The Winner's Sales Strategy Blog: Cold Calling

September 28, 2017

Cold Calling: Does It Still Work?

"Goes to show that cold calling does work!"

I saw Wall Street, one of my two all-time favorite movies, this past weekend again for the first time in a long time! (If you're wondering, the other is No Country For Old Men.)

Naturally, considering what I do for a living, I had to laugh when Bud Fox gets promoted to his new corner office and the sales manager says over the loudspeaker, "Goes to show that cold calling does work."

Of course the irony of the scene is that Bud wasn't cold calling at all. (What he was doing is illegal, but that's another story altogether! Then again cold calling is illegal without a license in many places, including here in Dallas, Texas!) And just before that announcement, one of the cold calling reps was fired. Go figure.

This nonsense goes on in just about all sales offices. Ask any sales manager what their top performers are doing and they'll tell you they're cold calling.

Of course they're not. If they were, they wouldn't be top performers - they'd probably be on probation, or out of a job completely!

It happened to me all the time when I was new to sales and trying to find my way. It goes without saying that all sales managers - except for one - told me to cold call, but it was even more frustrating when I'd approach top sales reps who told me the same thing.

It drove me nuts because I'd watch them and observe them and clearly see that they were not cold calling.

Finally I started at a new job where the sales manager had a brain, and when he saw me start cold calling, because I didn't know what else to do, he pulled me aside and said, "Frank, I didn't spend thousands to hire and train you to have you doing the job of a minimum-wage telemarketer."

That's when he let me in on the dirty little secret:

Cold calling is a sham and a waste of time!

He teamed me up with the top sales rep in that office. We went to our first appointment together where I could watch him work his magic.

On the way over, he explained, "Calling people at random is a complete waste of time. There is a certain percentage of the market who is pre-disposed to buy

from you. Your job is to get those people to know about you so they call you and you become their order taker."

That's when the light bulb went off for me.

He told me that 20% of the market absolutely will never buy from me, 20% will buy if they know about me, and the other 60% are up in the air and need to be "sold."

The failure of most salespeople comes about because they waste their time calling on the 20% who will say 'no' and the 60% who will say 'maybe' instead of spending all of their time in front of that 20% who will definitely say 'yes' and BUY.

By the way, that 60% 'maybe' crowd is the worst of all because most of them will string you along and waste your time without buying! At least the 'no' people

will say no and not waste your time. (I bring this up because most sales managers will instruct salespeople to go after that 60%, which makes no sense to me.

Under my sales philosophy, you work with them only after they move into the 20% 'yes' crowd.)

In any case, that day was a HUGE eye-opener for me.

From that point forward I only spent my time with top sales pros. I asked lots of questions, observed, took them to lunch, whatever I needed to do to gain their knowledge.

Over time I learned all of their lead-generation tactics, worked them into a system, and began using that system to the point where I had more leads than I could handle, and since most of those leads were in the 20%, pre-disposed 'yes' crowd, my closing rate was an astonishing 80%, compared with the 20% average in my company!

Eventually others wanted to learn from me, and that's how my system came about. It's the complete storehouse of all that knowledge and 'inside information' that I used to become a top success in sales, and that thousands of others have used to do the same.

If you're not up to speed on modern, Information Age lead-generation methods, learn how you can stop cold calling forever and become a sales rock star by downloading a 37-page PDF preview of the Never Cold Call Again System here.

New York Times best-selling author Frank Rumbauskas is the creator 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 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

Posted at 02:08 PM in Cold Calling | Permalink

September 20, 2017

It's Me, The "Cold Calling Monster"!

"I was the Cold Calling Monster!"

Yes, it's true - even though you know me as the "Never Cold Call Again" guy, I used to go by the nickname "cold calling monster"!

That's because when I went into sales, I had a fierce determination to succeed. So I took the advice I was given - to cold call - and I took it to an extreme.

I made no less than 100 cold calls, each and every day. Sometimes it was on the phone, sometimes in person (canvassing), and sometimes a combination of both. But I never fell short of my 100 calls.

And I got leads - tons of leads! Yes, despite what you've heard from me about cold calling falling to get leads, I have to admit I was swamped with them. I was setting appointment after appointment, to the point where it was difficult to find enough time in the day for my 100 calls, but I always figured it out.

