photo credit: stevendepolo
When I was active in sales, my training included how to cold call, both by stopping by and getting on the phone. In fact, that was pretty much the extent of my training. I quickly grew to dislike it and unconsciously started to develop systems to make it more pleasant (and more profitable). For instance, instead of just dropping by a school (my target customers were PTA groups), I would bring a nice binder and leave it off. Then when I got on the phone with the contact, I would refer to the binder and the person on the other end would instantly know what I was talking about. I had an in.
Sometime later, I came across a great book by Frank Rumbauskas called Never Cold Call Again
I am now of the opinion that there is no excuse for cold calling. It is just the dry leftovers of sales tactics past. The thing is, there are just so many better options today. Here are some things you should be doing instead of cold calling.
Educational Selling
Educational selling establishes you as an expert. You give away information that will be useful to 100% of your audience. This means you will get the opportunity to talk to a lot more prospects, even the ones who are not in buying mode right now. Once you establish yourself as an expert, people will begin to give you respect and business. Provide value, and you get value back.
Social Networking
Social networking is all the rage on the web right now, with sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn leading the charge. You may not immediately see the business benefit of this. But do you see the benefit in traditional networking? The better your network, the better your ability to build a sales juggernaut. Social networking is just taking the traditional networking online and opening up your networking possibilities to the wide world. If you treat this as an opportunity to build your network of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, rather than a marketing platform, you will see success. Through conversations you have online, you will be able to naturally segue into sales pitches customized for particular needs. No need to spam or cold call.
Permission Marketing
Permission marketing is a hard concept for a traditional salesperson to get his head around. It is pretty much the exact opposite of cold calling. Permission marketing happens when a prospect asks for information concerning your company. The great thing about this is that the audience qualifies itself. People who ask to hear more are much, much more likely to buy in the end. Develop a strong permission marketing system, and you will laugh any time someone asks if you use cold calling.
Warm Calling
Yes, this is dangerously close to cold calling. Instead of just getting on the phone or stopping by, you prepare the prospect in some way, usually with a marketing piece. This can work well, depending on how you decide to warm up the client. If you send them something that is educational or useful, they will likely be receptive to you. There are problems with this, however. It can get expensive, and you will need to qualify your prospects through research and guessing. Warm calling is best used in conjunction with one of these other techniques.
Event Hosting
Hosting events can be an amazing experience for connecting with prospects. An event can take any form. The key is to provide value and make it compelling for prospects to attend. I have had success hosting dinners at nice restaurants. People enjoy a night out and I get a chance to do some educational selling. The nice thing about events is that you are getting people to come to you. This is establishing the idea that you are the expert and someone worth seeking out.
Cold calling may not be dead, but it should be. I personally do not like getting sales calls and pitches out of the blue. I am much more likely to work with someone, even seek them out, if they have taken time to establish trust with me. Many sales people use cold calling because they just do not know how else to get a hold of customers. There is often a serious disconnect between sales and marketing, and that is a shame. Every good sales person should also be a good marketer, and vice versa.
My challenge to you is this. Stop being a pain. Start building value and attracting customers to you. Don’t send a shiver down some one’s spine by cold calling them. Instead, warm them up to you and get them to seek you out. It takes a change of perspective, but it is a change that will revolutionize your sales process if you are currently still stuck in the cold calling jungle.
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