Episode Details

Here’s a question that hits closer to home than most sales reps want to admit: What do you do when you’ve been away from prospecting for a while and suddenly the call reluctance feels brand new again?

That’s the situation Dwayne Malmberg from Sugar Land, Texas found himself in. He’d been crushing it in inside sales and appointment setting since the 90s. He was good at it. Really good. But after taking just over two years away from the phones, a new opportunity came along and suddenly he was facing something he didn’t expect.

The call reluctance. The trepidation. The mental resistance to picking up that phone and dialing invisible strangers.

If you’ve ever taken time away from prospecting and felt that same knot in your stomach when it’s time to get back on the phones, you’re not alone. And more importantly, there’s a systematic way to rebuild that muscle and get back to crushing it.

The Raw Truth About Cold Calling Fear

Let’s get brutally honest: Cold calling creates emotional angst. Period.

I’ve made tens of thousands of cold calls. I make them with my clients during training sessions. I’ll make them tomorrow morning. And I still feel that trepidation on the first couple of calls of the day.

It’s just human. It’s natural. It never completely goes away.

Think about it like jumping out of an airplane. A few years ago, I got the chance to jump with the United States Army Golden Knights. I was terrified. My heart was pounding. A sergeant even asked if I was okay because apparently I looked frightened.

When we got strapped in, I turned to the Golden Knight I was jumping with and asked, “Do you ever get scared?” His answer was revealing: “Yeah, of course I do. My heart’s beating a little bit because it’s an airplane and I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I’ve done it so many times and I’ve got a routine.”

That’s the key. The routine. The process. The mental preparation that gets you past the fear and into action.

The Big Pull: Why You Need Something Worth Fighting For

Here’s the problem with facing fear: If you don’t have something pulling you forward that’s bigger than the discomfort you’re feeling right now, you’ll procrastinate forever.

The discipline to run a prospecting block and do your prospecting is the discipline to sacrifice what you want now for what you want most.

So before you even think about picking up the phone, sit down and write out what you want. Why are you doing this? What’s the goal? Is it a paycheck? A promotion? Financial freedom? Providing for your family?

That’s your big pull. That’s what you focus on when you start your day, not whatever might happen on the call. Because when you’re thinking about something as sc