My confidence in this plan was bolstered by stories from managers and 'old timers' about sales reps who were making almost unheard-of sales numbers, by blocking out time every day to lock their office doors and make a hundred calls.

I knew my success was in sight!

And so I went on with my 100 calls a day, believing that it would not only work but the longer it took to pay off, the more I'd succeed in the end. My schedule was hectic, and I still remember one particular day when I had seven appointments and still did my 100 cold calls, mostly by canvassing the buildings where I had the appointments and then making up the rest on the phone. When I arrived home after 7 PM that evening I felt exhilarated.

It was a really great feeling to go home after such a busy day, with a feeling of accomplishment that I'd really done something. Slow boring days always gave me a lot of anxiety about not getting anything done, so a crazy day full of a hundred calls plus a bunch of appointments really made me feel good.

This went on for a long time and my high activity levels kept me really pumped up all the time.

But there was a problem…

The huge sales numbers never came!

That's right - I was barely closing enough sales to scrape by, let alone make the big killing that I had been promising myself and that all the old timers said those 100 calls a day would bring me.

And so that brings up the next question…

Do more leads = more sales?

Of course more leads equal more sales. That's only common sense. You can't get a sale without first having a lead - leads are the starting point of all sales success. No lead means no prospect, which means no one to sell to and no one to close.

However, there's a catch. (Isn't there always a catch?) The problem is that all leads aren't the same.

There are good leads and bad leads. And that brings us to one of life's basic truths:

Quality always trumps quantity!

We all know this! Yet in sales, the drive is always on to get more and more and more leads, with no regard to the quality of those leads.

It's natural to want to rush out to meet with anyone who will give us an appointment. After all, the basic mindset taught in all sales training is that sales is a numbers game. If you close 20% of your prospects, then doubling your number of appointments should double your number of sales.

But it doesn't really work out that way.

I failed miserably when I started in sales, not because I was a bad salesperson, but because I was spending my days as the "cold calling monster" trying to rack up as many leads and as many appointments as possible, without regard to the quality of those leads.

The Three Categories of Leads

Later on, when a top sales pro took me under his wing to mentor me, I finally learned that there are three categories of leads. Most salespeople are spending time with the two wrong ones - people who either will never buy from them, or people who are undecided and never make a decision. (Those are the ones who string you along endlessly with 'check back in 6 months' or 'we need to think about it first.')

That third category consists of people who will most likely buy from you, if they only knew about you and had the chance to meet with you.

When I learned about that, I soon had fewer leads and fewer appointments, but far more sales.

Best of all, I had a lot more free time. I was selling more by doing less work - by focusing only on people who were pre-disposed to buy from me, I was closing 4 out of 5, instead of my previous record of 1 in 5 when the leads came from cold calling.

After I had mastered this concept and developed a system of lead-generation strategies that brought me an endless supply of hot leads - people who were ready to buy right now - I began teaching that system to others, and you know what they told me?

The same thing happened to them: They began selling a lot more while doing far less work.

And since most salespeople spend nearly 100% of their free time prospecting, you can see what a huge improvement happens to your schedule when cold calling is eliminated.

(Oh yeah, and your stress level goes down.)

Imagine never having to make cold calls, and meanwhile, your sales come in each month, since leads are filling your inbox on autopilot.

It's a great feeling - I know, because I achieved it.

And you can too. If I can do it, and remember that I started out as a total failrue at sales, then you can do it too.

- Frank J. Rumbauskas

Posted at 12:27 PM in Cold Calling | Permalink

July 26, 2017

Are You An Annoying Pest? Or A Welcome Guest?

That question was first coined by Dan Kennedy, way back in 1974.

Yes, even in the pre-Internet, pre-Social Media days, when cold calling was still in vogue, wayyyyy back then, someone STILL had the common sense to explain why cold calling was ineffective versus the direct-response marketing methods of the day!

Having given you the history - and proper credit - on where that phrase came from, you have to ask yourself, which one are you?

