It depends what you mean by "sell." I would agree that actually closing a sale on a cold call is very old school and probably doesn't happen a whole lot. However, if you can target your potential customers well cold calling is still a great way to find those prospects that have a need for your product or service. The sale may be several meetings or several years away - but cold calling is the foot in the door to find interested prospects.

Turning cold calling into warm calling is not too tough to do and is much more pleasant for you and your prospect.More effective and likely to be productive as well. Focus on what you know about the person, e.g.- "I saw that you advertised in the symphony program last Saturday. I really enjoyed the show, what did you think of it?"

Relationships are formed in any way you choose, just be sure you choose to form a relationship rather than "make a sale".

Karl Heckman
Effectiveness Coach to Professionals

Cold calling is as good, valid, and useful today as it ever has been. Coming from a company that had an outbound B2B calling department doing NOTHING but cold calls all day to set appointments for a salesforce of 200, I can honestly say that it was one of the most treasured tactics for acquiring new business.

This has become even more apparent now that I'm working for a small 5 person business. Marketing simply isn't enough. You have to sell - you have to cold call!

Cold calling is spam with a human voice, spam works otherwise why would spammers utilize it. The only reason people are reticent about cold calling is rejection and if rejection is the issue then it is either ones own ego that one is massaging or ones conscience. Street-sales is not about ego its about getting a sale, its more about survival than relationships and whoever talks about "hot calling" or referrals in the same breath as cold calling. Lets face it nobody in their right mind is going to give you a referral if cold calls are the anxiety lines etched out on your face. Cold calling therefore is for popping the newbie salespersons cherry and later on if its still the primary tool for your sales expeditions, it means either you have become an expert in creating fickle relationships or you realize that worklife for the majority and the minions are the statistics of effort and guile.

Bottom line if your occupation is purely a numbers game do whatever it takes, execute the number of plays it requires to score the customer touchdown, but if its a 1-to-1 relationship secure the customer touchpoint and count your blessings that you discovered a kinder and gentler way to work for a living or in terms of extreme nirvana - (the nice work if you get it).

M.
zorromark@consultant.com
(Mark Twain wasn't Mark Twain, Mark Zorro isn't Mark Zorro)
http://www.markzorro.blogspot.com

Cold calling is not the ideal "selling" situation, but I agree with Karl Heckman that key is to turn this into warm calling. If you are focused on one particular industry, building your relationship web over the course of time is important. Stay in tune with your prospect's business, focus on bringing relevance and value at opportune times. When your prospect knows you are investing your time into thinking about business solutions for them, you are more apt to be top of mind when that real opportunity comes along.

On the other hand, cold calling is necessary and valuable when you are targeting a new industry or establishing your service. In this case, you can benefit by:
- Creating a tightly focused prospect list
- Developing a custom "sales" pitch for each
- Making the calls
- Following up
- Being persistent, but not pesky

You may also consider offering your services "introductory" - there's no better promotion than letting the work speak for itself.

And of course, patience, diligence and being able to shake off rejection is key.

Good selling!
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