I got a cold call from someone this morning and ended up hanging up on them. I'll let you find out why by watching my 2 minute rant below.
In tough economic times cold calling is the first thing that sales managers tell their salespeople to do more of. "Pick up the phone and call someone we have no relationship with, that we've never called on before and ask them for the business. It's cheap and it is what sets the good salespeople apart from the average."
Nothing could be further from the truth.
In tough times people who have the opportunity to buy from you are being bombarded by insane cold callers like the guy who called me this morning. They are setting up barriers so they can't be reached and they are not returning calls because of the volume of calls they receive.
Rather than cold call, get an introduction, a referral, get them to want to talk to you. Warm them up first and if you do cold call, don't start pushing your product right from the beginning, understand what the other person needs and wants and then craft your pitch to match it. The idea would be to warm them up first and then on a second call even start talking about how you can help. Better yet, let your marketing warm them up so that they know you are going to be calling.
I'm going to be writing about this extensively in my new book on selling in tough times which will be out in May.
Watch this rant, I think you'll get something from it! (apologies for not changing into more professional business attire before I ranted, I'm in the middle of writing and these are my writing clothes).