The Annoying Pest

I deal with the annoying pest as a business owner, although the problem is getting less and less common, partly because both myself and technology have improved at blocking out annoying pests, and partly because of the generational shift in selling - in other words, the newer, younger generation of sales managers who are taking over who understand that cold calling is a relic of the 1950s and won't have their sales teams doing it.

By the way, who is the annoying pest?

I'll answer that question with a question: Do you cold call?

If you said "yes" then YOU, my friend, are the annoying pest!

And the annoying pest is no longer welcome in the modern world of commerce.

In fact, the annoying pest hasn't been welcome in a VERY long time, but far too many people simply don't get it.

The Welcome Guest

The welcome guest is what some call the "new" breed of salesperson but there's really nothing "new" about it. I was the welcome guest back in the 1990s after I'd learned, and had it taught to me by a brilliant sales manager, that cold calling is for lazy morons who don't have the brainpower to prospect intelligently.

Yes, you heard me: Cold calling is LAZY. It's for people who don't want to THINKand learn something new and different. As Henry Ford once said, thinking is the hardest thing there is. That's why almost no one does it.

The welcome guest, on the other hand, is just that - welcome. The welcome guest is someone who can solve a problem. Someone who can add value. Someone who can benefit all involved.

The welcome guest doesn't irritate people with the rude, intrusive behavior of cold calling.

And most importantly of all, the welcome guest is SUCCESSFUL and PROSPEROUS.

The annoying pest is a FAILURE, and usually a frustrated one at that, thanks to the lousy personality that develops over time due to the never-ending confrontation and negativity of cold calling.

The irony in all this is that, for a few years, I was an ANNOYING PEST!

I cold called because I didn't know any better. I was new and young and dumb and I simply did what I was told to do. After all, wasn't I supposed to follow orders from my manager?

Nope. Not when the manager himself had spent life as an annoying pest.

Finally I got a clue - from a new sales manager who practically hit the ceiling when he saw me cold calling the first day on my new job and pulled me aside to tell me I was too good to do the job of an unskilled telemarketer.

This was a shock to my system, but there began a process of many years of learning and trial-and-error method that taught me how to generate endless hot leads, without ever making another cold call, ever again.

Suddenly I was working fewer hours, going on fewer appointments, yet I was making a lot more sales.

Best of all, I had a lot more free time. I was selling more by doing less work - by focusing only on people who were pre-disposed to buy from me, I was closing 4 out of 5 sales, instead of my previous record of 1 in 5 when the leads came from cold calling.

After I had mastered this concept and developed a system of lead-generation strategies that brought me an endless supply of hot leads - people who were ready to buy right now - I began teaching that system to others, and you know what they told me?

The same thing happened to them: They began selling a lot more while doing far less work.

Making the transition from annoying pest to welcome guest is a great feeling - I know, because I achieved it. (Oh yeah, and your stress level goes down.)

And now it's your turn.

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

Posted at 07:31 PM in Cold Call, Cold Calling, Cold Calling Scripts | Permalink

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!!!

Posted at 07:25 PM in Cold Calling | Permalink

July 09, 2017

Why I Won't Return Your Sales Calls

Cold Calling On The Phone Is A Waste Of Your Valuable Time

A few times a week my support staff will tell me funny stories about some of the crazy people who call or write in, and the ridiculous things they say.

Today it was about someone who has repeatedly written into our helpdesk, first demanding to speak to a salesperson, then insisting that we need to have salespeople if we expect to sell our products.

This person obviously has no concept of the economies of a small business and why it's absurd to even consider hiring a sales staff when our product only costs $97, but that's another story altogether.

Yet Another Sales Rep Who Didn't Know How A Business Works

Getting back on topic... there's a reason why having salespeople for my product is a really bad idea. It's the same reason why we no longer take orders over the phone and are now internet-only.

It comes down to the simple fact that we don't want customers who fall into any of these categories:

- People who never take any action

- People who need constant hand-holding

- People who can't make a decision on their own

- People who want 'get rich quick' without work

- People who don't appreciate value

Is this policy costing me sales? I don't know, and frankly, I don't care.

The bottom line is that there are certain people I do NOT want as customers - like those extremely needy people who will whine, try to abuse my time (and my support staff's), have no sense of humor, and are looking to get something for nothing at my expense.

