There are a lot of people selling the idea that cold calling doesn’t work. I have some very strong opinions on this topic and since it seems of great interest I though I would share them with you.
The first problem
The first problem with this debate is the definition of a “cold call.” It is my opinion that this definition has been twisted by those who say cold calling doesn’t work for the purpose of selling training and books. Anytime you can create controversy you can get more attention and I believe that is exactly what is happening here.
The correct definition of a “cold call” is a call made to someone with whom you have never spoken. I also consider an inbound call as cold however more comfort it may seem to the salesperson.
The exception would be if you have a direct referral from someone who has spoken directly to the decision maker about you. Referrals from folks that know the decision maker and say “use my name” are typically casual and though helpful don’t usually change much.
The proof
I submit that this definition is correct because you cannot know what the decision-maker’s needs, wants, or exact situation are until you talk with them directly. It is for this reason that I personally don’t believe that research avoids a cold call.
I have challenge folks for ages to show me some piece of data you can get outside of the decision-maker that will actually change the call. No one has yet to provide a workable answer to this challenge, maybe you can?
In the modern age of computers and information it is obvious that one should and can do better research on one’s prospects than ever before. It is now expected by decision-makers that you know something about them when you call.
What else the nay Sayers say
They also say that you should be doing other things to attract clients. These other things basically break down to various forms of marketing and I would whole heartedly agree they should be used. The simplest of these marketing answers being “list building” on their websites which 95% of companies don’t do for some odd reason.
But these things only improve lead numbers and quality. They don’t change the call.
The problem is that even if these folks call you, it’s still a cold call. In fact, over the twenty plus years I have consulted in the area of sales I’ve found without exception that salespeople find inbound calls harder to handle than outbound ones.
Salespeople may like the comfort of thinking that the person calling is interested, but in the end they more often than not flub these calls losing control of the situation.
Conclusion
If you don’t know them and you haven’t been directly referred – it’s a cold call. If you don’t have the training, resources, and skills to handle these effectively you will lose business. Those that would say cold calling is useless would not provide such training or skills and this would be a great loss.
There is also the question of time in doing extensive research versus the tough road of cold calling and voice mail hell. However, I have always found that I get prospects when I cold call and it could easily be a toss which works better. It doesn’t appear to me that information gives any kind of guarantee or even significant advantage over a powerful unique selling proposition and good cold calling skills.
I welcome your comments.
Hi Flyn,
An interesting post. Personally I made tons of cold calls in a past life from which I bought two properties and supported my wife while she was looking after our new born daughter. I’m no longer in sales directly but I’m suprised that there is even a debate on this subject. If someone calls you with an interesting proposition and the timing is good, you tend to listen. Timing is crucial, so an element of good fortune comes into it, which is why sales to me was always a numbers game. More calls = more business.
I disagree- pure cold-calling is proven to be very ineffective. I believe the true “hit” ratio is around 2%. It is a costly, labor intensive effort that yields poor results. It can and does find new leads, but for the time/cost/energy put in, it is not effective.
I would like to say that selling is not exactly a team sport, but in reality is comes down to the individual taking the responsibility to make his numbers. Well run company’s build the right environment or structure to foster a sales friendly environment, but that is not not always the case. Cold calling no matter the company maturity level or the SEM or lead generation strategy is a requirement. It (the dedicated time) has to be budgeted on a daily basis, and the techniques need to be practiced. There is a wonderful sales strategy book by Skip Miller called ProActive Selling that puts it in a wonderful context.
Tom
Thanks for the post and I can second the recommendation of anything by Skip Miller — he’s a sharp guy.
I disagree with the definition of a cold call. A cold call is an announced call without an appointment to someone with whom you have had no prior contact and who does not know who you are or where you are from. These are time consuming and ineffective and a complete waste of time for most products or service offerings.
If the person has received materials from you such as an e-mail or a white paper it is a warm call because there is some familiarality. Other examples of warm calls would be if you are calling into a different department or division of an organization with which you have done business but don’t have a direct referal or if you are calling somoen that visited your website. Warm calls are much more effective because of the familiarality.
