Telephone Sales Training | Telephone Sales Management Resources

The discussion to the last post brings me to write this explanation of cold calling.

As I said in the previous post, I think the heart of the debate about cold calling is a simple changing of the definition. Unfortunately, most of the nay sayers don’t define the terms.

To start I believe this circumstance and debate have come about because most people have no clue how to cold call effectively. The main reason for this is companies don’t invest the necessary time to teach people how to cold call for their product; they simply make the assumption that they know – a fatal error.

In over twenty years of active sales consulting to the high tech industry I found only a hand full of people who really had high level cold calling skills.

The starting point of the problem is the lack of a good and powerful unique selling proposition. Most salespeople think they know what that is but don’t, and most companies don’t do anything to help the sales team develop one.

Most cold calling is done via the phone and most salespeople don’t know how to use the phone properly. They don’t know what makes it tick and how to leverage what they do so it will succeed on the phone. One key reason for this is almost no one actually teaches these skills. Most telephone sales training is based on standard and classical sales theories and has nothing to do with what makes the telephone different – which is the key to succeeding.

Without real telephone selling skills, a powerful unique selling proposition, and some training on how to apply them specifically to the product at hand you can expect dismal results in cold calling.

If you are interested I have a telephone sales quiz you can take for your own entertainment and hopefully learning. Click here for quiz.

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.