If this policy is costing me sales, fine.

But - I'm not sure it's "costing" me anything.

For one thing, when we did have a call center, the people who called in to ask endless questions, instead of buying online, were so weak-minded when it came to their inability to make decisions that they wasted SO MUCH of my staff's time on the phone that there was little profit left for me.

I mean seriously, what questions would anyone really have when there's a 30-day trial in place and all they have to do is send it back and never pay for it if they don't like it?

What's really bizarre is that, even though our return rate is VERY low, a huge number of these people sent the system back - UNOPENED in the original shrink wrap! Meaning they took NO action at all and GAVE UP before even opening the box!!!!

So, no more phone sales. If they won't buy online, they can't have my product, and that's it. The numbers don't lie.

Am I being too harsh?

No, I don't think so.

Successful people LIKE to be told how it is. I know I do. We LIKE to have the facts, even when they're not pleasant, shown to us with no b.s.

Suckers and scammers, on the other hand, love to be told they'll be swimming in sales & commissions overnight just by ordering a product or buying a book.

That may offend some, but the bottom line is that these are the kinds of people I DON'T want subscribing to my newsletter or buying my products.

Take it or leave it, that's the way it is.

Some people are in the "attraction" marketing business.

I'm in the "reality" marketing business.

And you know what?

It's worked out very well so far!

Thanks for reading, and here's to your continued success!

-Frank J. Rumbauskas

New York Times best-selling author Frank Rumbauskas, "The Sales Badass," 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 "sneak peek" into his Never Cold Call Again lead-generation system, visit NeverColdCall.com

Posted at 08:27 PM in Cold Calling | Permalink

The True Story of Two Sales Professionals I Know

"That's impossible. It can't be done."

That's what my friend Bill said to me one day. Bill and I worked together at my first sales job many years ago. We both left the company and moved on to greener pastures after some time, and we lost touch until I ran into him one day.

Bill and I were still very much alike - with one exception: Bill was still working hard, struggling to make his numbers, while I was enjoying success as a top-performing salesperson - and enjoying the income that came with it!

What Made The Difference?

After going through initial sales training, both Bill and I went out into the field and spent hours upon hours cold calling, just as we were told. However, after a few months of doing that and getting no results from it, I realized there must be a better way.

Bill kept on making those cold calls, dialing for dollars and pounding the pavement, eternally in search of the light at the end of the tunnel.

It never came.

I, on the other hand, had reached that state of mind known as "inspirational dissatisfaction" after many failures. I was fired from my first sales job. And my second. And third. At that point I decided it was time to "just say no" to cold calling and look for a better solution.

And I found it.

At job number four, I felt a surge of hope when my new sales manager saw me cold calling, pulled me aside, and explained, "We didn't spend thousands of dollars to hire you and send you to training to have you doing the job of an unskilled minimum-wage telemarketer. There are better ways to generate leads, and that's what I want you doing."

My boss teamed me up with the top-producing rep in the office, Joe, who took me under his wing. On the way to our first appointment together, he told me in the car, "Calling people at random is a waste of time. A certain percentage of the market is pre-disposed to buy from you; all you need to do is position yourself to identify those people and get in front of them, or better yet, get them to contact YOU."

That day at my new job changed my life…

(I found this gem the other day while looking for something in my safe - this is the very same job that changed my career and my destiny by teaching me to never cold call again!)

Bill's Story

You're probably still wondering what made Bill say, "That's impossible. It can't be done." It was when I ran into him and told him I'm on top of my game, blowing out my numbers and taking home a huge commission check each and every month, all while working short hours. But it was when I told him I hadn't made a cold call in YEARS that blew his mind.

See, Bill went on cold calling. He became totally brainwashed that making 100 calls a day would lead to success. He believed the sales manager's lies that every call is worth X number of dollars in your pocket. (And that IS a big lie, because if it weren't, they'd pay you per call instead of per sale!)

The saddest part of all this is that, to this day, Bill still believes in cold calling and really thinks it's "impossible" to make a six-figure income without it. He accused me of being buddies with the boss and getting free leads, which was nothing further from the truth.

Bill needs to hear Napoleon Hill's story of how he cut the word "impossible" out of a new dictionary every time he bought one!