In my experience as a Sales Rep and Sales Manager I would have to say that the success rate of closing deals off warm calls vs cold calls has to be upwards of 100 to 1.
While a warm call is always a desire a well selected list of suspects yields great results. I have been involvd in this over 25 years and have had up to 67% kill ratios. Anything under 15% is just poor planning. The problem I see are companies and sales people who just dial, no thought to the process or to who their product/service will benefit.
Last year I was in a car accident and lost most of my ability for short term memory and a great deal of my long term memory. I found my old training manuals I wrote for my employees and clients and started using them. Some of the best closing ratios I have had in years. I guess the real problem is you get too “smart” as you get more exprience and you skip steps. All sales methods work if you plan them, execute them, measure them, and revise them.
I am happy about this discussion since these are tough times and we have to try all possible techniques. various points of view are brought-out.
I agree with Mark Segedi.
I like an analogy. Cold call is like throwing a stone to get a mango from a tree in the dark.
At least you should know there is a tree!
Maybe there’s a disconnect here… There’s a difference between generating leads and making calls. The better the quality of the leads the better the calls will be. Add to that whatever research you think the salesperson can do to improve that call.
However, unless you can get a direct referral to the decision maker you’re still making a cold call!
So I challenge you to tell me what an inside sales person should be doing if you don’t want him calling of folks he doesn’t know. Everyone is claiming — don’t make cold calls so specifically what do you do?
Sending something changes nothing, if you’re company is a name in the industry you are known anyway. It is still cold.
I will say it again. Calling on someone you don’t know without a referral is going to be a cold call. You have no idea what the real needs, wants, and circumstances are until you call and talk to the decision maker. Whatever information you may have, and I am not by any means saying not to research your prospect, is simply hearsay.
I would also contend that it is NOT what you know about the company or decision maker that gets you in the door — it’s your unique selling proposition and whether that offer fits on the decision maker’s plate at this point in time. I would also submit that if you catch that person on the phone in a case where it doesn’t you will have a huge advantage through that engagement for a couple of reasons — 1. now he’s/she’s met you, and 2. you can garner information that may be useful now or in the future. Emails and other indirect contacts cannot do that.
So tell me nay sayers — what do you actually do if you don’t call people you don’t know?
Personally,as per the author’s definition, I find cold call very ineffective because this tactic has been abused by several . I have spent majority of my career in sales, and I have heard many of my customers complain that on average they recieve about 10-13 calls a day from vendors. Even if you have a value adding product, you are lost in the crowd.
So does that mean you stop reaching out to new prospects ? Is there an alternative to cold calling to reach new clients? Absolutely..
A technique that worked very well for me is finding a coach,it takes a long time to find a good one within organization, but when you do, he/she will remain anonymous but this is the person who can give you information on what your prospect cares about – likes/ dislikes, personality, family, interests, hobbies, conferences they like to attend, topics they discuss.
Once I have my way in with the coach, Its easier to strike conversations with a new contact by striking conversation on his/her interests. The other strategy that worked well is referring to succesful projects that I completed in the local region. Ex : If GE and Walmart had strong management connections.. It might be a good tactic to refer to success stories within GE to walmart. In public sector, if you compete for a project within a highed system, you can mention projects that were completed in other brances of the same school system..
Most often, key decision makers in similar industries are interconnected.
However, a sales professional’s reputation and commitment of time within a region is critical.
If you need to have a conversation to sell your product or service, calling works as a first step or at any other time. You either talk to lots of people or not that many. What is all this about? If you need to talk to people call them and tell them honestly (and mean honestly) why – see what happens!
If you need to have a conversation to sell your product or service, calling works as a first step or at any other time. You either talk to lots of people or not that many. What is all this about? If you need to talk to people call them and tell them honestly (and I mean honestly) why – see what happens!
