The Worldwide Sales Training Scam (And How To Avoid It)

In my Google Alerts I get a daily email with a list of news articles about cold calling, and time permitting, I usually browse the ones that look interesting.

Or in this case, dumb.

One in particular caught my attention last week, about how cold calling "still helps the bottom line."

Curious, I clicked on it, and was not at all surprised by what I found. Disgusted? Yes. Appalled? Yes. But not surprised.

Whose "Bottom Line" Does Cold Calling Really Help?

Several months ago I bought a book on recruiting and selecting the best possible sales reps for my company.

I damn near threw up when not very far into the book I began to understand the general theme: "Force your sales reps to cold call. We all know that it's obsolete and doesn't work anymore, but if sales reps starve and can't make enough money to make ends meet, that's their problem, not yours. As a business owner, you have to look out for yourself, so 'churn & burn' sales reps. If you send enough out to cold call, some of it will stick, and you'll hit your target numbers even if they don't succeed individually."

DISGUSTING!

In summary, the book admitted that cold calling doesn't work, but if you hire enough sales reps, under-pay them, and order them to cold call, even though they individually won't make their numbers and will suffer financially, you'll profit in the end.

And unfortunately, that was the theme of the article I read last week about how cold calling "helps" the bottom line.

It helps the COMPANY'S bottom line, while harming the sales reps who are forced to do it.

How Sales Trainers Profit By This

If that didn't make your stomach turn, it gets worse: Nearly all sales trainers who are hired by big corporations come in and teach sales reps to cold call.

Why?

Because that's what the companies want to hear! They're on the "screw the sales reps, it's all about us" bandwagon and they're only interested in hiring sales trainers who toe the company line.

But it gets worse: Not only do most sales trainers teach cold calling to get hired, even though they secretly know it doesn't work, many exploit this fact to get re-hired over and over again.

Here's how it works: They know cold calling doesn't work. And when the sales director who hired them calls to ask why their teachings made no difference, they respond with, "Your sales reps aren't making the minimum number of calls I told them to make."

And what does the sales director do? They have the sales trainer come out - AGAIN - to teach cold calling, and the absurd mantra of "make more calls" - AGAIN!

They know that if they teach people to keep failing by cold calling, they'll keep getting re-hired over and over and over again, just about forever since no sales team is going to succeed by cold calling.

Protect Yourself From The Great Sales Training Fraud

If/when your company brings in sales trainers who tell you to cold call, let it go in one ear and out the other!

Better yet, instead of letting that training time go to waste, covertly read modern sales books about Information Age lead-gen methods while sitting in the training room, or put a valuable audiobook on your iPod or smartphone and listen to that instead of the garbage you're being taught!

Learn how you can stop cold calling forever and become a sales rock star by downloading a free 37-page PDF preview of the Never Cold Call Again System.

New York Times best-selling author Frank Rumbauskas is the author of the Never Cold Call Again® System and has won numerous accolades, such as Readers Choice for Business Book of the Year from 800-CEO-READ, and has been named one of Fast Company’s top 30 most influential people. To learn more, and to download a free 37-page PDF preview of his Never Cold Call Again lead-generation system, visit NeverColdCall.com