A System Is Born

Although I was enjoying massive success by that time, I will admit to you that it wasn't all easy. Nobody gave me a formula or plan on that fateful day. They just put the seed of knowledge in my mind and left me to discover the path in my own way.

First of all, I threw out all those mindless sales books and tapes with their ridiculous mantra of "it's a numbers game, make more calls, pester people until they buy," and so on. I know you've heard the same, and that it didn't work for you.

Then I spent months and years in a long, trial-and-error process of testing dozens of new ways to get leads, eliminating the ones that didn't work, and expanding the ones that did, all the while adding new strategies as they became available (like internet marketing and social media).

I also sought out top sales professionals in my community and spent as much time with them learning as much as possible. And most of that information really surprised me - it was nothing of what I expected!

I took all of that knowledge and created a system. I learned how to generate an endless supply of hot, qualified leads without cold calling.

Before I knew it I was taking home over five figures per month in commissions, and I never made another cold call again. (This also had a lot to do with convincing my employer to let me resign and sign on as an independent agent with no salary and a much higher commission rate.)

More importantly, I was finally happy. I no longer lived in fear of losing my job, and I never had to worry about paying my bills again. Life was suddenly stress-free and easy.

Knowledge Is Power

The great thing about my strategies is that they don't require any skill to implement. You don't have to be a born salesperson - in fact, I was a terrible salesperson starting out!

As my friends at work would taunt me, "You can't close the lid on a jar."

But...

You'll find that sales just happen - people simply buy - when you're in front of a prospect who has a current need and is ready and willing to buy from you.

In fact, once I had perfected my systems, my colleagues were amazed that I'd go to a first appointment and usually return with a check and contract in hand! They were baffled since they were still going on with corporate's "three appointment rule" - what they failed to realize is that an ideal, qualified prospect with a current need doesn't want to sit through three appointments.

They want to BUY RIGHT NOW.

An Added Bonus

Myself and many others who use my lead-generation strategies all received an added bonus - more time. Yes, some used that time to gain more customers and earn more income but countless others have created more time to live their lives, spend time with friends and families -- enjoy hobbies, sports and other activities to balance their lives. They have more control. Does that make your ears perk up? Just a little?

I've received heart-warming letters from a dad who increased his income while cutting his working hours from 12 to 6 each day - now he gets to spend time with his kids again.

I've heard from a single mom who was so grateful to have much more freedom and be with her children more once cold calling was eliminated from her life.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, likes making cold calls. Make 50 cold calls and how many “no’s” do you get? About 50, right?

So you know it doesn’t work. So why on earth would you keep doing it? Probably because you don’t know what else to do.

And that's not your fault!

It's the fault of dinosaur sales directors who haven't been in the field for 20 years, and the fault of the scam sales training industry, where sales trainers keep people failing by cold calling, and therefore coming back for more and more and more training that doesn't work.

Your responsibility is education. As Napoleon Hill said, you get 8 hours to sleep, 8 hours to work, and 8 hours of spare time. It's what you do with that spare time that decides your fate. Do you waste it watching television and sports or going out drinking?

Do you listen to music or mindless talk radio in your car instead of spending that time listening to valuable audiobooks like I do?

Don't waste your spare time. Remember, knowledge is power. Study modern prospecting methodology and read sales and success books in your spare time, along with motivational recordings like Earl Nightingale's The Strangest Secret.

Remember, knowledge is power, and that knowledge will set you free.

-Frank J. Rumbauskas

PS: The names have been changed in this article to protect the identities of "Bill" and "Joe."

Posted at 08:16 PM in Cold Calling | Permalink

Cold Calling Is For Morons

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.

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

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.

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!

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!!!

New York Times best-selling author Frank Rumbauskas is the creator of the Never Cold Call Again® System and the LinkedIn® Selling System 2.0 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 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

Posted at 08:09 PM in Cold Calling | Permalink

April 17, 2017

Cold Calling and Gambling: The Same Thing

"Are Cold Callers Actually Compulsive Gamblers?"

I was doing a bit of thinking about the bad old days when I was still brainwashed to believe that cold calling would eventually work.

