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Cold Calls & Calm Nerves: A Starter Kit for the Terrified

by | May 8, 2025 | Podcast Episode

Cold Calls & Calm Nerves: A Starter Kit for the Terrified
Cold Calls & Calm Nerves: A Starter Kit for the Terrified

7 Proven Ways to Master Cold Calls & Calm Nerves Fast

Cold calls & calm nerves don’t usually go together—but they can. With just 3 simple shifts, you can turn fear into confidence and start having better sales conversations today.

Why Cold Calls Feel So Terrifying

If you’re nervous about cold calling, you’re not alone.

Many people avoid it because:

  • You don’t know how the other person will react
  • Rejection feels personal
  • You worry about “bothering” someone
  • You feel unprepared

But here’s the truth: cold calling isn’t scary because of the call—it’s scary because of uncertainty.

And once you remove that uncertainty, your nerves settle fast.

In fact, even experienced professionals once felt the same fear. One speaker described being cursed at, questioned, and rejected repeatedly during early cold calling days—but emphasized that modern B2B calls are far more respectful and professional.  

Step 1: Use Intentionality to Calm Your Nerves

Most cold calls fail before they start.

Why? Because there’s no clear purpose.

If your mindset is:

“I’m just calling to see if they want to work with me…”

That creates pressure—for both you and them.

What to do instead

Be intentional.

Before every call, ask:

  • What is my goal for this call?
  • What specific outcome do I want?

Examples of clear goals:

  • Invite them to an event
  • Share a helpful resource
  • Book a demo
  • Schedule a follow-up call

Why this works

When your goal is clear:

  • You sound more confident
  • The conversation feels natural
  • The other person has an “easy yes”

And that’s how you start mastering cold calls & calm nerves at the same time.

Step 2: Do Pre-Call Planning (This Changes Everything)

If you’re making 100 random calls, your nerves will skyrocket.

If you make 10 well-researched calls, your confidence will grow.

Focus on quality over quantity

Instead of mass dialing:

  • Identify your ideal prospects
  • Research their business
  • Look at their content (social media, blog, videos)

What to look for

  • Recent posts or updates
  • Business challenges
  • Industry trends
  • Personal insights

Use it in your opening

This helps you build rapport in the first 10–20 seconds:

  • “I saw your recent post about…”
  • “I noticed your company is expanding into…”

Now you’re not a stranger—you’re someone who did their homework.

And that instantly reduces anxiety.

As highlighted in the podcast, doing fewer but more intentional calls is far more effective than making dozens of random ones.

Step 3: Build Resilience (Your Secret Weapon)

Let’s be honest—rejection still happens.

Even in polite B2B environments, you’ll hear:

  • “Not interested”
  • “Who is this?”
  • “Why are you calling me?”

And yes, it can feel uncomfortable.

But here’s the mindset shift:

Rejection is not failure—it’s part of the process.

How to build resilience

  • Expect some “no’s” (they’re normal)
  • Detach your identity from the outcome
  • Focus on consistency, not perfection

Because if you don’t build resilience, you’ll quit by day two.

But if you stick with it, your confidence compounds quickly.

Step 4: Start Small to Reduce Anxiety

You don’t need to jump into high-stakes calls immediately.

Start with:

  • Warm leads
  • Lower-pressure conversations
  • Practice calls

This builds:

  • Familiarity
  • Confidence
  • Flow

And helps your brain realize:

“This isn’t actually dangerous.”

Step 5: Use a Simple Call Framework

Structure removes fear.

Try this simple framework:

  1. Opening: Personalized intro
  2. Reason: Why you’re calling
  3. Value: What’s in it for them
  4. Next step: Clear, easy ask

Example:

“Hey [Name], I saw your recent post about scaling your team. I work with businesses on improving hiring systems, and I had a quick idea that might help. Would you be open to a 10-minute chat this week?”

Clear. Simple. Low pressure.

Step 6: Reframe What Cold Calling Really Is

Most people think:

“I’m interrupting someone.”

But a better way to think about it:

“I’m offering something that might help.”

That shift alone can dramatically calm your nerves.

Because now you’re not selling—you’re serving.

Step 7: Focus on Progress, Not Perfection

Your first calls won’t be perfect.

And they shouldn’t be.

What matters:

  • You start
  • You improve
  • You stay consistent

Every call teaches you something:

  • What works
  • What doesn’t
  • How to adapt

And over time, cold calls & calm nerves become your new normal.

Final Thoughts: You’re Closer Than You Think

Cold calling isn’t about being fearless.

It’s about being prepared, intentional, and resilient.

Start with:

  • Clear goals
  • Simple research
  • A willingness to hear “no”

And you’ll quickly realize:

It’s not nearly as scary as you thought.

