Cold calling is one of those things that I successfully manage to put off, vital to my survival in business as it might be. It's crazy really as it's such a simple thing to do and the worst that anyone can say (in various formats :rolleyes:) is "no". But that doesn't stop me from finding something else to be doing when I should be picking the phone up. I know what I need to so and I even have an outline of what to say and questions to ask and still it doesn't happen.

So, I mentioned this block to a NLP master practitioner who took me through a little exercise. Sitting at a table in the first chair I had to go through the issue in some detail, voicing my concerns and feelings. This was very much what I should be doing.

Moving to the next chair and (very importantly) facing a different direction, I was asked what it would be like to actually be doing the cold calling. To my surprise my mood changed completely. The whole selling thing was fun and very enjoyable and I was learning anc constantly improving my technique as I went. What a difference! :D

The third chair (and again a change of sirection) involved me looking back having done the calling after a period of time. This invoked a number of emotions - calm, satisfaction, boredom, unhappiness and so on. The boredom comes from the fact that I like to be fully occupied. The unhappiness I haven't yet managed to explain satisfactorily. The question here is, "Looking back through time, what did I do to get to the point of achievement?". Now all I have to do is complete the actions I identified.

I quickly moved back to the second chair to re-experience the pleasure and enjoy the mood created. It's really improved my motivation.

So, now back in my office I'm experimenting with the direction I face to do certain tasks and will be making the first cold calls tomorrow (Monday). I'm looking forward to it, too.

Try it for yourself when you have a problem or issue that's bothering you. Move to more than three positions/directions and see how you feel in each. In performance terms we would be looking at PLAN - DO - REVIEW. For this exercise perhaps it may be easier to think of SHOULD - DO - REFLECT.


Simon Donnelly

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