I'd go out all day long, or if the weather was bad I'd sit at the phone all day long, making cold call after cold call after cold call.

Regardless of whether or not I got any appointments, or whether those appointments were even qualified leads in the first place, I always had a strong feeling of accomplishment, and was convinced that I was getting closer and closer to that "tipping point" where I'd laid so much groundwork that the big killing would come in soon.

At the time, I was living in Las Vegas, and an old friend from high school came to visit. And boy did he love to gamble!

I personally don't like to gamble myself - if I lose even $10 in a slot machine, I'll be annoyed for a week that I threw it away with nothing to show for it. I'd rather spend the $10 on a good sandwich and at least know I got my money's worth!

In any case, even though I don't gamble, I tagged along with him to the casino.

And what I saw astonished me.

He'd sit down at the machine and pull a huge stack of $100 bills out of his pocket. I sat there in disbelief as he fed $100 after $100 bill into the machine, waiting for it to "hit."

He explained that if you play the slots, you have to keep "feeding" the machine until you tip the odds in your favor, and eventually it will hit.

And yes, it did hit sometimes. The first night I watched him win $3,000 after putting about $800 into the machine. And that got him hooked on returning to the same machine, every single day he was in town.

But gambling being what it is, you can't count on that happening every time. There's a reason for the old saying, "The casino always has the advantage." For the rest of his 5-day visit I watched this same spectacle unfold before my eyes. Feeding the machine with loads of cash, waiting for it to "hit."

Sometimes it hit, sometimes it didn't. Like I said, it's not a reliable way to make money, and at the end of the week he went home poorer than when he'd arrived.

Why Cold Calling = Gambling

When I was a cold caller myself, I bought into the same myth that it was a "numbers game" and that if I simply cold called enough people, I'd eventually "hit it."

And I did sometimes.

And so do other salespeople. That's why they're like compulsive gamblers: When they get a "hit," they get fired up to go back to massive amounts of cold calling, looking for that next big "hit."

Each “hit” causes your brain to release some dopamine - the “feel good” hormone - and it’s dopamine that causes every kind of addiction, from drugs to alcohol to cold calling.

But like my friend who learned a hard lesson in Las Vegas, I didn't "hit" often enough to make my numbers, to keep the bills paid reliably, and to live as comfortably as I'd wanted to live. (And guess what - most salespeople tell me the same thing. That's why they signed up for my newsletter or bought my course in the first place.)

As to freedom, there was none, not when you're shackled to making hundreds of cold calls each week just to survive. Even if you happen to have a good month now and then, it's with that nagging feeling that you have to go back and do it all over again next month just to survive, not to mention the craving for that next dopamine hit to soothe your withdrawals.

So if you're still cold calling, it's time to stop. Realize that each time you get a rush from making a sale by cold calling, you're experiencing the same chemical reaction in your brain that gamblers experience when they happen to win - a dopamine rush.

But we all know what happens to gamblers in the end: At the end of the day, they lose. Big time. Don't be like that. Find new and better ways of sales prospecting - methods that actually work in today's Information Age economy without annoying and infuriating people - and you'll start to experience real sales success!

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.

Posted at 07:30 PM in Cold Calling | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why Cold Calling REALLY Bothers Me

On Monday I had a great conversation with another sales author & trainer about the stupidity of cold calling and why more modern, Information Age alternatives are somuch better and more effective today.

More specifically, we talked about how much cold calling works against you, instead of working for you. Many salespeople believe the "numbers game" myth taught to them by the ignorant and outdated dinosaurs of selling. Yes, cold calling sure is a "numbers game," but not in the way you think.

Why High Cold Calling Activity Hurts You

Salespeople are typically trained to believe that the more cold calls you make, the more appointments you'll get, and therefore the more sales you'll get.

What they fail to see, however, is the damage cold calling does to any potential sales relationships you might have otherwise had with all the people who said "no" to you - which in a cold calling situation averages anywhere from 95% - 100%.

Salespeople tend to believe that 100 cold calls are better than 50, that 200 are better than 100, and so on.

But on the phone the other day, my friend made an excellent point:

If you make 100 cold calls, all you've "accomplished" was to anger 100 people!