CTA

Want help crafting your cold call script or strategy? Reach out or drop your questions—happy to help you refine your approach.

Cold Calls & Calm Nerves: A Starter Kit for the Terrified

Episode Summary:

Cold calling doesn’t have to feel like jumping out of a plane—especially when you’ve got a plan. In this episode, Brooke Greening answers a listener’s question from “Terrified in Tahiti” and walks through three key pillars to make cold calling less scary and more effective: intentionality, pre-call planning, and resilience. Whether you’re brand new or just need a refresher, this is your roadmap to turning cold calls into warm wins.

What You’ll Learn:

  • Why intentionality is your best friend when picking up the phone.
  • How to approach pre-call planning so your message actually lands.
  • What resilience really looks like when facing rejection—and how to build it.
  • Differences between cold calling massive lists vs. reaching actual business owners.
  • Brooke’s personal story of late-night cold calling (and surviving it!).

Resources Mentioned:

  • Tips for researching leads through social media and content
  • Strategies for crafting an “easy yes” ask
  • A call to action: Send in your own cold calling questions for future episodes!

Connect With Us:

Cold Calls & Calm Nerves Episode Transcript

Brooke Greening: Terrified in Tahiti asks, how do people who do cold calls do it? Utterly terrifying. But seriously, I want to know. Never done it, but I gotta start help. Well, terrified in Tahiti. Thank you for your question. I've got my matcha, so let's go. You see, I used to do cold calling a while back ago at Wells Fargo Financial, and that was in the day when you were like tied to your computer.

You had your headset on and it would just dial in and it would go, go, go, go, go. Now, I was super fortunate because I was getting my master's at that time, so I was doing cold calling at night. So the only thing worse than cold calling during the day is cold calling at night because I was talking to them after they had been contacted probably five or six times.

At that point, that helped me to know that's not what I wanna do with the rest of my life. But it taught me a Cold Calls Calm lot of different things. And a lot of times they would get angry at me, they would be cursing at me, they would be questioning. My education abilities, all of those things. And the good news is none of that is actually going to be happening for you. In the B2B world,

we're a lot more cordial than that, and so you don't have to worry about that. I know you said that you're terrified, but it's really not going to be that bad. But today I'm gonna talk about two things to help you get started in your cold calling. The first one is intentionality. See, a lot of times people feel cold calling is just like, I'm just gonna call them and see if they want me to do business with them.

Well, that doesn't really work. You have no rapport set up with them. There's no trust set up with them. That is, it's just not the way to be doing business. But you can be intentional in your cold calling. So you're gonna sit down and you're gonna ask yourself, what is the goal of me wanting to call these people?

Is there an event that you wanna invite them to? Is there a resource? That you wanna share with them is, are you wanting to talk to them to do a demo? Are you wanting to set up another time to be able to talk more about their business? You want to be really intentional and you want to give them a way to have an easy yes.

Instead of it seem like it's this huge jump and they're, they don't even know you and they don't trust you. So that's the very first thing you wanna do. Look at your business and think to yourself, what is it that I actually want to accomplish in this cold call? The second piece is you want to do pre-call planning, because if it's just you, then I'm going to assume you might not necessarily have a big team getting ready to do this.

So if it's just you, I would rather you have 10 intentional cold calls as opposed to a hundred, just random ones. So when I say talk about pre-call planning, you want to be able to do your homework. So you're gonna look at who are the people that you actually wanna be doing business with. You're gonna look at what's going on with them.

This is where you start looking in their social media. If they're blogging about things, they're doing videos, whatever it is, you're gonna look and be able to see how could you be able to build rapport in those first 10, 20 seconds when they pick up the phone. That's what you wanna be able to do for your homework, and then ask yourself, is what I'm going to be asking them to do?

Does that make sense? Would that be a clear next step for them? Now if you have a team and you're wanting to help with that, you still wanna be intentional, but you'd probably be able to scale that even more. And if you wanna talk more in regards to, what do I say on these cold calls, feel free to ask questions and we can talk about that.

'cause there's a difference in regards to a massive cold call list. And if you're actually talking to the business owner, if you're trying to get ahold of the business owner and you're trying to find them and their company, that's gonna be a different cold call than if you're actually gonna get ahold of them directly.

Okay. And then the third piece is just as a friendly reminder, you do need resilience. Now, they're probably not gonna yell at you. They're probably not gonna curse at you. But being told no multiple times does not feel good hearing when people are trying to figure like, who are you? Why are you calling me?

That feels uncomfortable sometimes. So you wanna make sure that you build resilience because if you don't, you are gonna stop about day two. But I promise you, if you stick with it, if you're intentional and you're doing your homework, it can make a really big difference in your business. All right, so there you go.

Terrified in Tahiti. Let me know what other questions you have.