Cold calling - the right choice depending on the situation.

There seems to be a lot of buzz lately about cold calling being a waste of time or cold calling doesn't work. These are false statements in my experience but some people believe it.

However... cold calling isn't always the best choice depending on the situation. In my opinion if you want to secure business from a specific prospect cold calling is an excellent choice. If you're trying to generate new business in bulk cold calling isn't the best choice.

What do you think?

Houston, if you are asking "Should I do a personalized mailing campaign to generate some prospects" the answer is; if you can organize one and afford one, do it. As long as it paid for itself you have a larger customer base and some of your customers will order again and again (making you money because of the lifetime value of the customer).

The rest of your time you MUST stay active, it is a question of achieving - of effectiveness. If you have no one to see, make calls. if you are busy seeing people on a certain day you can't make calls. But while you are traveling to calls, you do recognize companies you want to call on, record them and call them when you have time.

If you do that mailer arrange to meet the service provider who is merging the letters and stuffing them AFTER you can make no more calls. Ask him/her to meet with you at 5:30 ...

If you are going to run your own computer to print mailers do it on Friday night and ask some local teenagers to stop by Saturday morning to stuff them for you or some variation on that theme.

As a mentor (if I was yours), I would treat this question you asked as really like you were asking the question;

"How can I be more effective?"

One of the distributors I've recruited and taught to use a very concise cold calling method is becoming successful at it. One of the reasons her success is that we've found a specific target market for the call so in that sense it's not totally random shooting in the dark.

Languaging the call was also very important AND trying out different ways of saying what she says.

Also, she gets either a red or green light within sixty seconds. What's she's selling - or marketing - is a business opportunity, not a product.

What I've taught this distributor is exactly what Gold Calling asked: How can I be more effective?

MitchM

Choosing a target audience, doing your research (pre-call planning), working on script concepts, these things are great. But in reality, once the prospect says "Yes?" after you have confirmed you are taking to the correct person, the script is just a loose platform to work from ... all conversations obviously go off in their own direction, no matter the level of expereince.

Selling an intangible like an opportunity is a fascinating subject. Clearly it works better if the caller has real confidence.

What is the benefit of sellign an opportunity as apposed to a product or a service (an opportunity is both - the opportunity itself is a product and the mentoring you offer is a service)?

A better life.

In business it is always down to money, more specifically profit. When you sell a business opportunity the prospect is usually attracted to more time freedom and more money. In other words, if I said;

The reason why I called, other than the obvious, which was to make your acquaintance, was to see if you qualified for a better life!

... from there, once you find out how old they are and if they have children, you can ask them; "If you could make as much money as you do today and only have to work 4 hours a day, so you could be there when your kids leave for school, and get home afterward, would that sound like a better life than you have now?"

Of course, after getting an affirmative, and this particular script works best for women, you could ask; "If you could work 5 hours a day and make 30% more than you do now, would that be even better?"

Then you can take them a step further if you get a resounding positive; "Would you be willing to spend 5 to 7 hours a week in your spare time to get to the point where you could let your current day job go completely and then be working from then on in from home?"

I teach MLMers to sell "A better life". The money is only one of the things that is critical to parents. Watching their kids grow up is another and even more powerful benefit.

If on the other hand you don't "push the buttons" on where they could be, starting with the question "would you work 5 to 7 extra hours a week to make more money" you might not turn a mom on at all. But this is not face-to-face sellign, it is selling over the phone, which is actually more difficult.

By the way, whether or not the audience it targeted, you still have to lay it on them right the first time.

Originally Posted by Houston However... cold calling isn't always the best choice depending on the situation. In my opinion if you want to secure business from a specific prospect cold calling is an excellent choice. If you're trying to generate new business in bulk cold calling isn't the best choice. What do you think?

I have no issue with cold calling but it isn't always the highest and best use of your time nor the right tool for the job.

AZ - if you had a day where you had not enough appointments, what would you do with your idle time?

In other words, can we be a little more specific, what is it you think is better than trying to drum up some more business by "walking in" or telephone prospecting.

We appreciate your response.

Originally Posted by Gold Calling AZ - if you had a day where you had not enough appointments, what would you do with your idle time? In other words, can we be a little more specific, what is it you think is better than trying to drum up some more business by "walking in" or telephone prospecting. We appreciate your response.

I prefer to spend time during work hours doing one of three things; prospecting, selling or furthering a sale. If I had idle time on my hands I'd first attend to furthering current sales. Next I'd attend to any leads that needed nurturing. With those activities behind me and a good list in front of me I'd cold call.

I believe that its not the cold calling that is the wrong choice it is how you cold call that makes the biggest difference. If you use traditional sales techniques when you cold call then not it would not be.

However if you are willing to change your way of thinking and not view it as gaining sales but rather building relationships then cold calling can be painless and rejection free. You can gain a wealth of trusting prospects.

Here is what I am saying:

Traditional cold calling:

Scripted methods

Cold to the prospect - ( pushing the sale instead of building trust)

Causes sales pressure- Causes the prospect to close up and put up their walls.

adds to stereo-types

New Method:

Initiates two-way conversation

Confronts issues the business or person maybe having

offers solutions

builds trust between you and the prospect

changes goals from making the sale-to-finding out if your product and the prospect fit.

Learning to communicate with new prospects and determining which ones you can help honestly and which ones you can't are important.

Once you have learned this way of thinking you will answer that question for yourself.

I hope this helped.
Smiles,
Lisa

Cold Calling should always be a strong part of a Lead Generation plan for your business, especially when you evaluate your existing Pipeline to see the number of vacancies available. If necessary, always reference the DNCL and you will still have plenty of people to call.

Success,

Rory Wilfong

Originally Posted by rwilfong Cold Calling should always be a strong part of a Lead Generation plan for your business.

There are plenty of businesses that are successful that don't cold call, so to make a broad-brushed statement like that doesn't take many different types of businesses and many different types of selling and marketing into account.