You know you’re supposed to make phone calls to help build your business. They’re essential.  A personal phone call is truly the best, sometimes the only, way to develop a contact into an active lead or cultivate a relationship with someone in your sphere.  We all know that.

And yet many agents are afraid to make that call.  Indeed, call avoidance is one of the best ways to get everything else in your life done.  You’ll do your laundry, or clean your desk, or rearrange your files, or really do ANYTHING while you’re avoiding just picking up the damn phone to call someone.

Why is that?  Because you’ve convinced yourself that your call is unwelcome, that no one wants to hear from you, that you’re imposing yourself on someone else.  You don’t like it when people do that to you, and you’re uncomfortable doing it to someone else.

The problem is all in your head, because you’re thinking about the call in the wrong way.  You’re thinking that the only reason for the call is that you’re trying to extract business from them.  If you change the way you think about the call, you’ll improve the likelihood of making it.

So think of it this way: as a call from your doctor.  Do you mind when you get a follow-up call from your doctor, or lawyer, or dentist, or financial planner, or anyone else that you do business with?  Generally, you don’t mind, because you perceive that call as a SERVICE to you, not as an attempt to extract business from you.  Even if the call is designed to maintain or cultivate the professional relationship you’ve developed, you still don’t resent the call.

That’s the attitude that you need to make when you’re reaching out to people. Stop thinking like a mercenary, and start thinking about the service you can provide to whomever you’re calling.  Get into your head that you have a dual purpose in every call you make: (1) to generate business, and (2) to provide a service.  Obviously, every call you make is an attempt to build your business, but that doesn’t mean you can’t also have the more altruistic, client-oriented purpose as well.

If you’re calling someone in your sphere, or calling a potential lead contact, have something interesting to tell them about the community or the market.  Bring something to the table.  Provide a service. If you can legitimately find a reason for the call, you’ll find it’s easier to make the call.

Don’t think like a salesperson, think like a service professional.  Make the call.

This post is part of a series of what I call the “36-1/2 Rules for Client-Oriented Real Estate Agents,” a collection of short takes on the CORE concept that I’ve developed over the years of discussing and teaching the system.  We’ll count up to the 36th rule over the next few months, and then the 1/2 rule.  You can get the full list of rules by clicking on the “36-1/2 Rules for CORE Agents” category on the blog – scroll from the bottom if you want to read them in order.