Is Cold Calling Still Good for Business?: The SLMA - Managing leads to maximize sales

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Is Cold Calling Still Good for Business?

Ron LaVine | Articles > From the section: Accountability

November, 2014 |

CEO of Accelerate Your Sales Results, Inc.

Having cold called since my early 20's, I agree with those who think cold calling still remains a part of an effective business generation sales strategy. I am biased because I teach cold calling or what I now call "How to Eliminate Cold Calls and Land Profitable Accounts." I think it can be a frightening experience that leads to fear and rejection if you are in a job and told to cold call without any direction, training or system to follow.

I also think the words "cold calling" get a bad rap. When done correctly, cold calling can become warm calling, referral calling, smart calling or one of dozens of other labels. "Never again cold calling" seems like an excuse to rely solely upon in-bound demand generation.

The disadvantage of this philosophy is two-fold. One, you have to hope you have a real effective demand generation program which targeted prospects respond too.

Secondly, you are waiting on the buyers to discover you (and hopefully not your competitors first) - if and only if they think they may have a need.

This overlooks the fact that many buyers are not even aware of a problem until it is pointed out to them, and this often take place on a cold call which can lead to an appointment for further discussion.

The biggest problem I see in cold calling today, for which there is no excuse, is when cold callers have not done their homework on the companies they call. The other problem I find is that many of these cold callers have not clearly defined their target market or who the most ideal client to cold call is, and therefore waste a lot of time cold calling on the wrong people and companies.
The fact is, a cold call, when pre-call planned properly, is an excellent way to introduce the ability of your solutions to potentially solve a decision-maker's problems. Cold calling can provide you with an opportunity to educate these people about what is going on within their industry and how your clients, who are in a similar industry as them, are solving comparable problems the decision-maker may be facing.

In the end, the advent of social media and demand generation, combined with outbound lead generation, makes what I believe to be the most effective combination. I still continue to cold call to this day and enjoy it very much. I highly recommend it continue to be done in an effective manner using a simple, easy to learn and use repeatable system.

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Ron LaVine

Ron is CEO and Founder of Accelerate Your Sales Results, Inc., an Oak Park, CA, new business development sales training company. You'll find useful sales resources @http://www.AccelerateYourSalesResults.com/resources/. Get articles like these in Ron LaVine's "Sales Ideas Report Email Newsletter (The S-I-R-E-N)" complementary, monthly eZine. You can get links to great posts and articles on all aspects of sales and marketing by following Ron on Twitter @ https://www.twitter.com/RonSLaVine. Connect with Ron on LinkedIn @http://www.linkedin.com/in/RonLaVine.

Learn more about by "How to Eliminate Cold Calls - Sales Prospecting Training Live Call Workshops™" onsite, virtual, individual or group by calling Ron at 818-991-6487.