If you haven’t spent time manning the phones recently trying to scare up new clients, you may have forgotten how utterly frustrating the process of cold calling client lists can actually be. The act of sitting down in front of that brilliant piece of communication technology can be daunting, and the rejection received on the other end can be wholly disheartening. This is especially true if this is to be your first point of contact for these prospective new clients.
With this level of frustration, you need to ask yourself, is this really worth it? The answer is actually more complex than yes or no, and actually hovers around the place of “it depends.”
Cold calling can be a great way to find new business and secure new clients. However, you should never waste your time calling a completely cold lead. If you look at your investment in time and the return that you receive, there are much more productive ways to spend your time.
Instead of trying to prospect cold leads, spend your time and resources developing cold leads into at least moderately warm leads before picking up the phone. My personal rule of thumb is that I never call an unsolicited cold lead until they have been exposed to my personal brand at least five times. In that vein, I use the 4MySales prospecting system to touch these cold leads with email, direct mail, new announcements, market updates and other bits of information. I make sure that each lead gets exposed to my message in some form or other at least five times before picking up the phone. After at least five exposures, the prospect is much less likely to just hang up on me, and may be familiar enough with me and my services to offer a good conversation, and even a possible referral.
Cold calling can be a difficult task and a daunting waste of time if the lead list is entirely cold. Take the time to warm up the list by sending out your message in a couple of different formats before taking the time to pick up the phone.
With this level of frustration, you need to ask yourself, is this really worth it? The answer is actually more complex than yes or no, and actually hovers around the place of “it depends.”
Cold calling can be a great way to find new business and secure new clients. However, you should never waste your time calling a completely cold lead. If you look at your investment in time and the return that you receive, there are much more productive ways to spend your time.
Instead of trying to prospect cold leads, spend your time and resources developing cold leads into at least moderately warm leads before picking up the phone. My personal rule of thumb is that I never call an unsolicited cold lead until they have been exposed to my personal brand at least five times. In that vein, I use the 4MySales prospecting system to touch these cold leads with email, direct mail, new announcements, market updates and other bits of information. I make sure that each lead gets exposed to my message in some form or other at least five times before picking up the phone. After at least five exposures, the prospect is much less likely to just hang up on me, and may be familiar enough with me and my services to offer a good conversation, and even a possible referral.
Cold calling can be a difficult task and a daunting waste of time if the lead list is entirely cold. Take the time to warm up the list by sending out your message in a couple of different formats before taking the time to pick up the phone.
1 comment:
Cold Calling is pretty rough.
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