Youve heard the excuses time and again.

I hate cold calling! and I shouldnt have to cold call! and Cold calling is a waste of time!

All of these are ruses.

Whats really happening is the speakers are gripped with fear. Theyre afraid to fail, so sound foolish, and to even try.

In a word, theyre COWARDS!

Ive never said that before, but I believe it cuts to the heart of the matter.

And the only cure is COURAGE.

They have to make themselves cold call. Its not only essential to selling well, its essential to their character development.

First, lets dash the notion that cold calling, selling to strangers, to people whom you havent spoken to before, that this activity is fundamentally flawed.

Horse feathers!

Every healthy business grows by getting new customers. New means people you arent doing business with now, with strangers.

The only way to make a stranger an acquaintance or a prospect is by meeting them. Chances are very good that they wont contact you. You must contact them, and whats more direct than reaching out by phone?

Ive met people who contend that cold calling is the ONLY RELIABLE way of growing ones business. There are other ways, I suppose.

You can grow through acquisitions, but if you go back far enough into those companies histories, youll find someone or many folks who courageously introduced themselves to strangers and built a business, as a result.

Be happy youre afraid!

This means a lot of your competitors feel the same way and they wont cold call, leaving this medium only to the courageous, and potentially, only to you.

With fewer people on the phones, prospects are called less, and this means theyre less resistant to sales presentations.

The coward anticipates horrors, and the person with courage anticipates treasures.

Dont believe self-appointed gurus who play to your fears, who say, Youre right; cold calling sucks.

Theyre feeding your weakness, making it worse.

Instead, seek out those that will literally, EN-COURAGE you.

Napoleon Hill, in the classic book, THINK & GROW RICH said it this way:

Fear, the worst of all enemies, can be effectively cured by forced repetition of acts of courage.

Greater than the value of all of the sales in the world, the gift we give ourselves when we cold call is one of CHARACTER.