It's quite possibly the most out-dated form of communication that your business is engaging in, and yet, it's also the most important. Without sales, your business withers and dies... I totally get it - and there's a formula out there that's been chewed up and spit out a million times over the course of... well... decades upon decades... maybe more.
And, even early on, nearly 100 years ago, people found cold calling to be invasive and really annoying. Check out this case from 1933 (Town of Green River v. Fuller Brush Co) wherein a town in the US tried to outlaw door-to-door sales because of how annoyed people would get when the doorbell would ring by a solicitor's touch.
So, why is your approach to increasing sales for your innovative products and services to memorize the same tired lines that have been slow-cooked over the last century?
MORE LIKE THIS: How to Ditch the Cold Calling Scripts. Once. And. For. All.
I remember growing up how my parents had a plaque on our front door with "NO SOLICITORS" inscribed to ward off the cold-callers. (funny how I ended up in sales - COLD calling my way to millions in revenue as an adult - prior to founding Orange Pegs Media)
In 1933 salespeople had an excuse... Even in the 80's, when I was growing up, solicitors had an excuse - There was no internet! No Google! No way to actively and easily find solutions to our problems.
That's what Encyclopedia Brittanica was for, and if we were lucky to have them, they only gave us small snippets of the stories and data we desired. Even in my day as a b2b salesperson in the early 2000's, I had an excuse (although, a very slim one), because the internet was still new and inbound marketing wasn't really a "thing" yet.
Today, if we want answers to a question, we Google it (or Bing or Yahoo or whatever) - we don't wait for somebody to call, pushing their ulterior motives on us. We are empowered to make educated decisions and purchases, putting the onus of success or failure on our shoulders as consumers.
I don't know about you, but I certainly don't need somebody to butt their way into my life to tell me when I have problems and how to solve them, when I can self-diagnose my way into better, more customized solutions for MY business.
One thing I learned early in my career is how important reputation was - not just the reputation of the company I worked for, but MINE. Especially when you work in a service industry, where your clients' main concern is finding people they can trust.
I also learned how powerful social media was in helping establish trust with people who don't have the opportunity to get to know us personally. I was an early adopter of LinkedIn, and leveraged Facebook for those connections who weren't yet on LI. I also used my knowledge of the platforms to help other professionals become more well networked - and they loved that I was so helpful... and social.
What this has done is replace any need for storing contact information on a Rolodex (remember those? I do!), and placed the emphasis of trust on the individuals in the middle of the transactions.
Social media has removed the barriers that make us strangers, and opened the doors for introductions and closer connections with people we may never meet in person. When you cold-call in person or on the phone, you're a stranger intruding. When you connect through social selling, you're a helpful consultant.
Get the inbound marketing playbook by Orange Pegs - and ditch the script
When there is an opportunity to educate, there is an opportunity to sell. With so many blog posts out there providing answers about ailments in short bursts, then linking to downloadable content, I have no reason to put all of my stock in the hands of the cold-callers pounding on my door (and phone).
In fact, when I get a call or somebody spams me, they may have a valid idea, but I'm so turned off by their intrusion, I'd rather Google it and find somebody willing to provide education before a pitch.
I know you're the same way... most of us are, because we're spoiled.
Is that a bad thing?
That script you're still holding onto? The one that's been memorized into oblivion by your team and predecessors... and ancestors - it's been pitched to us SO MANY times (kind of like that - "I have money for you in an off-short account" scam), that we can smell it a mile away.
It's contrived. It's used. It's never delivered very well. And again, it's so unbelievably uninvited, that as soon as we sniff it out, you're DONE! Like, for good.
CONCLUSION:
It IS possible to land deals through cold-calling, and that script MAY pull in enough to pay your salespeoples' salaries... But it's working less and less, isn't it? And your services are way too innovative to be coupled with such nonsense, aren't they?
I think so, anyway... and I believe your customers do too. I remember my last stint as a cold-caller, and how often I was hung up on. I also remember the love/hate relationships my clients had with me. They loved the services my employer provided, and they personally liked me, but they HATED our tactics. They called them slimy, and felt that if we introduced our services like unapologetic jerks, we probably conducted ourselves that way with our deliverables.
What does your sales process say about the way you do business?
Interested in learning about how you can connect with your buyers through permission-based marketing (aka "inbound marketing)? Schedule a free consultation today: