The Cold Calling Conspiracy
A consipiracy exists in the world of selling. A cold calling conspiracy.
What I’m talking about is the requirement by most sales organizations to make cold calls on your time and at your expense. They say that cold calls equal appointments equal sales, but that’s not true anymore. All sales managers are guilty of teaching it, believing it, and using it. “Increase your activity and increase your income” are the mantra. We’re told to do the sales math to “motivate” ourselves. Have you heard this one? “If you make five hundred dollars commission per sale and it takes five appointments to get the sale and twenty calls to get an appointment, then each cold call is worth five dollars in your pocket.”
Did anyone ever really believe this?
Hey boss, put your money where your mouth is! If that were really true, companies would pay us the five dollars per call! They don’t because that equation never works in the real world… for anyone. The simple fact is that we are only paid for completed sales, not for attempts. Directing salespeople to make more calls and increase activity is a weak excuse for a sales manager or trainer to justify his or her job. Cold calling is an expensive waste of your time. The reason companies have you cold calling is because it is a waste of YOUR time and YOUR money, not theirs. You only make money when you sell something, yet over eighty percent of most salespeople’s time is spent looking for someone to sell to.
The bottom line is that we, as salespeople, cannot afford to continue fooling away our time on low-percentage activities like cold calling. It’s a way for companies to save money at your expense. We must focus our attention on activities that get real results in this new Information Age economy, and the effectiveness of cold calling fell dramatically when we left the old Industrial Age and entered this bold new era. Forget cold calling and learn how to market yourself intelligently, systematically, and automatically. Self-marketing is the key to success in today’s selling environment and the “secret” of all those top producers who obviously don’t cold call and won’t tell you what it is they’re doing to make those huge numbers every month. Remember, Napoleon Hill’s great work is entitled “Think and Grow Rich,” not “Work Harder and Stay Broke.” Don’t become a victim of the Cold Calling Conspiracy – learn to market yourself successfully and join the elite club of top producers. I did it and you can too.
Is Cold Calling Is a Waste of Time?
Are you still cold-calling for sales prospects?
What do you suggest be said to managers when presenting cold call alternatives?
It’s funny how entrenched some of these folks are with their thinking. They often believe the old “more activity, more income” broken record they preach to sales people.
Thank you for addressing these important points head-on, too many new sales people are working too hard trying to make sales brute force. There are alternatives to cold calling.
Sincerely,
Justin Hitt, Strategic Relations Consultant
Helping executives create and keep customers
I have read your blog for a while and have a few comments.
First I assume you are talking primarily about consumer cold calling as it is clear to me that if one can craft and deliver a complelling highly targeted message to a qualified prospect in the corporate market and you can and will find enough sales to justify the time. In my experience about 1 in 4 of these cold calls delivers a pipeline prospect and about 1-2 of these will close through the sales cycle.
Second, You frequently say that cold calling NEVER works, but I have known many very productive salespeople who built their business on cold calling.
I realize that you are selling a service and it must be a great hot button to sell salespeople on not having to do the grunt work of cold calls but do you not acknowledge, that with proper precall planning and with a thorough understanding of a prospects business that a salesperson can break through the clutter and connect with a prospect?
Anyway, I am a student and practitioner of the sales process and enjoy your blog and would love to hear your response.
Ren
For my response to this please look down a few posts to the discussion about selling with leverage. It explains that even if cold calling is working for you, you’re still missing out on the rich spoils of using self-marketing.
yes, i agree that cold calling doesn’t equal appointments and sales, but how else can we make appointments? Sales? i myself hate cold calling but i’m in sales and i find there are no other ways to get in a prospects office to talk to them, what more to sell to them? Letters are easily disgarded and it is more unprofessional and rude of you barge in thier office. so, you’ve got any solutions or alternatives, PLEASE tell me. i would love to hear and apply it in my sales efforts.
thank you.
Carlo, there are literally DOZENS of ways to reach prospects and get appointments that work better than cold calling. Sign up for my newsletter to get started on learning how.
Frank