RIP cold calling

[phoenixbiz]

I do agree that there are plenty of methods for generating new business and our company uses allot of them. However, cold calling is still the most profitable meens of lead generation there is, providing it is done correctly. It is by far the best way to seperate the messers and window shoppers from the REAL buyers.
Why soooo many sales people spend so much time chasing people who will never buy is beyond me.
I am sure you have all heard the fact that 20% of a companies sales force creates 80% of the business's profit or turnover; well nearly all of this is done from cold calling. Try reading Mike Brooks Top 20%, a great investment for any sales person.
The thing is, once you know how to do it correctly, it is enjoyable and you welcome a NO as you know you are that much closer to a YES.
So, get off your fat arses and get on the phone!!!

 

[wecandobiz]

I do agree that there are plenty of methods for generating new business and our company uses allot of them. However, cold calling is still the most profitable meens of lead generation there is, providing it is done correctly. It is by far the best way to seperate the messers and window shoppers from the REAL buyers.
Why soooo many sales people spend so much time chasing people who will never buy is beyond me.
I am sure you have all heard the fact that 20% of a companies sales force creates 80% of the business's profit or turnover; well nearly all of this is done from cold calling. Try reading Mike Brooks Top 20%, a great investment for any sales person.
The thing is, once you know how to do it correctly, it is enjoyable and you welcome a NO as you know you are that much closer to a YES.
So, get off your fat arses and get on the phone!!!

I can't agree that the Top 20% of a sales team achieve 80% of revenue BECAUSE of cold calling. I think top sales performers are consistently good at achieving sales because they apply sales process to what they do. Cold calling doesn't have to be part of that. In fact chances are it won't -- these guys often do a great job of maximising sales from existing accounts. If cold calling to new accounts does play a part I am pretty sure that it won't be the top performers who are doing it.

The Pareto's Law thing gets misused.

Interestingly, most companies buy from suppliers they found rather than those that came to them. An effective web presence makes all the difference here. And these days that means using social media and using social networks, as more and more people use these methods to ask for referrals. People asking for recommended suppliers is seriously eating into the "search" concept.

IH

 

[Hintcopy]

Cold calling definitely works...but only to an extent.

Of course it's completely reliant on what people are being sold to begin with. It doesn't matter how good at the job you are, you cannot sell someone something they don't need.

Take Insurance on a mobile phone. When I went contract I had 2 different companies call up to offer me Insurance on the handset. Now I'm sure some years back it would've been very effective and generated a good bit of business, but now a lot of places take care of all that "In House" so those types of companies are now likely to take in a lot less business.

I think cold calling fails more than it works, but the success makes up for all the rejections.

 

[jamiebaxter]

Hi

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[Pete Crane]

I've an idea Jamie, send me the link and I will post it. That way it will get shared round for everyone to see.

 

it would seem that there is a split to whether telemarketing/telesales is dead.
I had a look at the report written by wecandobiz, it turns out that social networking came top, which ifind hard to believe, and wecandbiz was in that group. Does this really hold credability?, I am sure if i were to do a survey I could come up with some great stats.
The fact is as long as there are phones we will have telemarketing/telesales. Whether you love it or hate it is irrelevant, you may want it to die a painful death, but as long as there are new businesses trying to get off the ground, established businesses wanting to speak directly with decision makers and large businesses wanting to speak to large groups of people, and events people looking for bums on seats telemarketing will always be here.
I understand that there are some businesses out there that will never use telemarketing for one reason or another, I would not use social networking as it does not really fit in with my business. So as a point, there are things you will always do and things you wont. Just because i do not use social netowking i do not suggest its dead.

 

[wecandobiz]

it would seem that there is a split to whether telemarketing/telesales is dead.
I had a look at the report written by wecandobiz, it turns out that social networking came top, which ifind hard to believe, and wecandbiz was in that group. Does this really hold credability?, I am sure if i were to do a survey I could come up with some great stats.
The fact is as long as there are phones we will have telemarketing/telesales. Whether you love it or hate it is irrelevant, you may want it to die a painful death, but as long as there are new businesses trying to get off the ground, established businesses wanting to speak directly with decision makers and large businesses wanting to speak to large groups of people, and events people looking for bums on seats telemarketing will always be here.
I understand that there are some businesses out there that will never use telemarketing for one reason or another, I would not use social networking as it does not really fit in with my business. So as a point, there are things you will always do and things you wont. Just because i do not use social netowking i do not suggest its dead.

Michael, thanks for downloading the report. A couple of comments in response to your points:

1) WeCanDo.BIZ and Sift organised the survey and asked our respective bases to answer it, which MAY have loaded the results towards a positive view of online networking methods. That said, there was ample chance for respondents to state whether they were getting that business that way and would recommend that others follow their lead -- on both they remained as optimistic;

2) You say that as long as we have 'phone we'll have cold calling, but I wouldn't take that for granted. Regulation is tightening in this area and that's making it harder to do. I am cold calling all week as it happend (as I did for most of last week) and if I could achieve exactly the same results online without having to lift the phone and cheese people off then I would.

I read another recent survey that suggested that three quarters of companies FOUND the companies they deal with themselves, rather than the supplier approached them (annoyingly, I now can't find a link to that survey). If any companies does cold call, and I think at this point it remains a valid route to market, they should also be ensuring they have an effective presence online to get found by people who already need what they do.

As I said previously, an effective presence includes social media more and more these days.

By the way, we'll be doing the survey again next month with a much larger base; and social media has moved on a lot in sixth months, so the results will be particularly interesting...

IH