Yes and No.
I know this is a hot topic right now.
Traditional cold calling seems to be a thing in the past. How many of us like an interruption in our day of someone trying to sell us something? I particularly like the ones that do not even ask, “Is this a good time to talk?” Or, I had one recently where the guy made it sound like he was representing the firm that put on a trade show I participated in. After I realized I was being sold, it kind of pissed me off. I decided not to do business with him anyway, because he had been deceitful.
I hired an expert in cold calling several years ago. She had built a successful IT Staffing business before cold calling had become so widespread. She got frustrated because it had become much harder to get people to even want to talk. Cold calling in her mind was dead.
Those are my anecdotes.
What are the statistics?
Proponents of cold calls will tell you, it depends on the industry. But the fact of the matter is it is about numbers. On one site I found, the sales manager did the math to figure out how his people could make the $100k the owner says they could. He found his folks would need to make 510 calls a day. He already knew that he needed to “speak” to 100 people in order to get three buying customers (a .0058 percent close rate from calls to closes). He presented the numbers to the owner and suggested the following:
- Purchase a bigger list to support the increased numbers needed.
- Or, increase commissions so reps can earn the 100k
- Or, find new ways to work smarter.
The owner’s response: “The reps might do better than those statistics.”
I am not suggesting that the phone is dead. It just needs to be used differently. Prospects need to be warmed up before calls are made. And at a .0058% close rate, there has got to be a better way.
How can social media help?
In B2B, social media can play an important role. It is a list building exercise, only it’s a list you build. The ROI in social media is building the list of possible customers, and industry contacts. An organic list is more valuable to you than a rented or purchased list. If you are generating conversation through social with your marketplace, they are more likely to do business with you.
With social media, it won’t take 100 conversations to get three clients. You can start getting one client in about eight phone conversations — which happens after you’ve laid the groundwork through a social network. Your sales pipeline becomes more predictable.
Cold calling in the traditional sense is dead. But, warm calling is alive and well. Social Media can help warm those folks up.
