Does Business Cold Calling Make Sense?

I'm sure that virtually every sales rep or business owner who has ever picked up the phone has asked themselves the question, "Does cold calling make sense or is this just a colossal waste of time?" The reality is that cold calling or as it's more politely referred to, "telephone prospecting" does make sense as long as it's at least a warm call rather than a blast of glacial water. Here's what I mean.

There's not doubt that telephone contact increase the yield of any marketing effort. Numerous studies done by the Direct Marketing Association and Sales & Marketing Executives International, point to the fact that you will get more new business if you incorporate telephone calls into the overall marketing mix.

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However, the key phrase here is "incorporating calls into the overall marketing mix." Making a cold call blindly rarely produces anything positive. Alternatively, calling a prospect after they have self-identified themselves as being interested in what you do, can pay enormous dividends. This makes a lot of logical sense.

In the first scenario, you're desperately trying to get the person on the other end of the call not to hang up on you, while at the same time; your prospect is desperately seeking an avenue of escape. Hardly the optimal environment for building a long-lasting relationship of trust.

However, in the second scenario, the exchange is dramatically different. Once someone has indicated their interest in your services by requesting a free report or some other offer, now you are simply following up. There's a lot less pressure, and a lot more reason for making the call.

With a typical "cold call" you have to hook the listener's attention with some sort of great hook or opening line. That's pretty hard to do. What usually occurs is some sort of lame version of "If I could show you a way to earn a gazillion dollars/reduce your taxes to zero/lose 50 pounds by tomorrow...would you want to learn more?" Although these are obviously exaggerations, the reality is that you have to say something pretty outrageous in order to have any sort of chance of not having your listener hang up on you.

Alternatively, when you are following up on a request someone made for your free report, you now have a number of more mature questions that can be used to get the conversation started. These include; "I was curious what prompted your interest in our free report?" "Did you find that it gave you some good food for thought?" "The report discusses (this specific business problem). Is that an issue for your company?" All of these questions can get the conversation started without you coming across as a cheesy salesperson.

As a general rule it's often a good idea to have a short script prepared before you make any follow-up call. Working with scripts is sort of a good news/bad news scenario. The negative is that if you try to read the script word-for-word, you'll sound like, well, that you're reading a script.

On the positive side, a good script can help you get over the "initial jitters" that occur when you start making any type of business follow up call. They also serve as a good psychological safety net, even if you don't actually ever use it.

Business telephone calling will definitely increase your volume of new business. However make sure that you're following up on the phone after your prospect has taken first step and indicated that they have at least a little interest in your services.

Does Business Cold Calling Make Sense?

There are many guerilla marketing ideas for getting lots more new business and this is just one of them. Sign up right now for Mark's free online newsletter that will show you how. http://www.GentleRainMarketing.com