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Sales reps the world over are familiar with the notion of a cold call, the basic idea of calling someone without a previous relationship with the company and attempting to sell same something. It seldom goes well; some estimates suggest a success rate of less than three percent. A little knowledge of brain chemistry, meanwhile, might help to turn that around as Judith E. Glaser noted in an article for The Huffington Post (News - Alert).

Glaser's notion starts with a study from Marketing Sherpa, which revealed that 11 to 17 percent of business prospects were annoyed by a cold call, mostly because a cold call put these recipients into a fear state, specifically, the fear that he or she was about to be sold something. The recipients therefore shifted to a defensive pattern and wanted to end the call as quickly as possible. So Glaser turned to a concept called Conversational Intelligence to produce better results.

There are means to focus a conversation, whether it's a Transactional Conversation focused on telling and asking, a Positional Conversation focused on inquiring and advocating (in this case, advocating a particular product) or a Transformational Conversation geared toward discovery and sharing. Those who put a little extra focus into the Transformational Conversation could generate some new trust, and help defuse the fear response. Generating trust, meanwhile, starts with asking questions—particularly ones that the caller doesn't already know the answer to—and then using that information to establish connection.

The problem with this theory is that it assumes a caller can even get that far. To engage in a Transformational Conversation, the caller has to remain on the line with the target long enough to ask the questions and get answers from there. If the caller's target is engaged in an active fear response, it's a safe bet that the caller won't get out very many questions at all. In this case, it's probably better to ditch the cold call altogether and focus on things like providing a better overall customer experience. That improves the chances of referrals, and when a cold call takes place with a referral, the chances of success increase dramatically. The fear response is negated, because someone else, someone personally known to the target, had a similar experience and came out ahead. With such an experience in mind, the call target doesn't need to slip to a fear response, because there's a likewise chance of a positive outcome for the caller.

Being mindful of what's said in conversations is important, and helps make sales possible. Cold calling, however, isn't the best way to make that initial contact and get those sales. Still, for those who stick to cold calling, remembering the fear response and operating accordingly should prove worthwhile, and may help elevate that slim success.