Christian Whamond. Key Leadership. Executive coach
Christian Whamond - 0408 322 176
  • Home page
  • Resume
    • Career Summary
    • Education
    • Reference's
    • Personal
    • Documents
  • Leadership
    • Effective Leadership
  • Learnings
  • Referance Material
  • Social Profile's
    • DiSC
    • 360 degree feedback
    • Hogan Profile

Better ways to build a database and gather clients

11/1/2012

Comments

 
_There are 6 reasons why cold calling doesn’t work in today’s world:

1. Even the most ardent fan of cold calling would admit it’s less effective than it used to be.

Everyone’s tolerance of being interrupted whether by phone or by email is falling – there’s too much of it because it’s so easy with all the new technologies. So there is too much interruption, but increasingly we have the ability to filter it out. And busy, successful people do just that. Filter it.

2. Cold calling positions you as a supplicant in B2B sales

Anyone who sells anything knows one truth in their guts:

You must come across as not needing their business – and that you are ready to walk away at any time; that you have options. You will never win unless you are prepaired to loose.

But when a prospect receives a cold call from you, you are demonstrating the complete opposite – that you need their business.  At the same time you convey that you are not busy; that you don’t have anything more important to do than ‘smile and dial’.

So are you calling random prospects? You come across as needy and desperate. And every time you make a call, you do a little damage to your brand, to your positioning as a successful expert.

Here’s something no-one can argue with: People with power cannot be reached by phone. Have you tried calling Gates or Obama or Winfrey recently? Gurus don’t have their mobile numbers on their business cards. And if they mistakenly do, they certainly don’t say “call me anytime, day or night. I’m there, just awaiting your call”.

3. Cold calling won’t find what we all want: Qualified leads

How could it? It is not what cold calling is designed to do. It’s a numbers game; a random numbers game.

And a large and growing proportion of buyers are like me: we don’t take unsolicited sales calls – ever.

Because it’s now so easy to do research, most of us know we can find what we need via Google when we need it, so we don’t need to be interrupted. And, most importantly, we can dig out the sellers who are well regarded from our networks; who come well recommended with lots of (meaningful) testimonials.

4. It limits your results and wastes valuable time

In the Social Networking Age we all have the ability to leverage our time (our scarce and valuable B2B sales time) using all the amazing new connection and engagement tools.

The problem is cold calling allows you to be in only one place at one time. Making one phone call or opening one door. So your results are strictly finite. There is no leverage in this one-by-one approach.

On the other hand, leveraging Social Networks and other New Media allows you to be in many ‘places’ at one time.  Create the system and it can almost run itself if you have clear goals and a clear strategy. And the results are open ended, not finite. A good B2B sales system builds over time. Money spent is money invested, unlike cold calling where every day is a new day (and a day from hell!).

A sales system stops you from spending time with people who:
  • Have no need for your product
  • Might buy your product at some future but undetermined date
  • Have just bought from a competitor
  • And, god forbid, are already a customer! It happens if your CRM is out of date, and whose isn’t?? One of the benefits of Social Networking is that it’s your ‘self updating CRM’.
And over 90% of cold calls clearly fall into one or more of these categories. A truly sad call could cover all four!

5. Cold calling puts you in a negative light as a time waster

If there’s one thing that always annoys a busy, successful person, it’s wasting their time. And it is precisely the busy and successful who are your best prospects. But given it is unashamedly a numbers game, it has to be a waste of time for over 90% of those you call, because the calls are unqualified and unfocused.

Why risk starting on the bad side of 90% of your business prospects? People who otherwise might have bought from you?

6. Reason number 6, the big one: Sales people hate it!

The biggest reason for why it’s time to think again. Now, I worked in HR and career guidance for many years. The following is well known, backed up by serious of research:

Love what you do and success is likely

Hate it, and failure or ‘merely average’ performance is inevitable

So why choose failure by executing activities that you hate? Activity that in some companies has come to dominate BDMs’ valuable time as they plan the calls, make them, record them and finally prepare to justify to their Manager what they’ve done.  And, at best, sales people regard cold calling as a necessary evil. Unfortunately they and their bosses don’t know there is another way. In B2B sales it is a system that embeds LinkedIn amongst other online tools.

