Cold Calling - Fish or Fowl?
Cold Calling - Fish or Fowl?
Unfortunately, cold calling is the most expensive and least efficient method of creating leads that exists. That is because cold calling uses an extremely expensive asset – a human being – to do something that is 95-99% of the time of absolutely zero added value.
Dialing the phone, waiting for it to ring into voice-mail, leaving voice-mails with strangers that will never respond, getting stonewalled by gate-keepers, and repeating the entire process ad infinitum fails to utilize any of the capabilities that define us as humans – our intelligence, our creativity, our ability to develop understanding and relationships. All capabilities that are crucial to sales, but virtually wasted by cold calling.
(Like any good rule, there are exceptions. For example, writing unsolicited proposals is definitely a sales task, yet it’s designed to turn a suspect or prospect into a lead. This is one exception, but I can’t think of many others.)
So why do so many companies rely on cold calling as their primary form of lead generation? Because it’s easy, visible and familiar. “There’s Joe. Look at him pound those phones! My, Joe’s doing a great job.” Of course, you’re paying Joe $3,000 or $4,000 per month (or more!), and he hasn’t really brought in much business yet, but he’s such a nice guy and he’s working so hard, you’re sure he will…
Whereas the $500/month you’re spending on search engine optimization – what’s happening with that?!? Of course, traffic to your Website does seem to be rising as each month passes, the number of leads coming off the Web is definitely increasing, your online sales are on the upswing, and the phone does seem to be ringing more than before – but just WHAT is that SEO firm doing for you anyway?! And of course the same could be said about your PR efforts, direct mail campaign etc.
The bottom line is that as human beings we like what we can see, touch and smell. A bank of cold callers with headsets gets an A+ on that score. Unfortunately, it also gets an F in terms of long term effectiveness and efficiency. A major indicator of the sophistication of any company’s understanding of and approach to marketing is the ratio of its investment in cold calling versus all other forms of demand generation marketing. What’s your firm’s ratio and what score yourself on this question?
Cold Calling Fish or Fowl - To learn more about this author, visit Rich Gaasenbeek's Website.
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In my last post, I talked about how marketing should be used to create leads, NOT sales reps. But what about cold calling you ask? Cold calling is a sales rep role and responsibility yet it creates leads, right? Wrong. Cold calling is actually a form of Marketing NOT sales, since it creates leads not customers.
Unfortunately, cold calling is the most expensive and least efficient method of creating leads that exists. That is because cold calling uses an extremely expensive asset – a human being – to do something that is 95-99% of the time of absolutely zero added value.
Dialing the phone, waiting for it to ring into voice-mail, leaving voice-mails with strangers that will never respond, getting stonewalled by gate-keepers, and repeating the entire process ad infinitum fails to utilize any of the capabilities that define us as humans – our intelligence, our creativity, our ability to develop understanding and relationships. All capabilities that are crucial to sales, but virtually wasted by cold calling.
(Like any good rule, there are exceptions. For example, writing unsolicited proposals is definitely a sales task, yet it’s designed to turn a suspect or prospect into a lead. This is one exception, but I can’t think of many others.)
So why do so many companies rely on cold calling as their primary form of lead generation? Because it’s easy, visible and familiar. “There’s Joe. Look at him pound those phones! My, Joe’s doing a great job.” Of course, you’re paying Joe $3,000 or $4,000 per month (or more!), and he hasn’t really brought in much business yet, but he’s such a nice guy and he’s working so hard, you’re sure he will…
Whereas the $500/month you’re spending on search engine optimization – what’s happening with that?!? Of course, traffic to your Website does seem to be rising as each month passes, the number of leads coming off the Web is definitely increasing, your online sales are on the upswing, and the phone does seem to be ringing more than before – but just WHAT is that SEO firm doing for you anyway?! And of course the same could be said about your PR efforts, direct mail campaign etc.
The bottom line is that as human beings we like what we can see, touch and smell. A bank of cold callers with headsets gets an A+ on that score. Unfortunately, it also gets an F in terms of long term effectiveness and efficiency. A major indicator of the sophistication of any company’s understanding of and approach to marketing is the ratio of its investment in cold calling versus all other forms of demand generation marketing. What’s your firm’s ratio and what score yourself on this question?
Cold Calling Fish or Fowl - To learn more about this author, visit Rich Gaasenbeek's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
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 Rich Gaasenbeek (Visit Rich's Website) Rich Gaasenbeek's passion is helping small and medium sized businesses grow faster and make more money through better marketing. Marketing that is integrated, cost-effective and most importantly, lead generation driven. Through his company Marketing Leads Inc. www. marketingleads.ca, Rich helps clients to increase sales to existing customers, generate new leads, enter new markets, and introduce new products and services. Rich is known by some as “the sales reps’ marketer” because of his deep empathy with sales reps and his understanding that any marketing that doesn’t produce a lead doesn’t mean a thing to the average sales rep trying to make his or her quota. Rich's clients appreciate the time he takes to get to know their business, the creativity and commitment he brings to the table, and his overall business savvy.
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