Cold Calling/Prospecting
I'm A Coward And Proud Of It
By Jerry Hocutt
Apr 4, 2004, 12:17

Courage
is doing what you’re afraid to do.

There can be no courage unless you’re scared.

-Eddie Rickenbacker

Viktor Frankl
was an Austrian, a psychiatrist, and Jewish. He lived in Germany
at the beginning of World War II. Dr. Frankl and his entire family
were put into the death camps. He would be the only one to survive.

At the end of
the war he wrote his book, Man’s Search for Meaning. He discusses
a concept he created, and a word he created – logotherapy.
He is also the father of the phrase “paradoxical intention.”
He said his concept was very simple, yet he did not understand how
the human mind dealt with the concept.

Dr. Frankl said
that it seemed the more you wanted something, the more elusive it
became. He said you could actually use this to your advantage, especially
when it came to physical sensations.

For example,
you are sitting in your office looking at that 300-pound telephone
sitting on your desk. Butterflies start appearing. You think if
you sit quietly enough, the butterflies will disappear. They don’t.
In fact, they keep increasing.

If you’re
a smart salesperson like me, you’ll take them down to the
nearest Starbucks and load them up on caffeine. Now you know they
will be so happy they will leave. They’re happy all right.
But they invite all their friends. They keep increasing even more.

What Dr. Frankl
said to do was use paradoxical intention. That is, do exactly the
opposite of what you would normally do to bring opposite results.

If I’m
in the office and butterflies start appearing, don’t try to
eliminate them. Use paradoxical intention. Try to increase them
on purpose. If I have 1000 butterflies now, try to increase them
to 10,000. No. That’s not enough. Increase them to 100,000.
That’s still not enough. Try to have 1 million butterflies
floating around in your stomach. You want so many, they will make
you float off the ground and levitate in front of the prospect.

Dr. Frankl said
that when you create a silly picture like that, it becomes so ridiculous
that the opposite feelings begin to appear. Instead of getting nervous,
you start to calm down immediately. Paradoxical intention.

Here’s
how you do it in cold calling. Get a 3x5 note card. Write the word
“COWARD” on it. Put it by your phone. Try to be a coward
when you call the people. Try to be nervous. Try to hyperventilate.
Try to have your mind go blank. The crazy thing is, the harder you
try to be afraid, the calmer you get. Paradoxical intention.

We did this
seminar in Seattle. The first person at the seminar that day sat
up on the front row and to my left. The gentleman was very attentive,
yet quiet during the seminar. At the end of the seminar, he was
the first person to come to the stage and talk with me.

He pulled me
to the side of the room so no one could hear what he was going to
tell me. He introduced himself, and then told me that he was a medical
doctor. He said he and his wife had recently started a business
on the side. He was required to walk in to travel agencies and drop
off a simple one-page flyer. A very simple type of cold call. But,
he said, cold calling scared him.

This man was
about my age. He went on to say that he had fought in Vietnam. He
was a helicopter pilot. He was used to getting shot at. Yet cold
calling scared him.

He said he was
shot down and captured in Vietnam. He was a P.O.W. for three years,
yet cold calling still scared him for some unexplained reason. He
said he was going to take my “COWARD” idea, try it,
and report back to me later what he thought of it.

Six weeks later,
I got a very nice thank you card from the doctor. I called him and
we were talking about the “COWARD” concept and paradoxical
intention. He said, “Jerry, it really works. How does it work?”

I told him I
didn’t know. Psychiatrists have verified that it works, but
like Dr. Frankl, who was also a psychiatrist, they don’t understand
how it works because they don’t understand how the human mind
deals with paradoxical intention. I pointed out that I don’t
understand how electricity works. I simply use it.

And that is
where I got the name of our seminars, Cold Calling for CowardsÒ.
It’s not that you are a coward, but if you try to be one,
you will do exactly the opposite. Paradoxical intention.

If you do this:
try to be a “coward” when you call people.

You will get
this result: you will calm down immediately, your thoughts will
be clear, and you create courage in the face of fear.

About
The Author:

"I could sell to anyone . . . if I could just get
in front of them first!" (The lament of every salesperson.)
The most crucial and difficult part of selling is finding the people
to sell to. With this in mind, Jerry Hocutt, president of Hocutt
& Associates, Inc., started his sales training in 1992 with
one purpose: to help salespeople find customers.

Jerry will be
presenting his Cold Calling for Cowards seminar as a teleseminar
for us on April 2. For more information visit:

www.salestrainingcamp.com/products_main_teleseminar_jerry_coldcalling.htm

Contact Information:

Jerry Hocutt

Hocutt & Associates, Inc.

24933 132nd Place SE

Kent, WA 98042

www.footinthedoor.com