For mental part, you need to feel absolutely confident person you are calling will benefit from your product or service… and they will, because you’re selling something you believe in. You don’t need to know every detail for an initial call, but be solid on basic facts and have a comfortable understanding of need your offering addresses.

Skip The Script

Don’t use a script. You should have a concrete understanding of basics of your offering and why someone would want to buy it. If they need more detail than you can initially provide, it’s a good (opportunity?) reason to set a proper appointment where you can offer detail prospect was looking for and move closer to closing sale.

That said, you can keep an outline or a few notes in front of you when calling, but don’t read them verbatim. Use your notes as a quick reference tool or “memory jogger” in case you get stuck.

And finally, purpose of cold calling isn’t to convince someone to do or buy something they don’t need or want. If you pick up phone with that as your objective, you’ll fail every time. Cold calling is an outstanding tool to find “low lying fruit” - people that already know they have a need, and your call prompts them to do something about it.

Think of it this way… somebody’s going to make sale, and if you don’t pick up phone and call, it won’t be you.

The chief element of direct mail campaign was a brochure. The reader was immediately confronted with a stark, bold headline on front of brochure:

"WHERE DO YOU GO TO TALK TO INVESTORS WITH $TRILLIONS TO INVEST? When brochure was opened, inside headline provided answer: "TO THE WINE COUNTRY”

On left side of inside page, we developed a fanciful photo that conveyed message we wanted: In photo, Holmes was wearing a suit and holding a cellphone, sitting at a desk which had a computer on top of it, in middle of a winery. Next to desk was a street sign that said “Wall Street.” The other side of page told story of Buyside and how it reached this affluent, influential audience of institutional investors. The copy also directed readers to an offer in back.

As part of offer, companies that responded to mailing would receive a free bottle of BuySide wine—white or red.

The mailing and promotion powered magazine to success far ahead of schedule. But wine proved to be more than a launching pad in a direct mail campaign. It became part of magazine’s positioning, separating it from competition. The wine angle proved powerful for years to come. At money management conferences, where wine was given out at BuySide’s booth, people would come into conference and ask ‘Where are wine guys?” Everyone knew what they meant.

While developing a private label wine may not be for everyone, there are other ways to use wine creatively in affluent marketing. Wine tastings, and food and wine get-togethers have been used successfully by professionals seeking to market their services to an affluent audience. But like wine itself, it takes taste and sophistication to make it work.