Are you sick of reading marketing tactics for sales books that read like this?
Do you dread calling prospects? Are you sick and tired of rejection? Prospecting for customers is a necessary part of doing business, but you don’t have to suffer through it anymore. There’s a better way…
What about this one?
Nobody likes cold calling, and for good reason. Most of the time, cold calls don’t work and end up wasting everyone’s time. Smart Calling gives you a new and better way to approach prospects and win sales. So forget about cold calling; get Smart Calling. Don’t pick up the phone without it!
This type of marketing copy is so old old and tired. In fact, it just plain stinks. Do they really think that we don’t see their attempt to prey on the basic human fears of rejection and failure? Do they really think smart sales reps will believe that they will never be rejected in sales? That’s laughable.
Do they really think that looking something up on a social network all of a sudden changes a cold call to a warm call. It doesn’t. It is still a cold call. I don’t care if you know everything to know about a prospect’s business; if you call someone that is not expecting your call, or call someone that has not left their contact information in a form on your company website, than your call is a cold call.
The only type of sales call that is not a cold call is an inbound lead. Even then the prospect is not expecting your call, so that at best is a warm call.
If the author of this book and their marketing team believe these statements, should you be taking their advice?
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More and more of our clients report that they call to follow up on a marketing activity like a download and the prospect outright denies that they even did the thing that the computer says they did. What does this mean? It means that folks on the Internet are half zombies. Can you tell me the last 10 websites that you visited and what you did? They call it surfing for a reason – you only really remember the best wave of the day and the rest just blend together. The net, net of all of this for salespeople is that you still have to figure out a way to pick up the phone and engage your prospect in a dialogue. In a high end B2B sales environment, nothing will ever replace the moxy it takes to create this interaction.
By the way I hate that 'warm calling' b.s., too. Cold calling is like parenting: you can never really be totally prepared, so just pick up the phone and do it.
Cold calling is fun.Basic communication skills 101! Look at it as the newest and oldest way to network and socialize. Nothing like looking someone in the eye shaking their hand,( Keep the sanitizer handy) and start networking and socializing until you find something in common.Then ask them if they have time to talk about what you do. Now or set an appointment to come back and probe for opportunity to sell and service the account.
Call it what you like if you do not do it daily you will not eat well. Most likely will find your self unemployed.
hard work lifting up the phone , or driving down the street and get out of the car to communicate with someone you do not know. The bottom line you have to get out an make calls to build a funnel and make long term sales, I can attest to the fact that you will get a lot more satisfaction from what you farm and eat, or hunt and eat, than the blue bird that lands in your lap.
Good Hunting
Chad,
Maybe we're just debating semantics, but I think I disagree.
I get two types of calls/emails:
- the majority are totally uneducated about my company, me and give me no reason to call them back. Yesterday we announced an additional round of financing, and my mailbox is full. They are just an annoyance, and add no value. They actually make me feel bad, because I like to respond to everyone's call/email, but there is just no way I can respond to all these cold calls.
- once in a while, I get a well researched outreach that shows the person took the time to find a reason why I should reply to them. I always reply to them. Maybe with a "tell me more," maybe with a polite no, but always with a reason. They took the time to be thoughtful, I owe them a response. I call them warm calls, but the semantics don't matter, the action does.
I want the cold calls to stop (at least to me). Keep the educated outreaches coming. When we get to this state, the marketing messages will stop. My person experience is that we are far, far away from that nirvana.
Actually you supported our position. What Chad is saying, and I am sure he will speak for himself, is that he is bored by all the hype around "cold calling is dead" so "smart call" or whatever other "insert the adjective call" people want to use. How much yelling into an echo chamber can we do??
The people who called you because they saw that you got funding…they thought they were smart calling or using trigger events or whatever.. and they were. But apparently they either didn't use them well or didn't take into account timing. The whole world heard you got funding (congrats btw) and they all jumped on the bandwagon. Personally, I think they should have waited till the dust settled, taken a bit of time to learn more about you, your organization and what you plan to do with the funds and then called with a message that tied their solution or product to your goals.
