Confidence is key to cold calling success

Confidence is the key to cold calling success, and that confidence comes from being uncomfortable.

That’s the word from Katelynn Blackburn, founder of Diligence Agencies, where she provides financial services to families seeking security and retirement planning. Blackburn also is an expert in cold calling, having done research on what makes for successful cold calling. She told InsuranceNewsNet that women are a bit better at that technique than men are.

“I think it’s because of our nature,” she said. “Our voices are more nurturing. But if you're selling insurance, that can be more of a touchy subject. So if you do have an empathetic voice, you sound a little bit more trustworthy, along with the fact that a lot of people will stay on the line with you, because you're not nearly as intimidating. I know a lot of women who do really well with phone sales. And I think that it comes down to they’re not necessarily better at cold calling than men, but if women are willing to put in the work, I do believe people will stay on the phone a lot longer than they will with men.”

But women also tend to be more reluctant to pick up the phone to make those cold calls than men are, Blackburn said.

“We’re worried about rejection, we're worried about getting yelled at or doing something wrong. But if you can overcome that hurdle, you’ll surpass a man at cold calling every single time and people will be more receptive to listening to you.”

Women who build confidence will succeed at cold calling, Blackburn said, as nervousness and anxiety can be a hindrance to successful calling.

How to build confidence

“The way to build that confidence is by being uncomfortable,” she said. “When you put yourself in an uncomfortable position over and over again, you become more confident in overcoming it. My motto is, ‘Always live in the uncomfortable, be OK with being uncomfortable, and start living that way.’ That’s the only way you grow.”

“Everything is difficult if you make it difficult, but you can look at it a different way and say, ‘I’m going to become more confident’ and you can seek the discomfort and grow from it.”

Blackburn said she uses role playing to train the agents on her team to respond to objections and deal with different cold-calling scenarios.

Successful cold calling comes down to having the right mindset, she said.

“At the end of the day, cold calling is a numbers game,” she said. “And if you make enough calls and you’re willing to put in the work and you believe you can do it, there’s no way you’ll fail. If you’re not worried about the rejection, if you’re not worried about the outcome, if you just put your head down and do the work and not think about those things, you’ll see success.”

Blackburn said she believes cold calling will never go away, despite consumers’ reluctance to answer calls from unfamiliar numbers.

“I think that people build a lot of relationships through cold calling. Not everyone wants to scam you. There are people out there who genuinely want to provide you with information that is useful to your life. There are a lot of businesses that don’t run off of leads. They rely on cold calling. I don’t think cold calling will ever go away because it is a very lucrative and profitable way of doing business.”

 

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