The most active engagement post I have written in the last year is around my comments on how cold calling is dead. Here’s why I want to bring this topic up. A recent study from Forrester, which is a big research company, shows clearly that 92% of executives will not answer a cold call. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to waste my time to find the 8% who will because that will be worse than trying to find a needle in a haystack.
What I encourage you to do instead is warm up those calls. Connect with people on LinkedIn, Facebook, or whatever social media platform your prospects are active on. Send emails. Go to live events or host live events. After you do this, then you can make the calls to people who you’ve been engaging with.
[bctt tweet=”I urge you this year to get rid of pure cold calling and embrace an approach where you’re warming up your prospects. ” username=”EngageColleen”]
I want to be really clear on this. I’m not saying that the phone call is dead. I’m not saying that you’ll never have to pick up the phone. I’m not saying that you’ll never make introductory calls. What I am saying is that you can no longer call random strangers that you’ve never met and expect to make an appointment. Instead, you have to warm them up with multiple forms of media and then pick up the phone to make a sales appointment. In doing so, you will reach the 92% of executives that want to engage with you.