I saw a link to this website from my business mentor Mark LeBlanc: Just Place The Call!
I’ve written about calling, and the Chicken List (that list of people you are too scared to call) plenty of times… here and here and here and here and here. I get it, I really do. I’m afraid of the phone, too. Sometimes I wonder if the person will punch me through the receiver, or take away my first-born, or some other horrific thing. The phone tends to paralyze job seekers. I’ve heard “the phone weighs five hundred pounds!” or “my tongue weighs a thousand pounds!” I get it all. I live it, just like you do.
But there is something special about the phone. I challenge you to get good at it. Instead of envying others who seem to do it well, instead of blaming your personality profile and saying if you had a different personality you would do it, JUST PLACE THE CALL.
A mentor in my job search, John, is the one who introduced the Chicken List phrase to me. His advice was priceless: start calls with the hardest person on your Chicken List. Get the hard people CROSSED OFF. Get through those. Let me add, if you are still alive after those calls, then calling other people will be a breeze!
Check out the Just Place The Call video, and after taking the two minutes and twenty three seconds to watch it, PLACE THE CALL! 🙂 I haven’t downloaded the 501 Telephone tips from that page but if you do it, and like it, let me know! (apparently, this is their blog, with lots of cool looking blog posts about improving your phone skills)