It is extremely interesting to read the latest buzz around the area of Cold Calling and Telemarketing dying a death due to Social Media and other modern prospecting methods. I’m going to be upfront, here and give my opinion. Cold Calling will never disappear and that is a good thing.
Let me get this straight. I’m not talking about mass market business to consumer calling, which is prehistoric and will die out. I am talking about professional, business to business calling. Or as I prefer to call it:
“Identifying people who potentially might have challenges you could solve, or goals you can help them achieve, and seeing if you can help them. If you both decide it warrants you meeting or further action then you can agree to do so”
One of the single biggest areas that delegates on my sales training workshops want to cover when we look at cold calling and appointment setting is CONFIDENCE.
When we all set goals at the beginning of the day almost everyone wants to walk out of the door with:
“more confidence in my ability to make cold calls and to sell”
Some of the next questions I ask are to find out what actions the delegates to develop their own confidence and also what their current thoughts of their offering are.
Do you truly believe in the value of your product or service?
How well do you know businesses of your target clients?
Ah, the long running debate that splits the opinions of the Sales world. Mostly because people are vying for position or want to be seen to take a stance. My belief is that cold calling will never die. It is by far one of the best ways to introduce yourself to another business person. My two caveats are:
Business To Business. Cold Calling people at home is pre-historic.
With business to business you must be able to demonstrate value.
There is much debate around social media, google search and networking being the death of cold calling. I don’t believe so. I believe these are fantastic ways of getting leads through the door but they do not in themselves provide the ‘magic bullet’ that means you can sit back and wait for the phone to ring.
Invest in these prospecting methods. Learn about them and use them to the max, but don’t stop all the things that have proved successful for you in the past. Like cold calling or as I like to call it: Read the rest of this entry »
Sitting In my email in box this morning was the following:
Being in the car business for years, I understand the importance of your Services. There is no beating around the bush: Times are tough and dealers are cutting back. I strictly deal with the automotive industry, and feel the pain as well.Your company provides quality Services that dealers know they need to operate. They are looking to be more efficient, Help them.We have a detailed data base of just over 72,000 dealerships Principals / Management Including: Name Job Title Dealership Information Address Email Address Phone NumberOnce you obtain the data it is yours for UNLIMITED USE. My feeling is that this will be one of those milestone campaigns that not only rocks on its own, but more importantly is so cool that it becomes viral, and friends will forward to friends who will forward to friends.This will be massive for your bottom line. I’m excited and would love to talk with you.Please coordinate, and set aside some time for us to chat.Feel comfortable emailing me to schedule a call time for us. Looking forward and talk soon … Robert
This is a great little sketch that I found on the BBC web site.
Cold Callers can be annoying, especially when they call you at the wrong time, say the wrong things and read from a script with no room for manouvering.
We teach businesses that there are other options to using outdated cold calling techniques. This can be achieved by using 21st Century Prospecting and 21st Century Lead Generation and using a professional non scripted calling approach.