If you send targeted marketing materials to someone through e-mail, point them to your company’s website or whitepapers and track everything through one of the various e-mail marketing tools then you are calling people who are aware of who you are so the call isn’t truly cold. You still have to be on your game on the call, but you have some credibility and they will pay more attention to you than if you just dialed in cold. There are reams of data supporting this. It’s indisputable.
I would much prefer that marketing send out targeted e-mail blasts with supporting materials and track everything and then have the sales team follow up on the views rather than have the reps just dial in completely cold. 100 calls to people who have read your whitepaper(s) are far superior to 100 dials into the same people who have no idea of who you are.
It also changed the approach of the call to a consultative call as opposed to a sales call. People love information, and they hate “being sold”. If you call someone who just read a whitepaper with your name on it the approach becomes “Hi, I’m Xxx with XYZ Co and I saw that you had read my whitepaper on (widgets). I wanted to see if you had any questions or if I could get you any additional information.” Yeah, it’s just a lead-in to open them up, but it disarms them so you can get into your product/service offering and you know they have at least some interest in what you have to offer or they wouldn’t have accessed your materials.
The logic behind this approach is sound, as it is the same logic behind having a team of inside lead gen reps feeding qualified meetings to outside reps as opposed to having the outside guys just bang on doors. The more qualified someone is at each stage the more likelihood for success. Marketing should target prospects, inside sales/lead gen should concentrate on people who have shown interest, and outside reps/inside reps who close should focus on qualified potential customers.
Flyn,
Thanks for the post. I don’t think this “debate” is as black and white as presented, though, and I disagree with the context in which you present many of your points.
I’ll only address one:
“…It’s a cold call. If you don’t have the training, resources, and skills…Those that would say cold calling is useless would not provide such training or skills and this would be a great loss.”
I say cold calling is, if not useless, a truly wasteful use of time due to its low close ratio. However, I don’t discourage my clients or friends from learning how to approach a stranger with their sale and I teach several techniques for this…in the context of networking. Networking is my primary sales tool — and not just “social networking” — and it often involves approaching someone whom you know nothing about, outside of what’s on their name tag. So I teach how to start those engagements. But it’s not a cold call where you disrupt your target at their place of business — I think most shops have “No Solicitations Welcome” signs up for a reason — rather those gathered at networking events are all doing so for the same reason — to meet other businesses and look for matches — so it’s a much easier and more beneficial to start the relationship in this setting, I’ve found. And if no direct matches are made, you often meet people who know people, etc…
But follow-up and tracking is key, and that’s where I try to focus my training.
I’ve never done a cold call. I never will. But, if I see you at a networking event, I’ll talk to you, then and in the future…count on it.
Take care and good selling,
Robert Hernandez
I appreciate this debate, however, it’s relevant. It doesn’t matter if you cold call, warm call, send materials, etc. What does matter is that you add value. It has become increasingly more difficult is how to get on a key decision maker’s calendar. They are time challenged. Sales people who invest time to understand the their world and come to the meeting with an idea or solution to improve the prospect’s business will secure an appointment. Top level decision makers need and want ideas to grow their business. They will allocate time to meet with a sales person if they think they will receive value. Every sales person should have a list with their Top 10 Strategic Prospects; they need to research their business, their industry, their challenges and then develop a multi-faceted plan to secure the first meeting. Phoning – whether it’s a cold or warm call is only one element – and if you aren’t compelling, your message is deleted. Today, more than ever, we need to be clever, unique and compelling in order to gain one of their most important and limited assets – their time.
What everyone is saying is that the marketing up front to the prospect should be better. That salespeople should try to send something that will get them noticed. And I totally agree. And we did this in one form or another 20 years ago before the communication age broke lose. I also agree that if you develop relationships via networking you can get into situations where you don’t have to cold call.
The point I’m trying to make here is that without a direct relationship or direct referral preceding your call, it’s a cold call! Can it be warmed up a bit, sure. But if you don’t have good cold calling skills the calls that aren’t warm could be a real problem and may be lost. As I said even an inbound call in my opinion is cold — and the high percentage that are completely miss handled prove it. Yes you can have people call in ready to buy, but that’s the exception.
