Is Cold Calling Effective? Let’s Dive A Bit Deeper

Sep 23, 2019

Is cold calling effective today, or is it a complete waste of time?

In today’s landscape, there is so much talk of cold calling being dead due to the activity being abused by spammers and telemarketers who rent lists.

So, the age old question is what should you focus your sales attention on?

Is cold calling effective, or should you focus your prospecting on other related sales activities?

In this article, we’ll look at cold calling effectiveness, the initial purpose of your cold call, and tips to increase its effectiveness.

Is Cold Calling Effective?

The answer to the question ‘Is cold calling effective?’ is both yes and no.

First, let’s look at the yes.

Cold calling can be effective if you speak to the right person, and if you go into the call with the right strategy.

In regard to the right person, when cold calling; you want to be calling someone within the business who can benefit from your product or service.

Simply speaking to anyone who will give you a chance won’t help you with your sales efforts, because they may not be a decision maker or someone who would benefit from your product or service.

A great way of finding out who the right person to speak with is, is looking up their business structure before you call.

LinkedIn is a fantastic way of doing this, because it allows you to look up the company, the employees within that company, and then find the right person’s name within that role.

In fact – we have a prospecting course built around this; finding your target audience on LinkedIn, scraping for their email address using a nifty tool, and then outreaching via email before your cold call.

You can learn more by clicking the link here.

Secondly, another reason people generally ask is cold calling effective, is because they’re not having much luck due to speaking with someone who wouldn’t benefit from your product or service.

Cold calling is a great way to speak with people who would benefit with the outcomes of your product, and then learning who within the company you need to speak with to make a decision happen – and at least arrange a meeting to discuss it further.

Cold calling is not effective if you’re calling to speak with anyone from the company, and not speaking with people who would not have a vested interest in your product or service within that company.

Is Cold Calling Effective To Sell Your Product Or Service?

Another reason why people ask this question, is generally because their sales strategy may be off.

If you’re calling people who have never heard about you, your product or service, or your business and trying to sell them straight away, of course you’re going to ask is cold calling effective.

This is because you won’t have much luck this way.

Instead, you should be using the phone call as mentioned to speak with either a decision maker, or someone within the company who would be interested in your product or service.

Secondly – it’s imperative that you don’t go into premature selling mode.

There’s no trust or desire yet build with your prospect, so at the moment you’re in no place to sell.

Furthermore, you haven’t taken the time yet to get to know them, build rapport, and learn about their needs and desires, so you aren’t in a position to sell them.

Instead, follow the next set of steps to increase your cold calling effectiveness.

Tips To Increase Your Cold Calling Effectiveness

If you’re asking is cold calling effective in today’s day and age; the chances are your strategy may be slightly off, or you’ve been taught to cold call incorrectly. This isn’t a major issue, as most people aren’t taught how to cold call correctly.

The simple steps are:

Do some homework: Find out who the best person is to speak with prior to making the call
Learn about the company: By doing some up front research, you’ll demonstrate you care about their individual and unique needs
Send an email prior: A great way to break through the ice and build some familiarity, is to send an email before you make the call. This way when you call, you’re going to stand out among all the other people who just call up front, and they already will be familiar with your name

As previously mentioned, you can learn how to do this, as well as take our template for doing this by learning more here.

Most importantly – when you’re cold calling, you should be trying to sell the next step.

The next step may be:

A Skype call
A meeting with decision makers
Or a face to face conversation to gather more intelligence, learn about decision makers, sales cycle, and much more.

This way, you’re making micro commitments versus asking for a large commitment up front.

It’s easier for people to take small micro commitments if they don’t know you, versus going into the sale up front.

Final Thoughts

Simply put; is cold calling effective? Yes, but only when done correctly.

People are very busy, and time is an asset that people don’t want to waste.

Cold calling as mentioned, has excellent benefits.

A lot of marketing efforts end up wasted.

This is due to the wrong people seeing the ads, and it becomes wasted as spend.

Cold calling cuts through this, and puts you in front of the right decision maker.

For this reason, it’s very beneficial for new startups and business owners.

Staying lean is crucial for new business owners who are bootstrapping their business.

However, this only works if you position yourself correctly.

If you want to learn more about sales effectiveness and overall increasing your sales, you can do so by registering for our 7 day sales challenge here.