When it comes to cold calling for sales, the practice has been less effective over time. Back when people used to answer their phones, sales people could usually reach the decision maker directly or the admin who would patch the call through. With the development of voicemail, all of this changed. Busy admins might still answer calls but they were also just as likely to forward them to voicemail. Calling the decision maker became a hit or miss scenario.
Then came caller ID. Suddenly, cold calls were obsolete. Knowing who was on the line made it easy for admins and decision makers to take calls or simply ignore them. They might not even listen to the voice mail if one was left. Cold callers had to use other methods such as calling accounts receivable and asking to be transferred. Other salespeople resorted to leaving multiple voice messages.
Things got even worse for cold calls with the smartphone, texting, and email. There was less importance placed on picking up phone calls. If it was an important call, the caller would usually send a text to follow up. Why pick up at all unless you're expecting a call?
Traditional sales organizations began to realize that their cold calling was no longer effective. They resorted to methods such as robo-calling, assuming that in a thousand numbers, they'd reach at least a few people who wanted to talk. The downside of this was that cold-callers were quickly lumped into the spam callers and scammers who use the same methods.
Today, approximately 50% of all calls placed are robo-called cold-calls from companies that may or may not be legitimate. Only the elderly population consistently answers a phone and the decision makers are almost always going to avoid picking up a cold call.
Some sales trainers haven't revised their methods since the 1970s when cold calls were still effective. They may advise salespeople to use this method but their success stories are usually decades old. That's not necessarily a bad thing though. Cold calls were obnoxious and often ended up hurting sales more than helping them. After all, trying to reach someone on a phone without any personal or professional connection doesn't do much for your business.
Most sales people are happy that cold calling has become a thing of the past. No one actually misses this sales method and it's not even worth trying. What exactly does work though? Just as the rise of technology led to the demise of cold calling, this also created new opportunities for sales outreach. The average salesperson has more methods than ever before to reach potential clients. Consider the following options as examples of lead generation that are effective:
Recommendations and referrals
Email marketing
Networking and especially social networking
Inbound marketing
These are just a few examples of lead generations that have grown in recent years. They are also more effective at reaching potential clients. An experienced or savvy salesperson knows to leave cold calls in the past and move on to more effective methods.
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