Cold Calling Is For Idiots

A good friend of mine, a fellow business owner, made a very interesting post on Facebook and tagged me in it, to make sure I didn't miss it.

The post title? "Dinosaurs trying to sell flying saucers."

Here's the rundown:

First, he was cold called, without his permission, and his "email me instead" requests were repeatedly ignored.

Second, he finally agreed, via email, to do a live online "demo" with them, and only three minutes into it, the sales rep was spewing out old sales puke like "benefit statements" that make all of us prospects cringe in our seats.

My friend, sick of the useless "benefit statements," cut off the presentation and said, "Look, I'm not getting anything from this, so let's do both of ourselves a favor, and please email me a feature & price list."

Instead, the sales rep kept emailing him more slide presentations.

Finally, after asking about a gazillion more times, my friend FINALLY received a so-called proposal, that strictly contained pricing for their various packages. No breakdown of cost or comparison chart for their individual services.

Five weeks later, they've still done NOTHING to try to build a relationship with him, show him why their services would add profit to his bottom line - NOTHING.

Instead, it's just been endless crap sales techniques like "sell them on benefits first" and "you need to build warmth," ad nauseum.

Why Does This Still Happen?

One simple answer: UNQUALIFIED SALES MANAGERS!

And... unqualified sales trainers, or the kinds who keep people failing so they'll keep coming back for more training. Yes, they're out there.

The problem in this case isn't the salesperson. I can almost guarantee you it's the sales manager, or a crooked sales trainer, who is still teaching the garbage in sales books from the 1980s that are all about pestering people every day until they either say yes or no, spewing out "value statements" like a robot that mean nothing to qualified prospects, and other assorted old-school nonsense that simply doesn't work anymore in today's economy.

I hate to break the news, but in today's Internet age, prospects are just too smart and too well-informed to fall for any of that garbage.

Worst of all the garbage being taught to sales reps by unqualified managers is, you guessed it, COLD CALLING!

Here's the most twisted and sick thing about cold calling: Even if you ARE a great salesperson, and you KNOW how to sell effectively, the sad reality is that cold calling simply won't uncover the highly qualified prospects - those who are ready, willing, and able to buy right now.

When Baylor University's recent study concluded that it takes 7.5 hours of cold calling to set just ONE qualified appointment, they meant what they said: QUALIFIED. Not a time-waster. Not a "Seymour" as author Tony Parinello calls them - those who always want to "see more" but never buy! A qualified appointment is with someone who, like I said, has the means, and is ready and wanting to buy right now.

And cold calling, unfortunately, simply doesn't produce enough of those types of leads to be effective in today's tough economy.

The Solution

If your manager is still telling you to cold call, STOP!

That stuff just doesn't work anymore. Period. End of story. Your job is to STOP doing what doesn't work, and START doing what does!!!