I make all of these points because the movement of “don’t cold call” is reducing the skills of salespeople by removing the belief that you have to prepare for and train salespeople on this topic.
One final and very important point. If you call on a decision maker and leave a power unique selling proposition you may very well put your product or service on their plate. If I make cold calls and don’t reach a sole I might leave as many as 70 such messages in a day and don’t correctly I will get call backs.
If you send out 5000 blind emails you might get 100 of them opened if you’re lucky. If you have to research all of these companies before you call you aren’t going to send out more than at the max 50 emails per day and you will be lucky if two are opened. I doubt very much whether you could research that many and do anything else — the number is sure to be closer to 10.
Do the math, I will talk to at least a couple of people directly, I will talk to a ton of people who can give me information and help me connect with the decision maker, I can get referrals to other opportunities. None of these things happen with marketing approaches. Networking of course offers opportunity, but the point is cold calling, if you’re good may generate more results than research.
Again, and no one has answered this question: what do you have your salesperson do all day if they don’t call people they don’t know — or haven’t researched? I ask because I have never worked anywhere where salespeople had more leads than they could handle — they have to generate their own leads.
One other thing — if you are using or wish to use networking please visit my LinkedIn Networking Secrets Blog — if cold calls can be avoided I assure you that networking is one of the best ways. http://www.OnlineBusinessNetworker.net/blog
Hi Flyn
I’m happy to see someone talking sense. I’ve read a lot of sales posts and there is always someone claiming cold calls are dead or trying to reinvent the wheel. These attempts to challenge a tried and tested method makes me question the sales skills of those individuals. Does anyone else have these thoughts?
I believe sales is a skill game and if someone wants to make it into a science, they should at least take into account the skill level of individuals.
I think it’s easy for folks to assume that recipients will read their collateral – white paper, website link, email, etc. But often they do not (I’m being conservative here – more honestly, folks should assume that recipients will NOT take the time to read collateral from a company they have never heard of ; ). HOWEVER, it is amazing how many folks WILL open and click around collateral from a company that has already spoken to them on the phone. If you feel a connection to the sender – you will pay attention to their communications.
My point is – don’t assume that the order is email first, call second (if the contact does not know you) – In more effective situations, it’s very often call first, email second! Take a look at the open rates and clickthru from your last email campaign – the folks with whom you have recently chatted on the phone will be your more active recipients.
Assuming that someone will a. open your email, b. read it, c. absorb it, d. remember it, and e. say “Oh yes, I remember your email” when you call – is a little inexperienced in sales and marketing.
While communications vehicles have changed – human memory remains constant. It STILL takes repetition to get your market to become familiar with your offer! Call, email, hold webinars, seminars, blog, do it ALL. It’s never been more cost-effective.
BUT, you and your prospect will never truly understand one another, until that first live conversation – on the PHONE.
Ok FLynn, perhaps you can bring some “new light” for me. I am a Sr. Executive Recruiter, and have been successful, very successful niched in Manuf/Eng./Aviation/Aerospace for the past 5 years.In my industry we cold call, and we cold call alot. I have chosen recently to make more warm calls as the cold calling into companies produced little orders with the current layoff situation and reduction of jobs. I can almost always get through the gatekeeper to the hiring manager, but the one product our economy is lowest on is employment. The number of recruiter “survivors” now compared to one year ago I hear are about 25%. (based on 100% commission.)Do you have any suggestions to effectively finding jobs that aren’t shown in the marketplace and ones where the client’s are truly ready to pull the trigger?..Time is money as we all know and we’re all spending alot of time, and I’d say effectively calling and marketing top talent candidates to not much return for the time. At 100% commission on closing the deal (contingent only), do you have any specific ideas to try that have not been disclosed in previous comments above?
