Many salespeople fear cold calling to sell their products or make appointments with decision makers. If you can overcome that hesitation to pick up the phone and secure time with the decision maker to pitch your product or solution, you’ve added a potential sale in your pipeline!

There are so many tools that marketers can use when searching for and approaching potential leads in target organizations. The Internet is full of information, much of it free of charge, if you just know where to look.

One of the key free resources you may not have thought of to find out where you can locate some of your key prospects is industry trade shows. If you have a target industry, there is no shortage of niche-specific seminars, summits, or conferences held across the country or around the world to discuss the topic. A simple Google search can turn up dozens or hundreds of great events that would be your target audience. Almost all of them have lists of speakers who are thought leaders for that particular industry or topic and the ideal candidate for you to seek them out. When approaching these prospects, refer to your participation in that specific conference and your prominent position as a thought leader. Get a meeting with them just to get feedback on their solution. This meeting could result in a sale, a product endorsement, or just a way to reach out to others based on the views of this prominent thought leader.

Another great tip, contact the event organizers. Often times, a list of participants who could also be your key audience will attend these events. You will most likely have to buy such a list, but this would be a very new and relevant list of people with key titles or responsibilities who would be making decisions about your product or service.

Don’t be afraid of cold calls! There are great ways to bypass gatekeepers and voice mail.

Once you know ‘what’ you want to say to a prospect once they call you on the phone, the fear will disappear. Once you’ve developed what would be most important to the prospect you’re approaching: cutting costs, reducing your corporate risk, saving time, increasing productivity, building a better product for your customers, better customer service, or whatever solution best suits your particular needs. product. – you simply need to communicate that in 20-30 seconds with some credible references or clients they can relate to and ask for more time and set up a meeting.

Practice your approach over and over again until it becomes conversational and fluid. Once you remove their reluctance by having a solid plan of attack and a good flowing pitch, you can secure many more meetings that statistically should lead to more sales for you. Good luck and good selling!