So after months of contemplating whether I should blog about cold-calling (a not so desirable task by many!), I decided to jump in and start my first post! So reader, you might be wondering why I am doing this, what I intend to achieve by doing this, why should you cold-call, and more importantly what's in it for you? Well I hope to address all those questions in this blog!
Why I am doing this?
Ever since I started my sales career, I have been cold-calling - initially it was hard and I had the jitters like everyone else does, but I was young (22 years old), had no clue about life, and more importantly needed a job! What I did notice was that I started to become very good at it and funny enough started to enjoy cold-calling! Huh - how that come about? How can one enjoy cold-calling - well what I found was that if you research your prospects good enough, you become engaging, this leads to more interesting conversations, you then become a pleasant person to know over the phone.
My subsequent roles led me to train salespeople (experienced and mid-career!) by shadowing me - flattering? Well the icing was that they all gained confidence in performing the task. So back again to the answer - I fundamentally believe everybody needs to know how to cold-call - regardless of your industry and given the right set of advice / tools - everyone (including the recipient) will enjoy cold-calling! The key is cold-calling can be done if considered fun, I intend to do just that in this blog.
Why is cold-calling important and what if you don't cold-call?
Besides getting into the fundamental appreciation of cold-calling, again I will stress that everyone should cold-call and know it. But there are a number of training institutes and marketing engines that always talk about the fact - DON'T COLD CALL - and claiming they have a number of methods/ways to achieve the same amount of leads without cold-calling (besides getting leads from referrals and upsells). I don't mean to slander them, but for a moment, just a moment - imagine a world where no one cold-called and leads would trickle in (either by marketing, SEO, websites, referrals, etc.). So, keep imagining that - a world where no one cold-called.
Now say someone broke that rule and started cold-calling - hmmm - don't you think their pipeline and sales would start to get affected against their peers and competition? This alone can help them - imagine all the business they start to gain and get a heads-up on their competition! So, I don't believe cold-calling is the only mechanism that will help grow a pipeline, but it is a part of a number of actions that will help you do that.
Future blogs
So stay tuned in my future blogs I will try to itemize my steps to help you get more value and enjoyment out of your cold-call. My goal is to not only help appreciate people cold-calling, but to maximize quality of connections over the phone with the right target of supplier/vendor and making it pleasant for both sides.
HAPPY CONNECTING!
