What’s the initial objective of a cold call and your new business development efforts? Rather than focusing your energy on getting the appointment or making the sale, first determine if there’s a good fit between you, your prospect and what you are selling.

Instead of feeling that the initial objective of a cold call (face to face or over the phone) is to get a sale, provide a demonstration, submit a proposal or schedule an appointment, the initial intention of prospecting is to determine if there’s a fit worth pursuing.

While this may sound a bit strange, closing the sale and earning the business of a prospect is not your initial goal. Instead, your primary objective is to determine whether you and your prospect are a good fit.

Take a moment and think about how this change in your attitude and mindset would change your cold calling approach as well as your experience when cold calling.

Change Your Thinking, Change Your Approach and Outcome

While your traditional approach may be to produce a measurable result (sale, appointment, proposal, etc.), now your primary objective is to discover whether you and your prospect are a good match and if this relationship is worth moving to the next stage of your selling process.

If you feel that you constantly have to push the sales process forward, you’re not taking into consideration that the prospect may simply not be ready, let alone may not be a good fit for what you are selling. Pushing the sales process forward before a prospect is ready only creates pressure for the both of you, fostering an unhealthy relationship from the start.

Filling your sales funnel with unqualified prospects does nothing for you other than cost you time. In addition, there’s an exponential cost to you. Now, you’re spending your time on people who are simply not a good fit for you or your product and service and not investing the time with those prospects who would buy from you.

By changing your thinking and your approach, you’ll now be able to focus your energy and precious time on the right prospects who are more inclined to become a valued customer, rather than wasting your time sending out proposals and following up with people who you have no business following up with in the first place.

Here’s a clip produced by CanDoGo.com on how you can make this critical shift in your thinking which will result in more selling opportunities and less cold calling reluctance.