This is where networking is a big help. You need relationships that can help you fish and you need strong relationships with those you already have done work for. You also need a very powerful unique selling proposition that set you apart from the other thousands of recruiters. You are in a most competitive marketplace — you need to find a way to stand out, you need to be very creative in your offer.
Personally, I was taught a simple and effedtive method of cold calling which has proven itself time and time again. I believe the principles were developed by IBM to teach thier sales people. I set appointments with decision makers with whom I’ve never met or spoken to before and wind up with a sales opportunity at the end of the meeting. Appointment cancellation % is probably less than 5%.
Put their needs first is the golden rule. Leaving the message on voice mail works for me rather than against.
The answer to the question of what to have sales people do all day: Expand marketing efforts to generate leads and only have a staff of sales reps necessary to handle the incoming leads, research, and follow-up. And following up isn’t a one-shot deal. Every warm lead should be called until reached, so there is a carry over effect adding to the daily workload. And there are always scheduled calls from people that asked you to get back to them at a later date.
Marketing shouldn’t be sending out blind e-mails any more than sales people should be making blind calls. Everything needs to be researched and targeted. Targeted email blasts driving warm calls to Lead Gen who are then driving qualified leads to the Sales team.
Stan…
Ok, let’s say I buy your answer. A good response rate for emails is 2% and that’s to a list that knows you. You will be lucky to get half of that many even opened with blind email (to someone that doesn’t know you).
I worked with a company that did an email effort of about 700 people — 2 were opened and one of those unsubscribed. If you have 5 inside people and need to get them 40 calls per day — which I’d consider slow — you need to send 2000 targeted emails to get them on the phones effectively — and that assumes they can just call the ones that opened the package.
Maybe I have made a mathematical error and please correct me if I did, but this is not a workable plan. This doesn’t even assume or account for the time it would take to target and research 2000 accounts to send to in the first place. A good team of 5 however could call all of those accounts in a week and probably take to at least 20 of them. I don’t understand how what you propose is better.
I don’t see how cold calling can be effective these days when nobody answers their phone. If one is supposed to keep trying until they reach the decision maker at what point does it become downright annoying?
I receive telemarketing calls every day and every day I am irritated by them. Since I don’t like receiving these calls I would not ‘do unto others’ either.
Theresa
You are correct that technology has put up a huge road block to getting to the decision maker. But you do get to leave a message with your unique selling proposition and if its good and you timing is right you will get engaged. Besides you have the opportunity to talk to other in the company and this can be very helpful. You can find out a lot more from insiders than you will ever discover via physical research on the web.
I think this is what’s missing from most of these answers — cold calling is the research and its better than the web — thought that is also very helpful.
Flyn:
If your open rate is only 2% then you have a bad list. The open rate for my marketing campaigns is closer to 8%, and has been in that range for at least 3 companies where I have worked. I send them out in batches of 2000, which is a good number per rep.
I do that twice a week so each rep would have somewhere around 300 calls per week. If every person who viewed is called either until reached or 3 times it works out to something like 75(60 new & 15 2nd/3rd attempts) calls a day plus scheduled appointment calls. A lot of times reps end up asking to skip an email blast or two the last week of the month to catch up.
If you only have 700 contacts for 5 reps you either need more names or fewer inside reps. Just from a territory management perspective I think each rep needs a territory large enough to give them at least 5000 – 6000 active contacts to pursue. Too much less than that and you get list burn regardless of contact method.
I’ve been in a sales/marketing/biz dev role for 13 years. I’ve made true cold calls using nothing but the Yellow Pages, targeted cold calls, warm calls, referral calls, and even done my share of banging on doors. The email-call-email-call cycle has yielded the best results by far.
I’ve also been on the other side of the phone in a management role where people were cold calling me constantly. The calls were never at a time that was convenient, if anything they always came in at the worst possible time. I very quickly got to the point where I would hang up as soon as they introduced themselves, something that I still do now. There are a lot of business people who are targeted constantly that understandably react in the same way. You can’t sell to someone who hangs up as soon as you say your name. But those same people will take your call if they have read your whitepaper. some people will take a cold call, but they are generally the minority. Why miss out on those other sales from people who prefer to be contacted in a different method?
