Proof Unintelligent Cold Calling is a Killer

I've been in professional B2B selling over three decades and I've made tens of thousands of cold calls. I've consistently ranked in the top 5% of performers everywhere I've worked and making cold calls has been part of that success.

But the world has changed with buyers being harder to reach, more empowered with information, and increasingly stressed and time-poor. There is a new reality that many won't acknowledge... Cold calling is a low yield activity that can destroy morale and annoy potential clients... even kill a sales career outright due to overwhelming rejection, negativity and day after day of failure. I know that some statistics can be dubious but these support the case for a more intelligent approach.

Pounding the phone is like charging at the machine guns... it's not noble, it's just stupid.

• Less than 1% of cold calls lead to a sale (source: DSWA)
• Only 2% of cold calls result in an appointment (source: Leap Job)
• 91% of the time, cold calling doesn’t yield any result at all (source: Harvard Business Review)
• It takes on average 8 attempts to reach a prospect in 2016 with a cold call versus less than 4 attempts in 2007 (source: TeleNet and Ovation Sales Group)
• Cold calling is 60% more expensive per lead than other methods (source: HubSpot)

Yes, the phone remains the most powerful tool for connection and 'social selling', and it is the next best thing to a face-to-face meeting for creating human connection.

The #1 problem sales people say they have: Not enough pipeline!

But creating pipeline needs to be done intelligently with the seller having context for the outreach and value in the conversation rather than value from what the are seeking to sell.

A warm introductions with context and relevance is the shortest path to securing a conversation that creates a qualified prospect. 90% of CXOs will never take a cold call but they always respond to a referral introduction from trusted friend. But here is the irony...

91% of customer say they’d give referrals but only 11% of salespeople ask for them. (source:  Dale Carnegie )

Here are positive research statistics that support a referral strategy:

• 80% of personal introductions generate a sale (source: DSWA)
• You are almost 5 times more likely to schedule a first meeting if you have a personal LinkedIn connection (source: Sales Benchmark Series)
• 98% of sales reps with 5000+ LinkedIn connections achieve quota (source: Sales Benchmark Index)

If you're not using LinkedIn's Sales Navigator then you're asleep at the wheel as you head for sales pipeline drop-off cliff. LinkedIn and Sales Navigator can help you broker an introduction in three ways: How You’re Connected, 3rd-degree network profiles, and TeamLink. Here is the definitive case for investing in LinkedIn.

Research is the key in intelligent targeted prospecting and the very best use their own CRM plus Google and LinkedIn for understanding these areas:

1. Target customer industry trends and drivers (know the competitive market within which the prospect operates)
2. Target customer drivers, initiatives and performance; alone with any historical engagement within the CRM.
3. Individual relationships to identify the very best entry point and highest probability introduction and context for engagement

Here is the path of least resistance for building quality sales pipeline: Interview your most successful customers to find what happened inside their organisation that caused them to go down the path that eventually led to your solution. Structure you existing client interviews in a way that answers these questions:

• What trigger events should you be listening for?
• What problems should be looking for?
• What does a dream potential client really look like?

Finding alignment is better than evangelism but to secure high yield warm introductions we must first do our research!

Leveraging multiple outreach channels rather than using the phone alone will dramatically increase results but only if you have the right narrative built around insight and value for the buyer well in advance of them investing to become your customer.

Go beyond 'social selling' and think 'digital selling'... harness all the tools available

Here is some brilliant advice from Marcy Massura on things to avoid as you seek to build pipeline and earn the trust of the customer. The link below is where you'll really find some provocative ideas....

Here is where you'll see why cold calling alone is dead and what to do instead... Combination Selling!

Special thanks to Rob Petersen for his blog that consolidates many sales statistics and to Graham Hawkins for inspiring me to write about this topic when his post on cold calling generated so much controversy.

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main image source: Google - out of copyright and no attribution available.