Building an Appetite for Cold Calling: Keyan Chang Shares 3 Lessons He Learned from Cold Calling

Cold calling has been around ever since the invention of the telephone in the 1800s. It was the only alternative to personally talking to prospective customers back then. But things have drastically changed ever since. Most cold calls now go to voicemail. Only 1-3% of outbound calls lead to appointments. And up to 88% of buyers will have nothing to do with cold callers.

Despite these tragic figures, cold calling still has its merits. Cold calling may now be a less effective way to close a sale, but it is still worth doing. Take it from Property Consultant Keyan Chang.

Keyan Chang is the President of Key Realty Consulting, which owns over $12 million in assets. And he credits cold calling as one of the activities that catapulted his success in the industry and life.

Here are the top three lessons he learned from doing cold calling over the years:

Lesson #1: Necessity Drives Action

Cold calling may no longer be the best option for prospecting. But if it’s the only viable option that gives you a chance to survive and thrive—then you take it.

“The biggest difference between a lot of the other people there and me was that I knew I needed [to do cold calling],” admits Chang. “I needed to make something happen.”

While studying to become an Electrical Engineer, Keyan Chang’s parents divorced. After their separation, their finances froze, and Chang was left to fund his entire college education. Suddenly, at 19, he needed a way to get money fast. So Chang started taking on a bunch of sales and marketing gigs.

“When I graduated school, I had three grand in my bank account, and I spent two grand to find a place to live. So [it was clear to me that] I need to make the sales.”

Chang soon learned that the sales guys made more money than engineers. So he jumped ship and looked for an entry sales job.. He became the hardest-working SDR at the company. Everyone else was making 30 to 70 cold calls a day. But he was doing up to 300 to fund the life he wanted. It taught him that if you want something bad enough, you can make it happen.

Lesson #2: Cold Calling Builds Tenacity

Rejection is one of the biggest reasons people fear doing cold outreach.

But salespeople eat rejections for breakfast. Having to go through hundreds of cold calls daily and experience constant rejection never affected Chang.

“I kind of became dead to rejection,” says Chang. “If someone said, Hey, F off. That does not personally hurt me because he doesn't know me, and I'm just selling the product, right?”

This repeated cycle of rejections allowed Keyan Chang to build the confidence and tenacity he needed in his property consulting business. Fully confident about his capabilities, Chang did not hesitate to take advantage of the golden earning opportunity he found through property investing.

Lesson #3: Cold Calling Teaches Better Communication

After cold calling people across the US, the biggest lesson Keyan Chang learned was how to be a better communicator.

“[I] can start almost telling what type of person someone is just by how they sound,” says Chang. “So, if they speak super slowly, I can tell how old they are. I'll be able to tell a little bit more and more information about how interested they are in this or if they're wasting my time.”

Because he exposed himself to different types of people and how they communicated, Keyan Chang developed the ability to listen more intently and react so that his message got across without trouble. It allowed him to easily spot when someone was lying to him or when they were trying to trick him. And it also made him better prepared to make deals at the negotiating table.

For those still hesitant to do cold calling, know this: Cold calling is like doing exercise. If you can incorporate this into your career and do it regularly— you will reap tremendous benefits, just like Keyan Chang.

Article presented by Luke Lintz