You are getting 8% of the people you send emails to open them when they never been contacted before? I would say that’s pretty good — I won’t open any email unless I know who sent it — I don’t care what the subject line says. Most people I know are the same way.
Like I said, I was helping and IT company with sales and they did a mailing to IT Mgrs. and out of 700 or so only two got opened. Seems pretty target to me and the message was for valuable free info.
I think we’re disagreeing on definitions. Just because you send and email opened or not doesn’t make the call warm – you still have no clue what the prospect’s about or if he has any real interest in what you’re doing. I would admit that someone that downloads a white paper is a better lead but just because they did so doesn’t make it a warm call, it’s still cold — as you have not confirmed that that person wishes to talk with you, and it’s still an interruption unless they respond with a request to chat.
Depending on what you sell the phone book could be providing a targeted list — say you sell software for doctors and dentists — the phone book works — the source is not the issue the target is — you obviously should not give reps a list of companies or people where there is no clue of their potential — especially since it is possible to do so so easily.
With regard to your example — if the reps don’t know who opened the email — you still have a cold call and I would say even if they do. Why do you think its warm?
By the way, I have made more calls than most people as I started in the consumer telesales biz — I can hardly remember being hung up on even call households back in the 70′s. In B2B I am almost never hung up on — I can remember a couple of times in 30 years. Anyone that makes B2B calls and gets hung up on is doing something very wrong — the exception would be very small businesses — and even they don’t hang up very often.
As I have said all along this debate is not about cold calls — it’s about a definition that was changed for the purposes of marketing sales training under some new great strategy where they simply don’t call a cold call a cold call.
It is obvious that marketing and having more inbound calls than you can handle is probably better — but not many companies have good enough programs to get enough leads in that manor.
This commentary presupposes the purpose of the cold call – these days the purpose of my calls, call them cold, warm or tepid, are, for the most part to set an appointment. It’s rare, unless I know of an upcoming project (I’m in Construction) that I’m calling specifically to try to sell them something over the phone. Now, I’m in a service base business, so perhaps those in product based sales and telemarketers feel differently.
And I disagree that email is ineffective – today, I set up the call with email or Linked In or whatever else works.
Patrick…
Most cold calling in B2B is not for the sale, or at least not on the first call.
Those sitting around saying that something does not work are interupted by somone doing it. Cold-Calling becomes effective when you do. Some of these folks remind me of junior rookie green horn sales people. Those of you that have said cold calling does not work have not given any reasons why it does not! Other than saying it’s a big waste of time. Why is it a big waste of time? Because you were worthless at it does not mean that there are not people out there that can generate a tremendous amount of interest in their product or service in a very short period of time. Would it be nice if you possessed the skills to “OPEN” a conversation with a stranger and have them wanting what you are offering? The definition of selling is to breakdown opposing thought patterns and realign them to match yours. Most people do not possess that ineffable something that distinguishes mere attraction from animal magnetism, but what they do possess is a strong belief in their product or service. There is no room for self-doubt in selling. Speak with conviction and watch you hat get filled. I could go on and on!
John BL .. thank you — I have contented since this started that the people propagating this strategy simply don’t know how to cold call. When I was actively doing sales consulting (23 years) I got most of my business from my cold calls and made a multiple six figure income working about 30 hours a week and about 7.5 months out of the year.
Actually there is a simple test you can do to know immediately if a company has folks that can cold call — as for their cold call presentation (the document) — if they haven’t written it down and worked it out — they are quit likely clueless as to what they are doing when it comes to cold calling.
Yeah, I get 8%. 2% would indicate a problem such as a bad list with a lot of bounced emails, an off-target send, a bad subject line, or a bad message that recipient scanned in the preview window and dumped. One other possibility is that the company sending it had a bad rep and people deleted it. Or it could be an issue with spam filters. A well-written B2B email will get views.
