Cold calling is a waste of time

Thomas

If cold calling is a waste of time then what are the alternatives?

benjamin-benjamin

that is a pretty vague question, can you be more specific...what industry are you refering to??

Thomas

I followed a link in the forum to a website where a bestselling author says that cold calling doesn't work and is a waste of time.

I don't think that author was talking about any specific industry.

I thought if cold calling is a waste of time then what are the alternatives?

benjamin-benjamin

It works with a very, very low success rate, your time and effort could be spent elsewhere. there are lots of alternatives
referrals
warm leads, etc...

Thomas

I have read that direct mail has a 1-2% return rate.

I thought I just read that only 1 out of 10 sales inquiries are qualified and serious buyers.

Referrals are good but can be hard to come by.

Unless there are better alternatives if a guy wants to go out and kick up new business cold calling looks like the best choice.

saltydog

Return rates and conversion rates don't tell the full story Thomas but 'return on investment' does.

Houston

If the return isn't there for you then cold calling is a waste of time but that goes for everything else too.

Is a 1-2% return rate for direct mail a waste of time? Many companies make good money pulling 1-2%.

NeverColdCall

The other issue with cold calling is that it simply takes up too much time. By limiting yourself to cold calling, which is inherently limited by the fact that there are only so many hours in the day, you are severely limiting your income, while replacing cold calling with a self-marketing system that generates leads while you are in front of prospects removes your income ceiling.

To put it another way, cold calling is linear while self-marketing is exponential. In other words, if you get 1 lead for every 50 cold calls, then: 50 cold calls = 1 lead, or 100 cold calls = 2 leads, or 200 cold calls = 4 leads, and so on. It's a linear process. With self-marketing, on the other hand, you can increase your results exponentially by adding various self-marketing strategies to your overall sales system.

Frank Rumbauskas

SalesCoach

Ad campaign ROI is a standard metric.

Limiting yourself to any one avenue is a marketing mistake.

__________________
Just Imagine... Daydream Believer.

NeverColdCall

That's exactly my point: Cold calling is only one avenue, and therefore is a marketing mistake. Self-marketing encompasses dozens of potential strategies, which is exactly why it increases sales exponentially, unlike cold calling (or any other single strategy) which is strictly linear and therefore inefficient.