Cold Calling is outdated and does not work for the time involved

I'm wondering if anyone else agrees. And if anyone if this will make it as a post.

I am a top sales expert and I know for a fact that the others who claim to be experts here do not cold call. They may claim they do to drive traffic to their sites but in reality they do not cold call because cold calling no longer works! The internet has changed all that. I hope the millienials will stop this outdated and abusive technique completely!

Originally Posted by TheSalesWhisperer I'm wondering if anyone else agrees. And if anyone if this will make it as a post. I am a top sales expert and I know for a fact that the others who claim to be experts here do not cold call. They may claim they do to drive traffic to their sites but in reality they do not cold call because cold calling no longer works! The internet has changed all that. I hope the millienials will stop this outdated and abusive technique completely!

Cold calling no longer works? What would you need to believe differently to see that cold calling is a viable source of new business?

AZBroker,

Let me now get into the fundamentals of why I made my original comment. One, I used to cold call and pound the phones with a minimum of a 120 calls a day. Of those 120, I probably only spoke with 5-7 people. Of those 5-7 people 4 would agree for an appointment. Of those 4, I would find out they were simply only willing to listen to me and most were not qualified. After a week of this I would have 2 qualified prospects and that is if I was really on. I would ask questions, build rapport, but the truth is that I was chasing them and the one's who would speak to me were not in a position to buy for the most part. So After one sale a week, I had really put in a ton of effort for this and a waste of time. Some weeks I would do better than others of course and might make three to five sales but then the next week no sales. I have no fear, so this was never a problem. Then I studied marketing techniques, started my own business, and said, why am I wasting my time cold calling. I began simply by passing out fliers, just like I was trained to do when I used to fundraise for a non-profit. All of a sudden people contacted me or faxed back a form. I could get 100 fliers out in two hours instead of 5-6 hours of calling. After a week my sales went to an average of 10-13 a week. Far more than from cold calling. Then I began combining this with sending out 25 emails a day which only took about 20 minutes to do. This created an aditional 3-4 sales a week. Now I was up to 15-17 sales a week. After a couple of months, I put into a referal plan. This boosted sales an aditional 3-4 a week. I began averaging 80 sales a month. At a 10 percent commission rate, I was the owner so I got full profit, but let's say I had a 10 percent commision rate I would have made over 16,000 a month.

This is why I say Cold Calling is outdated. Using the above technqiues I never had someone cuss me out, or hang up on me. Why would they when they contacted me. Sure some were just interested, but since they contacted me they had a higher level of trust and would open up much sooner.

Let's provide an example here. Let's take two people who are single. Both are similar in looks, same personality types, same occupation, same income and for the most part very similar.

Both want to date and find romance. One decides to frequent bars, or strike up conversations with random people on the street of the opposite sex or in a store. They talk to 50 people and might get one phone number, which turns out to be someone who never answers.

The other person decides to be smart and joins a singles organization and goes on a few outings. They meet several people who are truly interested in them.

Within no time they have dated several prospects and found someone they can truly enjoy.

The other person is still looking and getting an inordinate amount of rejection from people who do not want to be bothered.

I hope this analogy makes since because one is no different than cold calling. I became wealthy once I stopped this method of prospecting. Research has been done that clearly shows out of 15 prospecting methods, Cold Calling is the least effective. Now if you have nothing better to do, and are sitting at a desk staring at a comp screen by all means pick up the phone and cold call.. you have nothing to loose. But I can assure you if you implement other techniques you will no longer have time for cold calling as you will have more leads and prospects than you can handle.

Originally Posted by TheSalesWhisperer But I can assure you if you implement other techniques you will no longer have time for cold calling as you will have more leads and prospects than you can handle.

So I can better understand your position, what other techniques are you recommending to salespeople so they will have more leads and prospects than they can handle?

What I'm saying is that it is a waste of time to simply pick up the phone and call someone cold. With a little bit of research I can target who the key decision maker probably is. I can then get their email address and send them a letter of introduction letting them know that I wanted to say hi and that I had an article I believe they will find to be valuable. Attached would be an article that directly relates to their industry, potential wants and needs and only provides valuable information. No selling, no advertising, and no pitching.. just value. Obviously I would leave contact information and a way to request more info on certain subjects.

If they do not reply I would then send them a handwritten card--Invitation style, hand addressed to them personally.

