Why do we keep hearing that cold calling is dead? I log on to LinkedIn and see posts saying cold calling is dead. I see cold calling is dead in various sales forums. I hear from numerous sales people that cold calling is dead. I am left to wonder when the funeral for cold calling was and why I wasn’t invited?
The death of cold calling is mostly wished for by sales people. Why? When sales people are asked to cold call a few changes happen as they sit down in front of a phone and get ready to cold call. The first change that happens is their heart rate starts to race all the way as high as 160 beats per minute. The second change is they start to breathe hard. The third change is they start to sweat. Remember all these changes are happening and we aren’t asking them to run a marathon or do some physically strenuous activity. We are only asking them to dial the phone!
Most sales people find cold calling so stressful that they would rather go around shouting about cold calling's death from the rooftops than actually pick up the phone! I think it is important to remember that the only difference between a cold call and a warm call is the first 15 seconds of the call. After the first 15 seconds, a cold call and a warm call are essentially the same.
So, why do so many sales people resist this first 15 seconds? Pain. Pain is the answer. Sales people will continue to resist cold calling until the pain of not making cold calls and having little to no pipeline is greater than the pain of actually making the calls. I have seen sales people cling to dead deals so they can claim a healthy looking pipeline so they can convince their companies that there is no need to make these cold calls. The other common reason people use to avoid cold calling is the “Millenials don’t like to talk on the phone” excuse. The problem with this one is it sounds like the excuse a seasoned sales person gave me in my first job out of college when he told me that cold calling didn’t work as well as just cold calling door to door by walking into companies. It turns out that every generation of sales has been rooting for the death of cold calling using the phone.
Telephone prospecting is amazingly resilient and hard to kill. In a recent Sales Mastery class, we had the students make live dials in the last part of class after going through the Sandler No Pressure Prospecting call training. The students brought in their own list and made live dials. The Sales Mastery students successfully contacted a decision maker on 30% of their dials, effectively engaged with gatekeepers, left voicemails that are proven to get return calls, set follow-up calls, and even scheduled a qualified appointment!
No, telephone cold calling is not dead, most sales people just feel it is only appropriate for other sales reps not for them!
In the end, to steal a quote from Mark Twain “I believe that rumors of cold calling's death are greatly exaggerated.”
If you want to learn the secrets of the No Pressure Prospecting Call and double your pipeline then please contact me at jeff.borovitz@sandler.com or on my mobile at 408-314-7395.
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