Why Cold Calling Is More Costly Than You Think
Getting through to new prospects is getting harder every day
When I run sales workshops, I ask participants how many effective new business calls they manage to make in a day. The average answer is five to six calls. I rarely receive an answer above 10.
These are not unusual results. Here are details of a study carried out by Keller Centre research. This study showed that it requires, on average, 209 phone pickups to gain one lead or appointment.
There’s a simple conclusion to draw from this.
Cold calling is a very costly exercise
The salary and overheads of a typical print salesperson are not cheap. If they are focussing on cold calling then you are paying a lot of money for each appointment.
Is that a suitable return on investment?
Would you like to get 100 percent acceptance on a call to new prospects?
This may seem like an impossible target. However, that’s exactly what I achieved recently. Every single prospect that I rang took my call and we had a good conversation. Naturally, not all these calls resulted in new business. However, there were enough successes for me to reach the target I needed.
The secret to this success is to create warm prospects
Every person I called already knew about me. They were engaged with me and my services. And this had happened even though I had never spoken to them before.
So how do you create warm prospects?
Here are the three main routes that I use to find prospects and engage with them:
- Referrals
- Social media
- Networking at events
How much time do you allocate to these activities? Or, is your focus purely on the phone and the e-mail?
p.s: If you’d like more information on how to use social media to create profitable sales, download my free e-guide: "Ten Social Media Rules For Print Sales People." You’ll also receive my regular "Views from the print buyer" bulletin, full of ideas on how to use social media and sell print effectively.
- Categories:
- Business Management - Marketing/Sales
Many printing companies are frustrated how hard it is to engage buyers in today’s world. That’s where Matthew Parker can help. He is a gamekeeper turned poacher. Parker has bought print for more than 20 years and received over 1,400 print sales pitches. He now uses his buyer’s point of view to give practical advice to printers. He helps them engage with prospects and customers to create profitable relationships.
Download his free e-book, "Ten Common Print Selling Errors And What To Do About Them" and check out his recently launched book, "How To Succeed At Print Sales: Setting targets, planning the right activities and making sure goals are met."
