The Winner's Sales Strategy Blog

Sales Training and Cold Calling

A very common complaint I hear is that of sales trainers who come in to companies and speak at very high fees, only to spew forth the usual "cold call more" and "activity planning" rhetoric. Instead of teaching salespeople what they can do instead of cold calling, most professional sales trainers actually promote cold calling and hold it up as the solution to all of life's problems. There are three main reasons for this:

1. Most companies will only hire trainers who parrot their own beliefs, and since most managers still believe in cold calling, their goal is to bring sales trainers in who will motivate the reps to cold call.

2. Many sales trainers offer a conditional money-back guarantee. When the company calls to demand a refund because sales have not improved, the trainer can say, "I taught your reps to increase their activity. In order to get a refund you must show me call logs that demonstrate that they did indeed make 50 calls a day each." The trainer can then avoid issuing a refund by blaming the salespeople for not doing enough cold calling.

3. I'll be brutally honest on this one: many trainers who promote cold calling do so simply because if people keep failing by cold calling, they'll keep coming back for more advice, and the training revenues can continue.

We all know the time has come for people to stop cold calling and start doing what works instead. However, most sales trainers (with several notable exceptions) continue to preach the value of cold calling. Instead of teaching alternatives, they tell people there are better ways to cold call, how to get over call reluctance, even how to "hypnotize" people to like cold calling! As I explained in point #1, much of the blame for this lies with old-school managers who continue to insist on cold calling, thereby promoting the endless cycle of failure by cold calling.

Work smarter, not harder

Now that the weeks of endless rain have stopped, I spent all day today detailing my car, something I'm a fanatic about. A while back I went to the expense of buying the proper equipment and supplies to do a truly professional job. It makes things a whole lot easier compared to working by hand like I used to. It made me think of the difference between working smart, i.e. using leveraged systems to generate leads, and working hard, i.e. using cold calling to generate leads.

I used to spend two straight days working by hand to remove defects from my car's paint finish, then follow up with the other steps necessary to attain a brilliant finish. Now I use a machine polisher and get the same, if not better results, in less than half the time and with maybe a fourth of the physical effort.

Think of how this relates to sales. People say "cold calling works." Sure it works, but it's like detailing my car by hand which is exhausting, stressful, and leaves me with sore shoulders for a week. Now that I have professional tools for the job, I get an even better result with far less effort. This is a great analogy for those who say "cold calling works." It may work, but isn't it exhausting and stressful? Why burn yourself out cold calling when you can use the proper tools, i.e. marketing systems, to get the same, if not a better result, with only a fraction of the effort? Why continue cold calling when cold calling takes up so much time and energy when you can use readily available tools to eliminate cold calling, free up a lot of time to close deals, and all with a better result than cold calling?

I love analogies, and I think this is a great one!

How to sell? Stop cold calling!

I was reviewing my site's marketing data from 2004 and the #1 search term is "how to sell." With that in mind, and because so many new salespeople are looking for basics, I wanted to do a back-to-basics post for the new year:

- Cold calling is not selling and selling is not cold calling. They are two entirely different skillsets. Someone who is good at cold calling, i.e. an appointment setter, is typically horrible at closing. And of course, most good closers are terrible at cold calling.

- The #1 reason for lost sales is dealing with an unqualified prospect. Cold calling is a sure way to get lots of appointments with unqualified prospects. Most good prospects do not accept cold calls, and most people who respond to cold calls are not qualified.

- Cold calling is not only ineffective but is COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE. Cold calling annoys people. By cold calling, you are potentially angering and offending people who might have bought from you had you gotten your message across in a more respectful and intelligent manner.

- The Internet and Information Age in which we live has rendered cold calling obsolete. There are literally dozens of better ways to prospect and generate leads. Cold calling may work to some extent (maybe a 1% response rate) but it's by far the least efficient, most time-consuming, and most emotionally stressful way to generate leads.

Hopefully I got my point across. Stay tuned for more information on what you can do instead of cold calling!