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Why is it that some sales people say cold calling is dead? If cold calling is really dead, what other means are there for creating leads?
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5 Answers
I always find these discussions about cold calling being dead amusing, and in many ways, it explains the rise in the volume and popularity of zombie movies and TV shows; "Just when you think it is dead, it comes back!" Sure if you are going to call someone who has been to you site, it may not be a cold call, but what about those who don't do that or any of the other things that fall into that group. What about those business that could benefit from you offering, they are not poking about on the web, they doing their thing oblivious to our social messaging, nurturing, and other things. Those intrepid sales people who chose to engage with them will need to make unsolicited, unscheduled, calls, what many will call cold calls. They make them in a prepared way, knowing which buttons to push, how to professionally stir and agitate a conversation.
Even with qualified buyers, timing plays a role, yes they may have visited your web site, but are not ready to engage when you call. If you buy in to one definition being that a cold call is an "interruption call", then many of the folks in this thread cold call. The question then becomes how you change an interruption to a conversation, which early in the call has little to do with facts, logic or value, and has to do with human dynamics, communication skills, and the ability to anticipate and leverage the buyer initial negative response to an unscheduled call.
To borrow a phrase from Frank Zappa, cold calling is not dead, it just smells funny.
Enjoy: http://youtu.be/58U0Kme-pIk
Tibor
(855) 25-SALES
I think it's fair to say that cold calling isn't completely dead, but it isn't a necessary practice anymore either. Granted, the first time a rep calls a prospect, you could call it a cold call, but the call isn't actually cold if they know for sure that the prospect has spent time on their site and can see which pages they have visited over time. And with the addition of marketing automation tools, that prospect can be nurtured over time, until they exhibit buying (or interest) behavior. You can have a conversation with your prospects over time, by nurturing them through the buying process, with relevant information, based on the content they have engaged with over time. By the time a rep is alerted that the prospect is ready to engage in a 1:1 conversation, that prospect is (in most cases) ready to have a conversation as well.
Let's call these warm calls.
I agree with Matt that most sales calls from sales reps now are warm calls where the prospect has either self-selected themselves through some type of web registration or been pre-selected by demographic information. Gone are the days of just randomly calling names with no indicated interest in your product or service. Typically those random names are now narrowed through email solicitations with only respondants called. Prospects have become difficult to contact by phone due to voice mail and caller ID so the hit rate of answered calls has declined and sales teams can only afford to call on prospects that have been somehow pre-qualified as a potential prospect.
I agree with both Matt and Mark. But, you'd be really surprised how many industries are still pushing the idea of calling strangers completely at random. It goes on more than you'd think. Particularly in the telecom and insurance industries, along with uniforms, and a few others.
Granted, intelligent organizations are providing reps with pre-qualified leads, or even better, pre-set appointments. But many still have a business model of "churning and burning" sales reps with insanely high turnover rates in the 40% range. There is little investment in hiring and training, and the business model is to keep the reps around for a few months, force them to make 100+ cold calls each day, and by doing so they'll generate enough recurring revenue to justify their short term of employment.
Telecom in particular is still stuck to this business model... if you can even call it that.
Good answers here, but I'd like to say that "naked" cold calling (Hi, this is Jeff from ABC Company and we do X for companies like yours) is dead, but calling well-nurtured warm leads is alive and well. Attract them, nurture them, earn trust, call them.
Jeff Ogden
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