About 2 or 3 times a week, I get a call from someone wanting to sell me something. And these are not the telemarketing freaks at suppertime. These are fairly intelligent (I assume) businesspeople cold calling me in the middle of the day.
The walking leisure suit voice calls and says “Excuse me, but is Chris in?…Well Hi there, I’m Bill Blowaway from stupiddomainname.com and can I ask you a question (no pause) What would you say your biggest marketing problem is…the lack of marketing jargon gobldygook or the changing face of synergies emerging in a new word ma…blah…blah..)
At which point, (if I’m in a good mood) I tell them my biggest problem is lousy salespeople trying to cold call me.
Cold calls don’t work. They are used primarily by insurance and stock salespeople trying to reach a goal at the end of the month.
Lots of sales trainers tell these stories about a great salesperson who could make 200 cold calls in a day. Well, good for him. “Law of No” says he got around 10 or 20 sales. What about the 180-190 people he ticked off /wasted their time?
When you cold call…you destroy your brand.
Good marketing begins with a good product that you already know who will buy it. You have defined a target market.
When you approach marketing in the right way, you’ll dial 200 numbers and get 199 sales (one guy wasn’t at home)
tags:: marketing, sales, branding
