COLD CALLING AND SOCIAL SELLING IN THE AGE OF ROBOCALLS

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Call me “old fashioned,” but I still like cold calling. I was trained and raised on it and I have had great financial success with it. It makes me uncomfortable and I’m continuously amazed at who I can get on the phone.

I don’t personally ascribe to the notion that “cold calling is dead.” If you are a digital marketer, entrepreneur or business owner, you have heard, or been sold on, “social selling.” There seems to be this widespread notion that “social selling” is the easy, innovative path to riches. Some bloggers or faux “experts” claim it’s the only way to sell and that cold calling is some antiquated sales tactic that is ineffectual and dead.

I say, nonsense!

I’m convinced these so called experts have never sold anything over the phone.

The definition of “social selling” (using social media to sell products) according to a Linkedin article states this “…sales technique enables better sales lead generation and sales prospecting process and eliminates the need for cold calling.”

“Eliminates?” Not entirely.

STAY OFF THE “DO NOT CALL LIST”

Every professional environment that I have worked in, or consulted with, still uses cold calling as part of their core sales process or strategy.

Contrary to popular belief, Robocallers have made our job easier, not harder. The reason is: Assuming you’ve done your call preparation, Robocallers are not calling the decision makers you are and they are not very bright. It’s us against the machines and we win. Even if a Robocaller succeeds in reaching the CEO, what is it selling? Carpet cleaning, student debt relief, seo rankings?

According to the anti-robocall service YouMail, for the first half of 2017, there’s been about 15 billion robocalls made in the United States.

You’re not in the telemarketing or robocalling business, you’re in the real business world where reaching the right prospects is still an art and it may require picking up the phone. Social Selling is fine, but we can’t hide behind contact forms all day. Make that one call today, tomorrow, this week that scares the living daylights out of you. I guarantee you Mr. Big didn’t fill out a contact form anyway.

Where do you stand? Are you a social seller that is on the do not call list? Or do you still feel some cold calling — the right calls — are still effective business practices?