Quit Cold Calling

If you can’t cold call, don’t! It’s that easy.

How, you now ask, can you get qualified prospects on whom to call and turn into your new customers if you don’t cold call? Let someone else do it.

The typical sales type will do anything to avoid dialing the phone to try to convince someone they don’t know to meet and listen to their pitch. It is uncomfortable bordering on painful.

Watch your sales pro during “phone time”. He will rearrange papers on his desk, take extended restroom breaks, work feverishly on an email, chart or other paperwork, dial and hang-up quickly claiming to get a busy signal, doodle, stare into space, take calls from customers he must service, get extra coffee, meet with other staffers who need his attention right now and on and on it goes. A sales rep will do almost anything to avoid the dreaded cold call.

The downside, of course, is very few calls get made, no new rocks are overturned and the sales pipeline remains empty. Sales projections are missed, money is lost and unhappiness reigns supreme.

Turn this highly important task over to a phone sales professional and watch your fortunes rise. A sales appointment setter or telemarketer will dial the phone 30 to 50 times an hour and talk with a fair number of qualified prospects, scheduling appointments and gathering important competitor information. This prospector goes about the job cheerfully, never losing sight of the goal of setting meetings with qualified potential customers. He is a craftsman—an artisan who never gives up.

Using these phone pros builds your business by canvassing targeted SIC codes, demographics or geographic locations. More meetings are scheduled, more presentations made and many more sales closed.

Quit fighting the obvious. If you can’t cold call, DON’T.