To Cold Call or Not to Cold Call
In the real world top Sales Professionals understand that prospecting is a balance.
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To Cold Call or Not to Cold Call
It seems these days that every where I look, websites, blogs, videos, and even in Podcasts, there is some expert preaching to sales professionals and entrepreneurs that they should stop cold calling. Instead, the expert offers them a top secret way to get all of the qualified leads they’ll need and promises they will never have to cold call again.
Now, at the same time there are experts who are quick to write that cold calling is the best way to find qualified leads and insist that they have the formula that guarantees success. For hardworking salespeople who are looking for tips and tools to help them move more qualified prospects into their sales pipeline, I’m sure this looks like some Shakespearian play.
To Cold Call or not to Cold Call? Well, Give me a break.
Well, first no one, not the experts, not Sales Professionals, not sales managers, and not even companies and sales organization who really push cold calling, can deliver a solid definition of what a cold call really is.
So for the purposes of this conversation here’s the deal, when you pick up the phone, or walk in the door and interrupt the day of someone who is not expecting you and with whom you are not currently engaged in a sales discussion, it is a cold call. You can argue the degrees: warm, hot, cold, or whatever. But the simple fact remains: you are interrupting their day to talk about something you want them to do or buy.
The good news is that most of the experts in the sales profession rightly agree that if you do not engage in regular prospecting activity that you will fail. Unfortunately, in the insulated world of gurus and experts, each expert tends to preach that their methodology is the one way to prospecting salvation.
Finding a Balance
However, in the real world top Sales Professionals understand that prospecting is a balance. And, balance simply means that in a prospecting regimen there are measures of referrals, networking, internet connections, direct mail, call-ins, trade shows and yes,cold calling. The balance, how much or how little of each, is based on the individual Sales Professional’s unique situation.
The very best salespeople across all industries have mastered balanced prospecting in the same manner that wealthy people have mastered balance in their investment portfolios. In investing putting your eggs in any single basket will, over time, lead to mediocre returns or in some cases financial disaster. In sales, consistently relying on a single prospecting methodology, at the expense of others, consistently generates mediocre results. However, balancing your pros pecting regimen based on your industry, product, company, and tenure almost always leads to outstanding performance over the long term.
The Sales Guy’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Balanced Prospecting
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First, develop a prospecting regimen based on what works for your industry, product or service. In some industries if you spend the majority of your time interrupting your prospects’ days you will fail. In others if you don’t dial for dollars every day you will die a quick and painful death. Look around you. Find out what the top salespeople in your organization are doing to generate qualified prospects. Then do what they do. The Sale Pros who are bringing home the big commission checks know the formula.
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Next, design your prospecting regimen around your tenure. If you are brand new in your territory, company, or industry you must be prepared to pick up the phone and do a lot of cold calling. When you are new your prospecting balance will almost always be heavily weighted on cold calling. On the other hand, if you have been in your territory or industry for years it is likely that cold calling will become a smaller portion of your prospecting balance. In both cases, tenured and non-tenured, you should evaluate your prospecting regimen and make adjustments if you are too far out of balance.
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Finally, invest in yourself. Prospecting effectiveness, no matter how you go about it is, in many ways, the most important determiner of sales performance. Take time to learn everything you can about prospecting techniques, skills, and strategies. Read books, go to your organization’s training courses, listen to audio programs, and get a coach. Just as a professional athlete constantly trains to maintain a winning edge, top Sales Professionals do whatever it takes to keep their prospecting skills in tip top shape. And in doing so, they keep their pipelines full and their wallets fat.
Thank you for joining me on The Sales Guy’s Quick and Dirty Tips for getting the deal done.
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