Keep in mind that my friend is not only a sales expert but also a business owner, and the two of us know just how annoying and disruptive cold calls are.

It's really true: Cold calls angers prospects.

A while back, I ordered a ton of boxes of Girl Scout cookies from a Girl Scout & her mom who had set up a table in our office building's lobby.

I was excited to get the cookies, but...

When they were delivered to my office, and I heard someone walking in, my first thought was, "Who the hell is cold calling me now?" My first reaction was to get up with a scowl on my face.

My scowl turned to a smile when I saw that it was my cookies being delivered!

The REAL "Math" of Cold Calling

Not too long ago I wrote a newsletter mocking the traditional, old-school "sales math" that says if X number of cold calls equals X number of appointments, and it takes X number of appointments to get a sale and each sale earns you X in commissions, then each cold call is worth $5 in your pocket.

It's all a BIG LIE! Want proof? If it weren't a BIG LIE, companies would actually pay $5 per cold call - but they don't because they know FULL WELL that cold calling is a waste of time, and a sorry excuse for them to cut corners on their marketing budgets!

THAT is why they won’t put their money where their mouth is.

THAT is why they won’t put their money where their mouth is.

The REAL math of cold calling is that 50 cold calls angers 50 people. 100 cold calls angers 100 people. And on and on.

Want to succeed in sales? Here's an idea:

STOP cold calling and START delivering value instead!

DO NOT continue doing something that aggravates people and will COST you valuable sales with prospects who would've bought from you, had you approached them in a more respectful and intelligent manner.

If you're sick and tired of cold calling, and sick and tired of knowing that you're angering people, losing valuable sales, and making enemies out of potential customers by doing it, then here's an idea: Instead of cold calling, start using fresh, powerful, effective ideas that actually WORK to get hot, qualified prospects in front of you, who are ready to buy right now.

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

Posted at 07:30 PM in Cold Calling | Permalink | Comments (0)

Make More Cold Calls? Or Set More Appointments? Or Both?

"Make more calls" is the mantra heard around the world by sales managers everywhere.

Even most salespeople seem to be brainwashed by this myth - yes, MYTH - that if you just keep working harder, just keep doing more of what is NOT working, you'll somehow win at the mythical "numbers game" that happens to be a big lie.

The truth is that being paid to tell salespeople to make more calls is a weak excuse for a sales manager to justify his or her job, but I digress...

The problem isn't with sales managers, it's with YOU.

Salespeople continually ask me how to get MORE... more appointments, more leads, more contacts, a bigger network...

But very few focus on QUALITY over mere quantity.

Very few salespeople focus on quality of leads over quantity.

These are the kinds of questions I hear day in and day out:

"How can I get more leads?"

"How can I get more appointments?"

"How can I get more proposals out there?"

Here's the very simple, effective solution:

Start Focusing on QUALITY, not QUANTITY of Leads

Sales managers are especially guilty of this. Most are OBSESSED with short-term minutiae like number of calls, number of appointments, ad nauseam.

Here's the problem: We're not paid to make calls or set appointments. We're paid to make sales. That's all!

Not too long ago I saw the movie "In The Line Of Fire" again. In one conversation, John Malkovich's character says, "The Japanese are beating us because while our companies are looking toward the next quarter, they are looking toward the next quarter-century."

Obsessing over sales "activity" instead of focusing JUST on making sales is exactly the same kind of short-sighted mistake.

I see it all the time. Companies want me to show them how to get more leads or more appointments. What they're not considering is the QUALITY of leads. Quality always trumps quantity!

What good is getting 100 leads that result in 5 sales (5% close rate) when better prospecting methods can generate 100 leads that get 20 or 30 sales?

I like to brag that I have consistently closed 4 out of 5 sales. BUT - I didn't enjoy an 80% close rate in sales versus my co-workers' 20% average because I was a better salesman, but rather because I was working better-quality leads.

In other words, my co-workers were MISSING THE POINT, yet were still blissfully ignorant and happy with their 20% close rate.

I demanded something better and so I learned what it takes to get leads who are ready to BUY RIGHT NOW and as a result, I reached the point where I closed 4 out of 5 on the very first try.

Now I want YOU to do the same.

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.