The point Chad expressed so well, and that it took me a bit and now I agree with, is that we hear you…we get it…now tell us something we don't know.
Great conversation going on here — this is the type of stuff I love to see.
The point I'm driving home here is that "smart calling" is a buzz word that is the result of a larger shift taking place in the way we share and find information. There are many great tools like InsideView's that have value for sales organizations. These sales technologies can make reps more efficient and relevant in their conversations with customers and prospects. Despite being armed with more information and valuable ideas that may be a fit for your customer, when you pick up the phone and call someone that is not expecting your call…. it is still a cold call. It's just a cold call with a better purpose.
Thoughts?
Trish,
I know YOU hear the message, and you run a sophisticated sales team. But the message isn't for you (and probably not for Chad either). It's for the majority who still waste their own time and others' insisting on a strategy that doesn't work (and, that is going to work less and less as time goes by and our filters get better and better).
You are right, just saying "cold calling doesn't work" doesn't solve the problem. And I think there is plenty of content to explain how to do better outbound calling. I guess what we need to do is:
- understand why so many people still cold call. I think it's because it's easy for companies to give reps a list of numbers and tell them to go at it. It requires no thinking or work.
- make sure that better outbound calling is made easier and easier, and more and more effective
- and, obviously, drive more inbound leads that have high conversion rates
Chad,
If you agree that sales productivity will come from outbound calls with a better purpose, I think we have to choose a different name for that activity. If we call it the same thing as its low yield cousin (the outbound call WITHOUT a purpose) then we can't educate the world on ways to do more of the good thing and less of the bad thing (through training, process and technology).
Thank you for hosting this dialog
Your point of view makes sense, here, Chad…but I also see another side to what is being done with these 'outreach' efforts. [Having purchased a while back, the book/CD from the main guy who started this "trend"], by him sending these emails out, means he IS NOT actually cold-calling…you. Or me.
More, on a bigger sense, I actually believe what's being done here with this type of effort, as the main point being made here I think is that there are MANY ways to be successful in Sales…yet all too often we are shackled into modes, or methods, that yield little or NO success at all.
Chad, have you actually read the book? Those are very strong statements you make. Give the word and I'll have my publisher send you a review copy.
And by the way, perhaps you can ask my thousands of clients over the past 27 years if they take my advice.
Art Sobczak
President, Business By Phone Inc.
Author of "Smart Calling"
Art,
Thanks for commenting. I bought the book and it's up next after I finish Socialnomics by Eric Qualman. I'm looking forward to diving into it. I was highlighting the marketing copy used to promote the book as old and out dated, not your experience in the industry.
Can you elaborate on social engineering and how it makes a cold call now a warm call?
Correct me if I am wrong, but I'm pretty certain "warm call" has not been used in any of the book promotion, and I'm also sure I don't use it IN the book. It is SMART Calling, as you'll read.
You'll also read about not being rejected, which you term as laughable. Rejection is a person's definition and choice of feelings based on an experience, not the experience itself. Getting no's is a part of sales, just as shooting and missing is part of basketball. Instead of choosing to feel rejected, I suggest (as I have for over 20 years) you can always accomplish something on every call, as minor as it might often be. This helps keep our attitude up, which is required when we proactively put ourselves in positions where we will not accomplish our primary objective a majority of the time.
I respect your right to have an opinion, but before you slam someone in a public forum I suggest doing your research, and having the facts correct.
Art, come on man! You're trying to tell me that there is a difference between a smart call and a warm call? Feel free to hash that one out for me. They are the same thing, just with different spins. No matter what you name a phone call to a prospect, it is a cold call, unless you are calling an inbound lead.
You're trying to tell me, that when you ask, "are you sick and tired of rejection?", that your book is not proposing it can reduce the amount of rejection inherent in sales. If not, the marketing copy sure reads that way.
Again, I respect the work you do, but I stand firm that the marketing copy for the book is old, out dated, and an attempt to prey on the basic human emotion of fear.
I think one of your commercials brought on my web browser to resize, you could wish to put that against your blacklist.
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