Document Sample
Cold_Calling_May_Be_A_Waste_Of_Time Powered By Docstoc
					Cold Calling May Be A Waste Of Time

Word Count:

too many sales managers these days preach cold calling as the way to go
to generate sales leads. But why do they keep pushing a system that has
such a low success rate when their are more practical ways to generate
new business?

cold calling,cold calls,salespeople,dream sales job,generate leads,sales

Article Body:
It is a fact of life for most new sales people; they get the dream sales
job with unlimited earning potential and expect to earn so much money
that they can now enjoy the fruits of their coming wealth. Everything
seems perfect until they realize that before closing a sale and earning
the big commission, they must first prospect for new customers (read,
cold calls). Cold calling is hard to do. People hate to make cold calls
and people hate being on the receiving end of them as well.

Prospecting is the most difficult part of the sales job. There are many
ways to go about it but, for some reason, sales managers preach cold
calling as the only way for young sales people to generate leads. As
someone who has been through it, I wish that these attitudes would

I recently read one of the best selling books on cold calling. In this
book, the author stresses persistence. He uses the 15-3-1 rule. That is,
you need to make fifteen cold calls to make three appointments with
prospects. Out of these 3 appointments you will close one sale. By being
persistent and making fifteen cold calls a day, this will translate to,
on average, one sale a day, five sales a week, twenty sales a month, etc.
Further, the author explains that he doesn't mind the rejection that he
gets when he cold calls. The reason is that since it takes fifteen calls
to get an appointment, that means that he will hear the word "no"
(rejection) fourteen times before he hears the word "yes."

This is simplistic and anybody reading this book may get overexcited and
think that this is easy. It's not easy and the author's arguments don't
hold up in real life selling.

Take the fifteen cold calls a day rule. Anybody reading this book will
think that fifteen cold calls a day is nothing. If it takes 2-3 minutes
to make a phone call, it shouldn't take more than 45 minutes to make your
mandatory 15 calls. Then the rest of the day is spent selling in front of
But it doesn't work this way. If you've ever cold called, you will know
that it usually takes at least 10 phone calls to reach a decision maker.
Think about it, executives aren't sitting in their offices waiting for
your call. They're either on the phone, in meetings, on vacation, or they
just don't want to talk to you. So now, to talk to fifteen people, you
need to make 150 cold calls. This is not 45 minutes of work; this can
take days.

Further, for someone to say that he enjoys hearing the word "no" because
it means he is getting closer to a "yes" is just misleading. Although a
select few people can take this kind of rejection day in and day out,
most cannot. It is only human nature to be discouraged by so much

There are better ways to get sales leads and increase your sales. People
buy from people that they trust. Your time should be spent networking
with your friends, colleagues, and business contacts. Get referrals, get
introductions, get testimonials and the sales will come. Not only that,
your job will be better; nobody likes the rejection and time consuming
nature of cold calling.

Shared By: