Does Cold Calling TRULY Work?

rattus58

Yes it works...

Whether you have referrals or not, cold calling in MY OPINION is a necessary process to a rounded sales profitability.

Aloha...

pcplumber

I was a little slow picking up on the difference between cold calling and knocking on doors. I thought they were the same until I realized you were talking about telemarketing (I think).

I hang up the second I know a sales person is on the other end. Why do you beat yourself by calling someone cold rather than putting 42 cents on an envelope, introduce yourself, tell the potential customer you are going to call, and if he is interested he will answer the phone? I just started my door-to-door campaign and we are having our sales people knock on the door, drop of a brochure, and we tell the customer to think about our offer and we will be back the following day. We do not ask for an appointment. So far, yesterday was our first day. Within about three hours one of my plumbers went hit a few homes. He sold one job for $13,000 and another job for $6,000. I am having a hard time finding professional sales people. I would like to have 2 to 4 full time door-to-door sales people.

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MPrince

pc...A cold call can be either by phone or in person. It is often a random person or business you have decided to call on to try and sell your product or service.

rattus58

In my Limited experience with this, I would consider cold calling to be calling anyone who you are not referred to. This is from lists, cards of pre-introduction with an article about their industry or something else relevant, or walking in a door and saying hi...

Aloha...

Gold Calling

I have three things to say about this;

(1) You went on to day you have sales people door knocking, which is another form of "cold calling". Do you want them to be treated the same way as you treat people calling on you?

(2) What if you hung up on me and I had a way your business could make a fortune???

(3) Research shows that every piece of mail does not reach the decision maker - they may have been interested, if they knew what you had to offer (as in example #2 above) but never read the letter because of a screening personal assistant that decided to use "file 19" on the letter.

RECAP;

There is no perfect way to prospect. Campaigns like; Mail and call, and; walk in and leave literature then call-back plus others are not guaranteed to be more successful. what they do is allow sales people to avoid their fear of rejection, that is all.

Since nothing works perfectly, what we are left with is understanding what is most successful. The quick answer to that is mastery of ALL sales practices, including prospecting (mail and brochure drop offs, etc are Direct Marketing - NOT SELLING!).

If you want to penetrate an account, you best know how to prospect. And, if you really know how, you will get better results than if you don't - in general, with your sales achievements, and, specifically, while prospecting.

LASTLY;

Not ever industry lends itself to the Internet (they have to know they have the need before they 'search') or direct marketing (especially calling on big business at TOP EXEC level). That is why a well rounded sales professional spends at least 30% of their learnign on prospecting.

Basic skills can be refreshed at sales meeting once a month after they are ingrained. But prospecting will take longer to master.

In direct response the question posted by pcplumber to; "Why do you beat yourself by calling someone cold" which I assume is meant to say "Why do you beat yourself up by calling someone cold" ... because it works, because there isn't any other choice in many cases (even in small business) and, because when it is done rioght you would NOT HANG UP!

rattus58

I make my own calls. I'm telemarketing. I'm cold calling. I've used professional callers. I've telemarketed. They've coldcalled on my behalf. I've walked into a business and asked to see the owner to ask if I could set an appointment. I'm cold calling.

I mail out thank you cards thanking a business owner for taking the time to read an article we've enclosed on financial planning or insurance and that we've planned on calling him in the future, and thank him in advance for taking our call. That is an alternative to cold calling. This is a very small part of our activity and is directed to professionals strictly or large businesses with layers of gatekeepers.

All of these techniques are positive activity in MY PERSONAL OPINION. If you should hang up on me when I call, the only person you're hurting is yourself. I don't know if people who hang up on us are totally comfortable in their world and don't need any product or services of others ever again or not, or whether maybe they're flat broke and couldn't afford anything even if they wanted it. There must be a million reasons why people hang up on salesman as business owners, but in every case, they are haning up on opportunity. We consider hangups a call at a bad time and put them into a separate bin and call back when we have little else to do 3 or 6 months down the road.

Bottom line is for me and in MY OPINION, people who hang up on sales people without good cause, are wasting an opportunity. If you've picked up the phone in the first place, you might as well find out what it is all about.

Aloha...

pcplumber

I agree with what you and the previous post are saying.

I will have to admit that you are right about the loss being mine, only sometimes, because a few years ago a male solicitor called from Mercury property liability insurance and for some reasons his mannerism made me listen to him. I think he is the only telemarketer I listened to in the past 36 years and I save more than $15,000 every year on my property insurance because I own three apartment buildings and a few other properties. He cut all my insurance costs to about 40% of what I was paying.

About 99% of the telemarketing calls I recelve are from internet yellow page type companies, yellow page companies, vehicle insurance, uniform companies, janitorial services, boiler room stock brokerage firms, and scam artist type contractor supplies.

I am running a business with over 30 employees and I am on the phone from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. I get 5 to 15 soliciting calls every day of the week. About 3 to 5 times a day I am talking to a customer, I have one customer on hold, and a third line rings. I rush to drop the first customer and hear a solicitor's pitch. I lose many telephone calls and good sales due to telemarketing. Just taking a wild guess I would say I lose no less than $20,000 a year and maybe as much as $75,000.

Again, I hear what you are saying and I wish everyone the best who does telemarketing. But, if you call me and make me hang up on one of my customers don't expect me to be nice. Send me a letter first so I don't embarrass myself.

Gold Calling

The first thing you do when you get people on the phone is get their information - as early as you can. If they are checking you out, and you say "Can I have your company name and telephone number" you may be asking too soon and in the wrong way.

If on the other hand, they mention something about their needs, you can say "That is interesting, I am certain we can help you with that - by the way, I did not get the name of your company."

Once you have this info you can call people back.

Also, if you get 15 prospecting calls and 5 customer calls, that is 20 calls a day. This take about an hour ... now I know you have more going on but, you should be able to manage your phone work quite easily without loosing contact.

Lastly, something that is overlook ed by almost every businessman and woman; the prospector who is interrupting you, they work for your prospective client too!!!!!!!

Give them time. As they get into it, say "That is interesting. I may end up being your client. By the way - who makes decision in your company about hot water efficiency, only my company installs Solar thermal panels that can save your company thousands a year, I should call and intro myself AND; would you mind me mentioning your name?"

I guy like Harvey McKay, who has published several books, who owns an envelope printing and direct mailing company would not miss this trick. By ignoring the people who call you - thinking they bare interrupting you - you are loosing about $250,000 a year easily (because each day you get more people prospecting your company than new prospective clients calling on average).

Stop crying about a ,loss of $75g's and starting thinking about the quarter mil you are letting slip by daily.

pcplumber

I hear what you are saying. I should turn the call around and into a customer and a sale (I think). I think I answer the phone no less than 50 times per day and probably make no less than 30 to 40 outgoing calls. Almost every day, I have to take a break from the phone for about an hour. I have a person in the office to answer the phones, but answering every call myself is more efficient and effective.

I will try to be more polite in the future. You see! You can teach an old dog new tricks and that is why I came to this forum.

Thank you for your wisdom and advice.

Gold Calling

Now that you have a source of leads - hire a sales person ... a real pro .... to handle them. Watch your company grow.

One or two minutes longer on the phone with a cold caller will both (1) allow you to see if they have something that will help you, and; (2) produce a prospective client.

That simple.