I’m sure that if you follow me on social media, you’ll know my thoughts on cold calling. It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of this method of prospecting. Just like most salespeople, when I was a young lad starting out in sales, I was the guy who used to do 100 door knocks and then make 100 cold calls every single day. I even went on to train others to make cold calls. But this was how we conducted business almost thirty years ago. Times have changed!
In the UAE (and many other countries for that matter), cold-calling is now ILLEGAL! And it’s banned for good reason! People don’t want to be harassed by telemarketers.
Sadly, there will always be people who are stuck in the past, who believe that cold-calling should still be a method that salespeople use in business today. But who would want to spend the whole day on the phone facing rejection after rejection when there are a million better, smarter and faster ways to build your business and find clients?
Here are two simple things that you can do today instead of cold calling:
USE LINKEDIN AS A SALES TOOL:
Create a personalised message that you can send to ten of your connections on LinkedIn. These people should be your ideal target clients. For example, if you were targeting CEO’s then you wouldn’t send this message to an intern. Once you’ve sent these personalised messages out you’ll be able to gauge the interest. If you get a good response then you can increase the number of people you contact using this medium. If you have something valuable to offer then your chances of securing meetings with the people you contact will be a lot higher.
I recently reached out to a CEO using this method and told him a bit about myself and the value that I’ve been bringing to other companies like his. I then invited him out for a coffee so that I could share my insight and tell him about some of the things that I could do for him that would enhance his business. He agreed to meet me and I took him on as a client soon after this.
There are of course a lot of people who try the above method but get it horribly wrong. These people send spam to thousands of people without giving any of them a good enough reason to actually engage with them. Customization and value are key!
COMMENT ON SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS:
When someone that you follow on social media posts something interesting, instead of just liking it, comment on it and share your opinion with them. The more you do this, the more these people will notice you and eventually, they’ll come to appreciate your opinion. Always think about the value that you offer people. Offer threads of wisdom wherever and whenever you can!
If you would like to hear what else you can do to build your business without having to make a single cold call (or without having to pick up the telephone at all for that matter) then click here to watch my recent Facebook live on the above topic.