Overall, these are 6 compelling reasons to find a different approach to B2B sales. But let’s leave the last word to Albert Einstein – one of his most famous quotes, and incredibly apt when it comes to the dinosaurs of cold calling:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Comments

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    March 2015
    January 2015
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010

    Categories

    All
    7 Habits
    Abraham Lincoln
    Abuse Power
    Abusive
    Accountable
    Achievable
    Achieve
    Action Plan
    Adaptability
    Alexander Graham Bell
    Ambition
    Ambitions
    Angry
    Annual Reviews
    Apologize
    Apple
    Approval
    Attitudes
    Axioms
    Bad Behaviors
    Bad Boss
    Basic Principles.
    Behavior
    Believe
    Boss
    Bully
    Bureaucracy
    Burn Out
    Busy
    Candor
    Care
    Career
    Career Development
    Cause
    Ceo
    Challenges
    Challenging
    Change
    Chaos
    Character
    Charisma
    Checklist
    Childhood
    Christmas
    Churchill
    Clock Builder
    Coaching
    Coaching Action Plan
    Coca Cola
    Cold Call
    Colin Powell
    Colorose
    Commitment
    Communicate
    Communication
    Communicators
    Competence
    Competition
    Competitors
    Conflict
    Confrontation
    Connect
    Connectivity
    Consistency
    Conversation
    Courage
    Courageous
    Creativity
    Credibility
    Criticism
    Culture
    Customer
    Customers
    Dalai Lama
    Dale Carnegie
    David Thodey
    Decision Maker
    Decisions
    Decisiveness
    Dedicated
    Delayering
    Delegation
    Developing
    Development
    Differentiation
    Difficult Employee
    Dilutions
    Diplomacy
    Disc
    Discipline
    Discouraged
    Doers
    Dream
    Effective
    Effectiveness
    Effective People
    Ego
    Emerging Leaders
    Emotional
    Emotions
    Employees
    Employment
    Empower
    Empowering Leader
    Empowerment
    Enemies
    Engage
    Engagement
    Enthusiasm
    Entrepreneurs
    Ethical
    Ethics
    Expect
    Expectations
    Experts
    Facebook
    Fear
    Feedback
    Firing Someone
    Focus
    Foundation
    Friends
    Friendship
    Game
    Geniuses
    George Washington
    Goals
    Google
    Gospa
    Gossip
    Growth
    Habit
    Harvard
    Helping
    Hobbies
    Honesty
    Hope
    Horstman's Laws
    House
    Hr
    Humility
    Idea
    Idea's
    Identity
    Influence
    Insanity
    Inspiration
    Inspire
    Jack Welch
    Jim Collins
    Jim Rohn
    Job Performance
    Job Satisfaction
    Job Seekers
    John Maxwell
    Lead By Example
    Leader
    Leaderning
    Leaders
    Leadership
    Leadership Qualities
    Leading
    Learn
    Learning
    Legacy
    Lessons
    Lessons Life Taught
    Listening
    Lou Holtz
    Love
    Loyality
    Management
    Manager
    Managers
    Managing
    Managing Up624f2380c5
    Manipulative
    Marketing
    Mark Twain
    Martin Luther King Jr
    Meaning
    Meeting
    Mentoring
    Micromanages
    Mission
    Mission Statement
    Mistake
    Mistakes
    Moodiness
    Motivate
    Motivation
    Multidimensionality
    Myers Briggs
    Network
    One On Ones
    Opportunities
    Oprah
    Organization
    Organizational Commitment
    Organizations
    Overachievers
    Passion
    Passionate
    Passiveaggressive4cb939360a
    Pattom
    People
    Performance
    Performance Management
    Persistence
    Persuasive
    Peter Drucker
    Petty People
    Pip
    Pitch
    Planning
    Poor Performers
    Positive Attitudes
    Positive Leadership
    Power
    Prepair
    Pride
    Priorities
    Proactive
    Productivity
    Professional
    Promote
    Purpose
    Pursuit
    Push Back
    Quotes
    Recognize
    Relationships
    Reputation
    Respect
    Responsibility
    Resume
    Richard Austin
    Ridge
    Risk
    Roosevelt
    Sacrafice
    Sacrifices
    Sales
    Sales Team
    Secrets
    Selfconfidence
    Selfconfidenceef32ab1bf4
    Selfmasteryb72a7fe0f0
    Selling
    Simon Inek
    Simplicity
    Six Sigma
    Skills
    Smart Goals
    Smile
    Social Media
    Sorry
    Speaking
    Staff
    Staff Meeting
    Star Performer
    Start
    Stephen R Covey
    Steve Jobs
    Stress
    Success
    Succession Planning
    Support
    Tact
    Tasks
    Team
    Team Leader
    Teams
    Team Work
    Technology
    Thankyou
    Theodore Roosevelt
    The Truth About Leadership
    Thomas Jefferson
    Thought
    Tim Cook
    Time Management
    To Do
    Todo List86df8ef42f
    True Selves
    Trust
    Truth
    Twitter
    Uncertainty
    Value
    Valuebased Leadership
    Value Proposition
    Values
    Vision
    Visionary Company
    Visulizing
    Who We Are
    Why
    Willingness To Sacrifice
    Willingness To Take Risks
    Win
    Winners
    Winning
    Win People
    Win-win
    Wisdom
    Wise
    Work
    Work Life Balance
    Workplace
    Worry
    Yes-men

    RSS Feed

    Picture
    Christian Whamond
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.