Cold Calling - and Aluminum Foil?

Yesterday I was email chatting with Tony Parinello, author of the sales classic Selling to VITO: The Very Important Top Officer.

Since we haven't talked in quite a long time, I checked out his site to see what he's doing these days, and one of his speaking topics is called "Stop Cold Calling Forever."

In the description, he describes cold calling as, "it's like chewing aluminum foil."

I AGREE 100%!

Seriously, who really wants to cold call? It's a miserable experience. BUT - there are always going to be those few people who insist that they “enjoy” cold calling.

However, I've found a common thread with these people, and it's something I was guilty of during that short time in my sales career when I also tricked myself into believing that I liked cold calling:

They're cold calling to avoid doing REAL work - cold calling is BUSY WORK that DECEIVES you into thinking you did something productive that day!

They're cold calling to avoid doing REAL work - cold calling is BUSY WORK that DECEIVES you into thinking you did something productive that day!

About the only thing I ever got out of cold calling was phone numbers and dates with cute receptionists. As for sales, it produced nothing. And it got me in trouble, in the form of getting fired from job after job after job.

Cold Calling Is WORSE than Chewing Aluminum Foil!

Yep, that's my take: Cold calling is even worse than chewing aluminum foil, and here's why:

Cold calling is begging. Plain and simple.

And in the real world, begging doesn't work. Begging your kids to be well-behaved doesn't work. Nor does begging your dog to stop swiping food from the kitchen table - that all takes discipline. And so does closing sales.

Why?

Because in order to convince a prospect that YOU are the right choice, and to get them to BUY from you, you need to control the sales process, from the very beginning through to the close and beyond, to the follow-up process.

When you begin that sales process with a cold call, you completely obliterate your chances. You give away 100% of your power up-front, and you can never get it back.

When you get your prospects to approach YOU, the entire situation changes: YOU are the one in control! You have all of the power because the prospect came to you with a need, not the other way around. (When you cold call, what you're really doing is communicating to the prospect that you need a sale, and they get to hold all the power and say "yes" or "no" - not a good position to be in if you want to close more sales.)

So do yourself a favor: STOP begging to prospects by cold calling. Cold calling gives away all of your power up-front and just kills your chances of controlling the sales process to a favorable conclusion.