Cold Calling is Dead

Spread the word ... PLEASE!

The more I cold call, the more I sell. But please, keep posting that cold calling is dead and no longer works. No one and I mean no one answers their phones anymore. And absolutely, positively no one returns messages these days. Spread the word. Cold calling is dead!

I really want my fellow competitors including vendors, resellers, service providers, and systems integrators to stop cold calling my prospects. They shouldn't be bothered by informative, business problem solving solutions that save money, fix issues, or increase customer experience. That's why I'm here and in business for myself. Everyone keep sending emails, generating digital campaigns with no follow-up calls, or anything beyond passive selling and your 1% success rates. By all means, please stay away from the phone and use it as a prop to pretend you make sales calls for a living. Maybe it will even ring today with a customer wanting to buy something?

I've recently ramped up my cold calling and surprisingly busy executives and decision makers actually answer their phones from time to time. Voicemail messages get returned too and often within an hour or less! My pipeline is filling up and my company is prosperous thanks to the death of cold calling. I'm even booking meetings and discovery calls to help provide real business solutions to my prospective customers. It's to the point that the more I call, the busier I get. Yet cold calling is dead and should be left to those who want to waste their time making new connections, booking sales presentations, and closing deals. I'm here to promote the death of the greatest sales process known to man. Cold calling.

Of course, cold calling in and of itself isn't the answer to your sales problems. Let's say you want to reach a decision maker about a meaningful cloud solution and the person you need to reach doesn't respond to emails. What do you do? Make a cold call? Not yet in my opinion. Do your homework and find out as much as you can about the person and their business. Where have they worked prior? Who do they know that you know? What groups do they belong to? Where did they go to college? I makes calls to people who know people before calling people. Now, call the person who knows the person and ask questions. How well do you know them? Did you work together? Are you friends? Can you vouch for our company and solutions? Is it okay if I drop your name? My calls include follow-up emails and my emails include follow-up calls to everyone.

I recently contacted a COO of a Fortune 100 to see if they had any contact center initiatives or upcoming projects we could help with. Knowing a little about their company and eCommerce challenges along with a connection on LinkedIN that turned out to be a high school drinking buddy of his, my cold call was ready. Ring, ring. "Yes?" "Hi, my name is Jeff and I'm friends with your old high school drinking buddy John who suggested I reach out to you to discuss your current customer experience challenges and how we might be able to help." The cold call lasted a few minutes longer than your average non-social cold call and I was given the keys to the castle. Meaning, the barrier to entry was removed and the map of the organizational chart was laid out over the phone to a seemingly perfect stranger over the phone.

Now, one call isn't necessarily going to lead to an appointment, or introduction to the right person. You might call the wrong person or reach them at the wrong time in their buying or budgeting cycle. Maybe you need to call several people within an enterprise to find the right person with a project but it's all the same process on your end. Research, find meaningful connections, and get introductions or permission to name drop. It's relatively simple but you still have to pick up the phone and make the call. Leveraging a few tools like LinkedIN, data.com, Hoovers, and Hubspot helps. Google and YouTube are great as well.

This system repeats itself over and over with the right research, connections, and relevant solutions. I've even received return phone calls from voicemail over the past few weeks. "Hi, you left me a message?" "Yes, indeed I did." Cold calling is dead and thank you for returning mine. :-)