There Is No Future For Cold Calling

Cold calling is NOT dead.............................yet.

The future of sales, however, doesn't have a place for cold calling.

I'm not 100% sure on what will kill it off for good though, it could be any of these things

• It might be millennial buyers never answering cold calls, making them a pointless sales activity.
• It might be government laws like GDPR that make it illegal to cold call.
• It may even be the sales industry itself waking up and actually using all the great alternative tools available.

Why would businesses continue to use a sales technique which is hated by buyers and which is delivering less and results as time goes on? Especially when there are now other tools like email, social, video, and referrals that generate significantly better numbers and are far more buyer friendly.

Nah this is total nonsense, you're just another "social seller" who's too afraid to make phone calls! Cold calling works for us now and our results are fine.....

Cold calling still works now, I'm certainly not denying that. However just because it works now doesn't mean it always will......

The Nokia 3330 was an amazing phone! Would I throw away my iPhone and use one now? No way!

Would I throw away my laptop and email accounts and go back to sending handwritten letters again? Of course not!

In the near future will we really use an old sales technique that doesn't work when we have modern ones that work a lot better? Surely not?!

Just because cold calling works now is by no means a guarantee that it will work in the future.

As I said, the Nokia 3330 works as good now as it did back then, writing letters works the same as it did back then. However, we have better things to use now instead. The same is happening in sales. Cold calling is the Nokia 3330 and the smartphone is social, video, Skype, instant message and the internet.

Salespeople need to GO OUT and create sales opportunities, that's why cold calling works. How can they do that through social or email?

Utilising sales techniques like social selling, email, even referrals is different to picking up the phone and calling someone. That being said they can each be used to generate outbound sales opportunities.

We also need to accept that buyers and the way they buy changing

Whilst aggressive sales techniques like cold calling worked on older buyers, we now have the internet and younger generations. They buy when they want to buy, they research online, they look for reviews and they use different methods to communicate.

What's the point cold calling people that WON'T answer them????

I don't answer cold calls. Ever. Only by accident (which rarely happens) will I answer one, and I get plenty coming through. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone either (if you ignore cold calls as well please let me know in the comments!).

Yes, there are people who do answer and respond to cold calls, but as younger generations who are being bought up in a world where they don't need to use the phone start to take over buyer positions, it just won't be an effective strategy.

Think about it...

If you're a busy would you want your sales team WASTING hours every day calling people that don't answer the phone.....

Or

Would you want them SPENDING their time using social, email, video and referral that work?

Ok, let's do some real talk now......

Look I get it, right now cold calling works.

In principle, I also understand why some people DON'T want it to die. We can control cold calling, we can measure it and as an industry, we've been doing it for so long now. Change is also scary.

Do you know what, personally I LOVE going to Blockbusters and renting DVD's to watch at home! I wasn't a huge fan of Netflix straight away. Times change, younger generations take over and older models fall into the past.

I spent the majority of my sales career cold calling, training and managing cold callers. It worked then, it still works now but I can't help but struggle to see a future where it continues to be a viable sales activity.

What do you think? Do you think cold calling has a future? If so, why? Or do you agree and think it's only a matter of time? Let me know in the comments box below.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog! If you enjoyed this post please click LIKE and click SHARE to share it with your network. Please also take time to read some of my other recent posts.

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About the author: 

Daniel Disney is the UK's leading sales writer and social selling expert and is also the Founder and Owner of The Daily Sales.

With over 180 sales blogs written over the last couple of years read , Daniel has become a source of knowledge, motivation for salespeople all the world. Daniel now hugely popular Social Selling Masterclass across the world professionals and sales teams leverage social to its . For more information on bringing the Social Selling Masterclass to your sales team, email [email protected].