does not come naturally to their personality type.
I learned to sell as a Brownie. I received the cookie sales sheet and I do remember I didn’t want to show up at the next meeting without any sales. That was my motivation. And I remember being a little bit nervous about how to sell them since we lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere which meant I was going to have to pick up the phone and call people - - - yep, cold call. Motivation is also key. You must be selling something you believe helps the customer. Most company founders should naturally have this drive.
My Mom gave me the phone book. I remember looking at it and wondering who I was going to call first. I started with the people I thought would be the nicest. The on-the-job training began.
I learned that people liked that I was motivated enough to call and ask them to buy and I learned that you do need to ask questions about what types of cookies they liked in order to suggest the right Girl Scout cookies for them. I also learned that you could pitch additional suggestions and some people would really enjoy taking the idea as their own; “Did you know you can even store your Thin Mint cookies in the freezer and during the summer they are a delicious treat on a hot day?” Well, no, they hadn’t thought about that but since I mentioned it that sounded like a good idea and how about another 5 boxes of Thin Mints for their freezer when the grandkids visited over the summer?
I truly don’t remember if I was a top seller of Girl Scout cookies in my troop but I do remember I filled up one order form and I sold them myself. My parent’s didn’t take the order form to work. Be careful if you buy or sell Girl Scout cookies with the “order form at work” because you are teaching order-taking and not sales. Which is another lesson in sales - - a lot of people will buy simply because they see you are doing the work to make it easy for them to buy. You’ll deliver the cookies to their door step. Free shipping included!
A cold call scored me my first professional job at USA Today.
I went to Mexico on vacation and read Al Neuharth’s book, Confessions of an S.O.B. He was the founder of USA Today. It was a good read and when I returned home to Washington, D.C., I was about ready to move on from my current job and I picked up the phone and called USA Today’s H.R. Department and asked them if they had anything at my level. They said they thought they might and scheduled me for an interview.
I found out they had received more than 400 resumes for one job advertisement they had placed but I was the only person who picked up the phone and called them. I was hired for an advertising sales position.
My second month at USA Today I was the sales-person-of-the-month winner with the most sales. The next day the previous winner, Karen, came over to my desk to introduce herself to me and congratulate me. We became friends. Later we both moved into online ad sales before it was cool to do so (it was too risky for most sales people as at that time there were no sales guarantees) and today we are still dear friends and her daughter is my god-daughter. Which leads us back to the Girl Scout Cookie story once again.
Last March I was back in D.C. on a business trip and visited Karen, only to discover her daughter was selling Girl Scout cookies and she had an entire room full of cookies to distribute to other troop members. And Karen, who has built a career as a top sales person in media, said she learned how to sell when she was a Girl Scout and because of this, she volunteered to be the cookie director for her daughter’s troop. She loves sales and she loves cold calling. She finds sales to be creative as in advertising sales many times it is the sales person who presents the media planners with a fresh idea to better connect with the viewers/readers/visitors.
In fact, Karen just returned from a one-week vacation at the Four Seasons in Costa Rica, all expenses paid, for her television company’s business trip with their automotive advertisers.
This is why when I interview people and they say they don’t like cold calling, I really feel like I should educate them on what they are going to miss out on in life. Cold calling is a good thing, a very good thing!
Because of cold-calling I have met interesting people who have become life-long friends and received invitations to amazing events and places.
Daniel Pink’s new book “To Sell Is Human” is a must read for anyone launching a company (you can get the audio too and listen to it while working out). Last year, a similar book was published which addressed the problem that most people with MBA’s actually don’t know how to sell – they don’t teach it in business school. So I recommend this book, too (and I have enjoyed teasing my MBA friends that I now understand why they can’t sell). It is called “The Art of the Sale: Learning from the Masters About the Business of Life” by Philip Delves Broughton.
Remember, if you can sell, everything else about launching a company is easy.
And if you can sell Girl Scout cookies really well, or know someone who did, let me know and we’ll add you to our sales bench at Caregiverlist (even if you are a guy – just figure out how to sell a cookie and you are on your way). We also know how to teach sales to anyone with the motivation to learn, no MBA required.
At Caregiverlist, we even have a digital media company down the hall from us that was started by two sales people I recruited back during the dot-com fast-growth days when there just weren’t enough good sales people to hire. Both of them did not think they wanted to do sales when they started. But once they learned how to sell they loved it, too, and they now have their own digital media business. I have always enjoyed recruiting new people into sales and many have thought I was crazy for doing this, instead of just hiring people who were already sellers. So this is why I want to spread the word about what a nice surprise it is to see Daniel Pink’s personality assessment confirm Ambiverts are the best types of personalities for sales.
Take Dan Pink’s personality test to find out your personality type - and remember, all personalities can excel at sales. You just need to believe in the product or service and have a little bit of hunger for success.
Check out the Girl Scout cookie story in the New York Times – they are really doing some nice up-selling moves now which they didn’t have back in my day - you might find some inspiration and ideas for your current business sales. I mean, how can you say no when a Girl Scout asks you if you would like to donate your change to buy cookies for soldiers?
Caregiverlist provides quarterly sales training seminars and if you would like to be invited, to meet other successful sales people and to learn lessons from those with years of experience in growing sales, just email: [email protected]
And remember, if you don’t like to sell, it really and truly is probably just because you don’t know how to sell well. Just because you tasted a really bad hamburger doesn’t mean they are all bad. Don’t let that stop you from learning how to be an extraordinary sales person so that you can use these skills in all areas of your business.
Cold calling can lead you to a fulfilling job, a profitable career and, well, angel investors, a sailing trip in the Caribbean, an excursion to Asian companies, ski chalet parties, beach house invitations and owning a profitable company that allows you to have extra cash to buy Girl Scout Cookies. I even introduced one sales person I recruited and hired to a guy who is now her husband. And she thought she didn't want to sell originally!
I believe in quality sales training because, you know, even a medical doctor had to learn the ropes with an internship and residency and this is why Caregiverlist provides quarterly seminars - we want to keep our own team in great shape and keep meeting potential winners for our companies and for other Chicago companies who are hiring.
Sold?
