“My thoughts before a big race are usually pretty simple. I tell myself: Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you’ll win… channel your energy. Focus”

In the age of the Internet, there is no reason to do cold calling. While you may have never talked to a specific person before, it’s an easy thing to find out about your prospects before you dial their number. Use the Internet to get to know your prospects so you can approach your sales calls with familiarity. Remember, sales is about relationships, and the first step in developing a relationship is getting to know each other.

Search Social Sites to Discover Network
The following social networking sites are widely used by people in business. If a person is listed, this is an excellent way to find out who they are connected to, and there’s always a chance they are connected to people you know. Remember to search by name and company name.

• LinkedIn
• Plaxo
• Facebook
• Spoke

Search Twitter to Discover Personality
Twitter is its own animal when it comes to social networking sites. Searching by people only searches the username field, and many people don’t use their real name there. So when you search on Twitter, search for people but also remember to search in the sidebar search field. This allows you to search the text of the tweets to find somebody. Once you’ve found them, read their tweet stream. This gives you a lot of information about them.

Search Google to Find Out Details
Google is a wealth of information, if you know how to extract it. Successful searching is about the keyword and quote combinations you use to refine the search results. Many people find it frustrating when they get back hundreds of thousands of results for a search, but spending 20 minutes learning basic searching syntax can mean you will find exactly what you’re looking for.

For example, if I wanted to see if somebody had won an award, just typing their name into Google is going to bring back a huge search result. Instead think about the words that would describe winning an award. You might type “person’s name” + “award” or “person’s name” + “ceremony”. These searches brings back results that give information about this name and any awards or ceremonies associate with them. Definitely more telling than a general search.

Now that you know your prospect better, you are ready to make that call. Use the information you found to make a connection by personalizing your conversation. Remember, there’s no such thing as cold calling when you know the person you’re calling!