Psychology of Cold Calling

Great news! Despite all the articles or any other hype suggesting cold calling is dead...IT ISN'T! I believe very strongly that it never will be. Anyone believing that cold calling is dead and publishing all kinds of trash in this regard needs to set an appointment with a neurologist to have their head scanned or are simply hoping to capitalize off their own call reluctance. Why else would anyone discourage a mutually beneficial professional sales process? Wait a minute! Might they simply NOT know that there is one? Perhaps they're not all so well-read nor trained in this area. 

Here are some facts:

1)  I was a stockbroker for years making a hundred cold calls daily some days. Guess how many times I've been hung up on? To be fully honest, I remember about 3-5 times in my entire sales career that I've actually experienced the old "click" on the other end. Yet so many people report this phenomenon. Now, I didn't just fall off the turnip truck, however, I do NOT think I'm a genius. I believe I have a natural gift of gab and have been blessed with world class teachers. A LOT of them actually.

2) Rarely a day goes by without my setting of at least one or more highly targeted and qualified Discovery Calls which are extremely beneficial to a current or prospective customer, all accomplished by a completely unexpected "cold call" often from a complete stranger, in this case, yours truly.

One of my common questions for the Universe is "why do so many people fear Introductory Outbound Marketing (aka Cold Calling)?" My root cause diagnosis is poor etiquette, for starters. Truth be told, as it always should be with your current and prospective customers, the reason WHY decision makers FEAR sales calls is actually our fault. Perhaps not yours and mine personally, per se, yet in my opinion, it's definitely the fault of past sales people. I also feel very strongly that the sooner we all realize and accept this, the more likely we will be able to allow our call process to evolve.

Simply put, a significant number of salespeople have been less than truthful about several things from specs on their offerings, to how much TIME they are going to (practically) steal from the customer while on a call and while offering very little to nothing of significant value in return. In my view, people are inherently good, or at least inherently polite in the (mostly) civilized country we live in particular. Most recipients of your call, once answered, are just NOT going to hang up on you and if you are not specific, not exercising brevity and not giving them an opportunity to speak - very early on in the call, you are stealing their time. Intentional or not, this is very dishonest and we are responsible for it.

Additionally, the real world challenge in the realm of good old-fashioned (professional) cold calling is pretty straight forward...you're NOT the only one contacting these decision makers. A 2014 poll indicated that most senior management decision makers get at least twenty (20) cold calls daily. Folks, that is A LOT of calls and let's be clear, it is a major hassle...for THEM. As for you, this process can actually be quite effective, even fun. "Yes," I actually did just say the word "fun" and no I am NOT crazy.

So you might now be asking "So what?" What's my point? It is simple really. My point is that we MUST follow some basic RULES based in truth and etiquette and generally speaking, be different than the rest. Better, Clearer. More professional, more honest and more to the point, faster. Just as important, we must state who we are, why we're calling and quickly state what you tend to be able to help with.

Last but not least, we must be truthful about how much of their time we intend to take in saying what we have to say before giving them a chance to respond and then, ASK for their permission to proceed. Then we must always, always, always stick to our promised timetable.

After all, as you already know quite well, real people do real business with people they really like and trust. Really!

Happy Selling!

William Waltrip
214-960-8087