Once someone has read the invitation and gone ahead and clicked through a link to more info such as a whitepaper they certainly know who you are and you have credibility when you call. There is certainly a lot of work to do on the call, but the door is already open for you. I always know who is opening the emails because I track them real-time. And if you are good and contact them within a few minutes of opening the email it is usually a good time to talk.
Someone who cold calls and gets hung up on as soon as they say their name has done nothing wrong. It’s just comes with the territory. There are people that don’t want to be bothered by people who they aren’t familiar with. I hang up on probably a half dozen people daily who are cold calling into me., I get name, company, and as soon as I know they aren’t calling to buy my service the call ends. No thanks, goodbye. If they call me on my cell I use language that I can’t print here. Why subject your sales reps to that when you can feed them warm calls?
Flynn/Stan:
You both raise a critical issue facing many sales people today – are they sales or marketing professionals or both? Sales people are not trained copy writers. They are skilled professionals who understand how to build rapport, ask critical questions to gather insight about the prospect’s buying process, overcome resistance and secure the business. Sales people for the most part, have no idea what to write on a subject line of an email so it gets opened not deleted. Sales people don’t know how to make the initial call so it gets the prospect to agree to see him/her. Marketing is the engine of a company – sales is the execution function. I know the power of what a great marketing department can do – I began my career with Procter & Gamble where sales and marketing worked hand-in-hand to create compelling strategies for our customers. That’s what’s missing today – a cooperative, compelling relationship where marketing crafts the language and sales implements the strategy. Today I find that most companies who have a “marketing” department really have a “promotions” department – they book conventions, ads, develop price lists etc. Strong marketing personnel can take a time challenged sales organization and turn them into a highly productive, revenue producing machine.
.-= Christine McMahon´s last blog ..Watch This Space… =-.
I’ve cold called all of my career and still do to this day…it’s an art, and have developed relationships and friendships as a result..It’s extremely satisfying to put together a partnership “cold.” It takes a certain skill set – primarily a listener that is in it to help the client..that comes through to the other person, regardless of past acquaintance.
Chuck — recording your VM message on a recorder first and listening to it is a great way to perfect a great message.
I have been tracking metrics on cold calls vs warm calls recently. My connect-per-call rate on the warm calls is approaching 40%. My connect-per-call rate on the cold calls is under 2%. Further more over 50% off the connects from warm calls are productive and lead to further engagement while less than 25% off the connects from cold calls lead to further engagement.
These numbers seem to be in line with metrics for myself and teams that I’ve managed over the years in multiple industries. Warm calls are about 20 times more effective in generating conversations than cold calls and about 40 times more effective in generating further engaement.
Looking at the math, in order to improve sales results with warm calls all that would be necessary to do would be to provide 5 more warm calls a week to generate 2 additional connects which should lead to 1 future engagement. In order to do the same with cold calls it would be necessary to make 200 more calls a week. I don’t know about you, but I’m not about to make another 40 dials a day nor would I ask anyone on my team to do so.
This would seem to support that an organization’s goal should really be creating more warm calls rather than making more cold calls.
Stan your question what do your sales people do- make them generate leads of people they don’t need in a niche or related niche or feed them to them. Use the research tools and call based on being trained. As I posted earlier I find cold calls/warm calls not to be dead and the ratios to be much higher. Also I find networking to be a bigger waste of time. It is always easier to go directly to the decision maker for me. Maybe it’s my personality but networking provides the low conversion ratio’s you all discuss for cold calls in my personal experience.
I dont care what anyone says until we have robots answering the phone cold callin works! Mixing that with direct mail is even better. People do not like getting emails that are unsolicited and unexpected faxes. If you send these materials after you have talked to the prospective customer it is different you have formed a relationship. I see companies coming up with stupid scripts all day long and the best thing to do is say who you are, where you are calling from and, why you are calling and I guarantee you if you keep it up you will do well. In a six hour period I get two to three appointments a day using a CRM (having a good voice doesnt hurt either)