After this I would send another value article.

At this point I would then call the decision maker simply to see if they receive my info. I have done this many times and boy the reception is much warmer than just picking up the phone and cold calling.

Why, because now I am seen as a person of value, its all about poistioning and leverage. I learned this concept when I was in Law School. It has taken me several years but finally after much trial and error I realize their is an easier way to make a ton of money in sales. Kudos for those who are out there finally writing on this subject and I hope sharing these techniques with others.

I do not have time to share my techniques much as I'm running three different business including a top power seller business on ebay. However, if I did have the time, I'd share all of these techniques for free. It's time to blow the lid off cold calling forever. In fact, I hear several states are considering laws against business cold calling. I hope it becomes completely illegal.

It's not about not having the skill or techniques, its about not being abused or interrupted anymore period!!

Originally Posted by TheSalesWhisperer What I'm saying is that it is a waste of time to simply pick up the phone and call someone cold.

Are you suggesting that "cold calling" is contacting untargeted prospects?

Originally Posted by TheSalesWhisperer In fact, I hear several states are considering laws against business cold calling. I hope it becomes completely illegal.

Illegal? When you refer to "cold calling" what are you referring to?

Originally Posted by AZBroker So I can better understand your position, what other techniques are you recommending to salespeople so they will have more leads and prospects than they can handle?

That's a great question that I was about to ask myself... I would not say I am a fan of cold calling, but I would also not say it is dead. The real trick to it is learning to use voicemail effectively. I used to cold call in my previous outside sales job and by getting to understand my clientele (HR Managers) I learned how to leave voicemails that would almost guarantee a callback.

I dont think it's dead you just have to do it a little diffrently. You can use tradeshow marketing, flyers, and other "lead generation" techniques but in some businesses it is just hard to do it that way. How many flyers could you pass out every day to people who can by $10,000 software packages?

Let me begin by the premise of how I would define targeted and how I would not define it.

Targeted means you have researched the prospect, you have discovered facts and knowledge about their industry, current supplier, etc.

You now, know who most likely is the main decision maker or has the most influence amongst a committee. You have their email address, phone number, and mailing address.

Now you have a targeted prospect.

For many companies, the definition of a targeted prospect means someone in an industry that is similar to their target market and all they have is a company name and phone number or at best just the name of the HR Director or CEO or Say CFO or COO.

Yet you do not have their email, you do not know their business at all.. and the company says they have provided you with a lead. This is not a lead, this is just a name and calling them is like dialing for dollars without a preapproach as I mentioned above.

Now, let's look at the top techniques for prospecting as verified by research. 1) Small Roundtables, Lunch and Learns, Small Events

2) Seminars

3) Speaking--It puts you in a position of Authority, Think Donald Trump, if he offered to speak to you for an hour without charging of course would you turn him down? No, because he is in a position of Authority.

4) Authorship

5) Referrals

These are the top 5
Number 15-- Cold Calling

Why do number 15 when there are 14 other ways is all I'm saying.

Sorry about all my grammar mistakes as its late, and I'm typing faster than I should.

Best of Luck to all in Sales!!

May you have a great day Selling Tomorrow and make some "Big Money" as they say on Wheel of Fortune.

For Sales Managers:

I want to quote the author William T Brooks because this is critical in my opinion. "You Can't Lead Where you won't go and You can't teach what you don't know." In otherwords, get out from behind the desk. Too many times, I've seen sales managers who love excel spreadsheets, silly CRM systems, love to throw around the word accountability (this means covering one's arse really) and talk about hitting quota or you've got to increase your activity.

The truth is, you need to realize that you've got to be a coach, you've got to have a gameplan, and you have to get out in the trenches with your people. Now, if someone is lazy, well that is their problem, but if you have someone who is not performing and the reason is because they never got proper prospecting or sales training then who is to blame. By the way, Sales Training is not Product Knowledge or Product Training or teaching a few silly scripts. In fact, no one appreciates being read to from a script.

Teach your people to focus on the prospect and customer not their own quota, survival or other things that detract them from finding out the true needs and wants of their prospects and customers.

One of the best sales management training programs I ever attended was by The Brooks Group and it was their Management Seminar or something like that. It opened my eyes because I used to think that just because I could sale then I knew how to manage.. Boy was I wrong.