Social media doesn’t “warm” your call, you do.
A company tells its salespeople to do their research—to gather every piece of sales intelligence; exploit all of their social media channels; know a little bit about the prospect and the trigger events at his company; and then all their salespeople need to do is call or email with a pithy, targeted message to get the meeting.
Sure, that might work. But…
A Cold Call Is a Cold Call Is a Cold Call
Many salespeople believe that if they reach out to prospects armed with relevant research and data, they’re not cold calling (or cold e-mailing). After all, the cold-calling salesperson says they know who you are and know about your company. They know how you’re connected through social media, where you used to work, and where you went to school. The “connected” logic plays out like this: We’re connected online, so we have a relationship! (Read, “Have You Spoken With Your E-Quaintance Lately?”)
No, you’re not really connected. You just have information, not a connection. That “call,” whether by email or by phone, is ice cold. Your sales prospect doesn’t know you and doesn’t expect your call. That’s the simple, precise definition of a cold call. There’s nothing “warm” about it. Cold calling wastes your time and your company’s money. The sole reliance on social intelligence, and not personal intelligence, is a wasteful use of precious business-development time.
Guarantee Your Results
What if you could reach out to your sales prospects and guarantee results? Yes, guarantee. Get a referral introduction to your decision maker. You’ll get the meeting with exactly the person you want to meet. Research by The TAS Group asked executives why they would meet with a salesperson. The #1 reason (you guessed it): a referral from a trusted source.
Why would you waste your time doing anything else? Think about how you spend your time and the type of payoff you want. Get that introduction and clinch your referral sale!
Comment Here & Share
What’s your current business-development process? Are you a 100% referral-based business? If not, why not?
Think about how terrific it would be if your current clients all referred you! What’s holding you back? How can we help? Stop cold calling—there’s a better way. I promise. Comment here and join the conversation.
Cold calling actually works very well for our business. I think the reason being that we have a fairly unique service which is high demand and little competition. This means that the company has a problem which no one is addressing and when we call they are actually happy to hear from us (most of the time).
I think cold calling gets annoying when you are in a saturated or very general market (like cleaning products for example) and your prospects are being called multiple times a day.
Referrals are the best way to sell, especially to the C level, however, without an adequate or with a small client base where do referrals come from?
Hi Steve:
Referrals come from many sources–not just current clients. Check in with your peers, colleagues, former clients, professional services connections. The list goes on and on.
Check out this article about expanding your referral network: http://servmask.loc/your-new-referral-network-its-always-about-the-people-you-know/
Hi Joanne
What if you are cold calling companies from a different location, say another part of the world? How do you make that connection?
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