I've been telling salespeople to stop cold calling for years. And yet, the message isn't sinking in.
There are a few big reasons for this: First, many salespeople have been so brainwashed that cold calling is the only way to generate sales leads that their minds are closed to any other ideas and they won't even listen to reasons why they should stop cold calling.
Second, some are barely getting by and making their quotas by cold calling, so they're afraid to try new ideas - they're worried that if they do, they won't make quota and will be fired.
The third reason is the one I want to talk about with you today. And that's the sad truth that many salespeople are addicted to cold calling! Telling them to stop cold calling is about as effective as telling a newborn baby to stop crying. It just isn't going to happen.
Cold calling has many of the same effects of a drug on people. They get up, go to work intent on making sales, and decide to make as many cold calls as possible.
Why do they do this?
Most have no idea. If you ask them why they're cold calling, they'll tell you it's because everyone else in sales is doing it, and that's why they're doing it. But underneath that lame excuse to cold call is a more insidious reason.
After a long day of cold calling, whether they make their 100+ calls on the telephone, or by canvassing office buildings door-to-door, they feel good about themselves. They feel like they've really accomplished something, and that makes them happy ... at least until the end of the month comes around, and the commission check is small, as usual.
And that's why cold calling resembles a drug for them: They're not doing it because it adds anything positive to their lives; in reality, it's adding a lot of negativity, and a lot of stress in the form of inadequate sales numbers and commission dollars. But because it makes them feel good in the short term, they do it to avoid facing the realities of life.
This is also why it can be so difficult for someone like me, the author of Never Cold Call Again, to convince someone to stop cold calling. They want to feel that rush at the end of the day, that feeling that all is well and that what they've done will really start to pay off. Soon. Someday. Eventually.
But probably never.
And so it turns into an endless cycle of cold call to feel good about yourself, stress out over sales numbers, then bury your head in the sand and go back to cold calling - to feel good about yourself.
Stop it right now! This is madness!
If you want to make huge sales numbers, and eliminate stress from your work life once and for all, cold calling is never going to get you there. It's time to wake up, and begin using intellingent, modern forms of sales prospecting and lead generation if you want to succeed in sales.