People used to be more friendly in the past...and it was easy to say hello to stranger on the bus and to make an acquaintance. These days people are wary and suspicious...their reaction is that you want to get something out of them or are crazy.
Cold call suffers from this same problem. A lot of the success comes from being able to successfully introduce yourself so that you remove this "fear" that people have today.
One fairly successful technique I used when I was a young sale man in Singapore where most people lived in apartments was to break my cold calls into session.
1. spend the first evening at the lift lobby handling out leaflets and saying hi to people using the lifts. You would meet most of the residents coming home from work this way. Often I do get a number of appointments.
2. follow this up by knocking on doors. Most people do recognize me and I get a much better response and entry rate.
The challenge I faced was that as time went by, apartments especially the upmarket ones began to hire security guards who felt their jobs was to rid people like me.
By then I had build up enough customers to help generate a referral system ant hat didn't bother me too much.
