Thoughtful Thursdays – A cold sales call – there is no such thing
I posted on the subject of cold sales calls a couple of years ago and it continues to be common subject matter with my clients. I dug up the original post, mad a few edits and here are my latest thoughts on the subject of cold sales calls.
There are many views on the subject of cold calling. For myself, a cold call involves attempting to talk to a person I do not know about a something I have no idea whether or not they will be interested in. In my mind that is a marketing activity as it results in the generation of prospects, not sales. Today, this is often a telemarketing function. At that point the prospect is handed over to the sales force for follow-up. You may have marketing and sales responsibilities, but do not confuse the objectives for the two functions.
Marketing activities produce prospects and sales activities produce customers.
I don’t consider any call ‘cold’. In the worst situation I will be calling someone I have not talked to previously, but with the belief that they may be interested in doing business with me due to research that has been conducted. It is not a call out of the blue sky. Here are a few tips when making those qualifying calls:
- Approach each call as an opportunity to help
- Lead with your value proposition
- Know your competitive advantage
- Be excited about the opportunity
- Know that not every prospect will be interested
- If the prospect is truly not interested, have a response to find out why – after all they have been
- previously identified as a business or person that might be interested
Interestingly, these are tips that apply to making all sales calls.
There is no such thing as a cold sales call, so get out there and start helping.
Good selling,
Richard
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