The Winner's Sales Strategy Blog

Cold Calling Proponents Contradict Themselves

One thing I find to be downright hilarious are the constant emails coming in from people who insist that cold calling works so well, they make more money than anyone. These people use the contact form at www.nevercoldcall.com and of course decline to include their real names or email addresses. They write in that I'm trying to mislead people and that they're making $500,000 a year by cold calling.

To those people, here's what I have to say: IF COLD CALLING WORKS SO WELL THEN WHY ARE YOU ONLINE SEARCHING FOR ALTERNATIVES TO COLD CALLING?

If these people were actually successful they wouldn't be online looking for ways around cold calling. They'd be out cold calling and making all the money they claim to be making. In a way it's disappointing that none of these people can even make an intelligent argument for themselves. All they do is send in profane emails day after day screaming that I'm wrong and they're right.

Tony Parinello's new book

Anthony Parinello has released a new book entitled "Stop Cold Calling Forever: Confessions of a Serial Cold Caller." I was thrilled to see the title of his new book since it shows that the "mainstream" of sales training is FINALLY acknowledging the fact that cold calling is a waste of time!

While Tony's new book doesn't go into the specific self-marketing techniques that I teach in mine, it is an excellent resource on writing copy for your sales letters, flyers, mailers, emails, faxes, etc. I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for suggestions on exactly what to write in your sales material. If you'd like to get a copy, click here to order at amazon.com.

Financial services woes

The other day I ran into a friend who I haven't seen in months. He's a financial services representative and has always done very, very well simply because he does not cold call but does intelligent marketing instead. To date he's been very creative and has done an excellent job at avoiding the compliance issues so common with financial institutions. However, his company continues to make their compliance regulations so strict that he may soon have no choice but to resign and become an independent agent instead, simply because it's the only way he'll have the freedom to prospect in ways that actually WORK instead of cold calling like his company wants him to.

For those of you not in financial services sales, "compliance" is simply another term for old-school, stupid regulations that prevent salespeople from using intelligent marketing tools and force them to rely 100% on cold calling instead. It's just another example of decisions being made now in 2004 by executives who were last in the field in the 1970s.

I didn't make real money in sales - I'm talking five figures per month - until I quit my last job and set up an independent sales agency. I eliminated competition by representing EVERY provider in my industry, I gained some tax advantages by becoming self-employed, and I had a new level of freedom to do the things that actually made me money instead of making 50 cold calls every day just to appease some dictator sales manager. If you've been backed into a corner by stupid rules and regulations that prevent you from making money, you should seriously consider it too.

A new month

One of the biggest mistakes salespeople make - and management is mostly to blame for this - is working on a month-to-month basis.

You can see this in the way most sales offices are pretty laid back the first few days of the month. Nobody seems to work very hard and everyone takes it easy. The pressure to sell RIGHT NOW is off.

However, the last week of the month is always a frenzy. Everyone is running around trying to get orders signed and submitted and calling all those prospects who have proposals but who haven't bought yet. The last couple of days of any given month are usually hell for salespeople.

This doesn't have to be. When I started doing very well in sales, I worked on a day-to-day basis, not month-to-month. In other words, regardless of whether it was the beginning, middle, or end of the month, I did the same thing every day. Managers got somewhat annoyed at this because they expect everyone to make a big push at the end of the month, but this month-to-month philosophy that they promote is exactly why almost nobody works hard at the beginning of the month and everyone works double-time at the end to hopefully make quota.

When I get up in the morning, I don't think about what part of the month I'm in. Every day is TODAY. Do the same thing consistently every day and your sales will reflect this consistency. Then you won't have to worry about making a big month-end push because you'll be over your quota already.