Cold-calling as a way of sales prospecting gets bashed too much. Cold-calling is a fundamental sales strategy any salesperson can use. Just because there are sales gurus who advocate the era of cold-calling is dead does not it mean it really is. For most sales people today, cold-calling is a seldom-used sales strategy. This is often because of the cost of the technique in terms of the sales ROI compared to other sales strategies.
My philosophy is cold-calling is a sales strategy that has a place in nearly everyone’s sales tool kit. The degree to which it will be used will vary based on numerous factors. In this blog entry, I’m not going to elaborate on the “whys” and the “wheres” of cold-calling. I’m simply encouaging you to consider that merely because there are voices out there saying cold-calling is old-fashioned does not mean you should do away with it completely. It is imperative for any top-performing salesperson to be able to cold-call, and you can’t become a top-performing salesperson until you can cold-call without missing a beat. For most salespeople, true cold-calling is engaged in probably less than 3 – 5% of the time. However, this is only an average, a new salesperson may engage in cold-calling 80% of the time, while a veteran may only do it 1%. The key is to never lose the skill, but keep it available in your sales tool box. You never know when the situation will arise requiring you to cold-call to develop business.
