Often cold calling success is measured simply by the number of appointments made with relation to the number of calls. Some look at cold calling as a panacea for lead generation and expect an appointment for every call made. This is thoroughly unrealistic. When cold calling is done correctly, several levels of value are intrinsic in every call, even if an appointment is not obtained.
Cold calling:
- Provides an opportunity to be in front of the prospect, even if at the time of the call the prospect was not experiencing the pain you could address.
- Engages with the decision maker, nurturing your relationship with them.
- Provides value to your sales process by adding indispensable information garnered from the conversation with the prospect.
- Serves to clean up your list. No matter what your source or how recent you obtained the data, 20% of your information can be out of date.
- Saves time and expense by eliminating unqualified leads in your database
The mentality that every call must result in an appointment or that a certain volume of appointments must be met loses site of the greater purpose of cold calling. Cold calling is the foundation for getting sales off the ground. Without cold calling, companies would find themselves without a consistent flow of appointments, without the information they need to take sales to the next step, and without the relationship that is needed to close the sale.
Don’t lose sight of the bigger picture. When your cold calling efforts don’t return a certain volume of appointments, the call campaign was far from worthless.
