What About Cold Calling Does it Work?By Rosemarie Grabowski Business Growth Specialist
The term "cold" is used because the prospect did not set up the conversation with the marketer and did not ask to have that conversation. Every marketer has his or her own experience with cold calling. Cold calling refers to the marketing strategy wherein the marketer calls a prospective customer over the telephone or latter not expecting the call or the visit.
Cold calling could seem at first as just picking up the phone to talk to people about your product and marketing opportunity. However, given a day or two (or a few hours) of cold calling, you will surely very very tired and will soon wonder if cold calling does work. Here are a few reasons why cold calling is less than ideal as a marketing strategy.
Cold calling is not time-efficient
Just like face to face marketing, cold calling will require you to talk to only one person at a time. How many minutes do you think you will need to introduce yourself, deliver your pitch, and answer a prospect's questions (supposing he or he stayed on for that long). Multiply that to the number of prospects you wish to call in a day. That is one long day full of talking that will only connect you with a handful of people per day.
Cold calling is not welcome
Let's say you wish to talk to 30 people in a day. How many do you think will respond positively to a phone call that interrupted their day, maybe even their meal (everybody's allowed to have a late lunch)? Many marketers who have tried out cold calling will tell you that they got very few positive responses from the ones they called. Evaluate your own reaction whenever someone gives you a cold call. Did you notice that you were suddenly frowning and skeptical towards the marketer on the other end of the line? Is it any wonder that you get poor positive statistics as a marketer?
Cold calling requires marketing talent
Let's face it. There are those whom people listen to whenever they talk. They're pretty smooth and everything they say simply sounds credible and exciting. The same message, however, will fall on deaf ears if delivered by a person who is not as savvy and smooth. Cold calling is already challenging for the ordinary marketer. How much more if the prospect smells the marketer's fear and uncertainty? He may not be able to satisfy the prospect's questions enough to get a positive response.
Cold calling is not a totally bad idea; it is one technique that you will find in the marketing strategy plan of more than 90% of marketers. But what you will find is that it is not used effectively. Wouldn't it be be wiser to prospect by calling those who already have a need or want or desire for what you have? This is what is called cold targeted calling. You see, I don't want to spend my time talking with people that don't even see a need for my type of product - in fact, trying to convince someone that they need what I have is a great way to make people angry. By nature, we don't like pushy-salespeople; we like people that offer or solve our problems.
So really grow your business, one should develop a program of this type of cold leads, positioned data from article marketing or the internet and other marketing strategies. After all, you can not get everyone with just one marketing method.

Rosemarie Grabowski
Business Growth Specialists