The Winner's Sales Strategy Blog

The Dreaded Cold Calling Blitz

A comment in the previous post along with my reply to it got me thinking about the idiocy of that most dreaded of all sales activities, the cold calling blitz.

It's well known that one can set appointments from cold calling but those appointments mysteriously fail to generate sales. I can remember spending 80% of my time cold calling while cold calling only generated 5% of my total sales. Why is this so? The thing to remember is that few executives will accept an appointment if you approach them via cold calling (see a few posts down for real-life statistics on this). Who does this leave? Time-wasters who like to play power trips on salespeople as well as people who have no authority to sign (office managers, IT guys, etc) and simply hand your proposal to the real boss, only to be never heard from again.

The problem with a cold calling blitz is that it forces sales reps to set the greatest number of appointments in the shortest time possible. What happens? Salespeople madly dial the phone, quickly setting apppointments without ANY qualifying at all. (If you're good, you're trying to qualify prospects OUT, not merely qualify them.) The end result is a bunch of worthless appointments with people who either have no real need or no authority to buy. On top of wasting a half or full day "blitzing," you then waste lots of productive selling time with people who will never buy. If that isn't a waste of time and a serious detriment to sales production, I don't know what is!

Sales managers: If you want to increase production and raise your team's attitude in the process, drop the cold calling blitzes immediately!

The telecom industry is a great example if you ask me. Telecom companies are notorious for requiring very high cold call activity and for mandatory cold call blitzes. They're also notorious for going bankrupt. Mere coincidence? I think not....

Cold calling ... reinvented?

I've noticed a disturbing trend since my work has gained popularity and my articles have been widely published. It's the wave of trainers and authors who claim to have "reinvented" cold calling, or to have found a "new way" to cold call "that really works."

How on earth can there be a new way of cold calling that supposedly works this time around? I found my answer when I was going through emails from readers of my newsletter. Someone recently went through one of these "new way to cold call" programs. It was the old, time-worn crap from the 1980s such as "Call your prospect's office and ask for a fictitious name. When they say no such person works there, act confused and ask who it is that handles the product or service you are selling. Then you can thank the receptionist and ask to be put through to that person."

Are you kidding me? This isn't a new way of cold calling, it's an ancient method, and it's dishonest to boot!

The bottom line is this: If you have so few appointments that you have time to pick up the phone and call strangers in the first place, you're doing something seriously wrong. It's time to forget about cold calling and start implementing lead-generation strategies that work.

Almost all executives say 'no cold calling'

I've stated time and time again that cold calling does not work. Time and time again, I receive emails from people insisting that cold calling works, and not a single one of them has been able to document this. Well here is documentation that cold calling does not work.

I'll say that again - HERE IS DOCUMENTATION THAT COLD CALLING DOES NOT WORK!

This article discusses a study by the Kenan-Flagler Business School of the University of North Carolina which shows that approximately 80% of executives state that cold calling is not an effective way to reach them, and that they do not make purchases via cold calling. Click here to read the full article.