In my many years in sales management, I've always realized that the least favorite area of prospecting for any salesperson would have to be 'cold calling', wouldn't it$%: That would include contacting either by phone or in person. The question is, "does it work or is it a total waist of time$%:"
Even the most battle hardened veterans don't find cold calling very appealing, yet it's the place many rookies start and sadly, end their selling careers. For the most part, my personal belief is that cold calling is kind of like this.
You decide to go duck hunting. You get out the shotgun, grab a couple boxes of shells and head out into a field or pond somewhere. You load the gun, pump a shell into the firing chamber, point the gun skyward and pull the trigger. Of course, you hope that there's a duck flying by. Oh, there wasn't. Just repeat the process. Load, point and shoot.
Load, point and shoot. Load, point and shoot. Isn't this fun$%: What no ducks yet$%: Load, point and shoot. Gee the gun barrel is getting a little hot and you're running out of shells. Still, you have no duck. Have you figured out yet that I'm not a fan of cold calling$%:
Believe me when I tell you, I have tried it a ton when I was a new salesperson. I even counselled sales reps to cold call back when I was a rookie manager. Finally, finally I understand, I get it, cold calling plain and simple doesn't work. Boy, the pain feels so good when it stops.
The reason it doesn't work any more, if it ever did, is it has way too many things stacked against it. The first thing is that most folks are just far too busy in their lives to be very receptive to unsolicited interruptions.
Consider everyone's friend, the telemarketer that calls at meal time or in the middle of your favorite TV program. Ask yourself, how do you feel when someone interrupts you$%: It doesn't matter, whether you are interrupted at work or at home, these intrusions are generally not welcomed and are often met with quite hostile reactions.
I have a great deal of empathy for the salespeople who try to make their living as telemarketers. Often these people are new to the selling field and they are simply trying to make a living. If they are able to read, the telemarketing companies themselves offer these folks a few bucks an hour, maybe some bonus money and a prewritten high pressure sales script and turn them out to the public as cannon fodder.
Because the scripts are self serving rather than customer serving most are actually very rude in nature. As much as I feel empathy for the telemarketers who make the calls, I disapprove of the tactics and the unprofessional behavior of both the telemarketing companies and the companies that utilize them.
Today many households use answering machines and call display features to try to screen out these calls. That means that they are so ticked off at unsolicited calls that they actually spend money to avoid them.
Why would you think that an unsolicited call from you would be treated any differently$%: You know that when a salesperson calls, the purpose is to sell you something, isn't it$%: There is no need to volunteer for the potential abuse that greets salespeople making unsolicited cold calls.
There are many different ways to obtain potential new customers. Cold calling is the least effective and most damaging to the salesperson's self esteem.
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