I'm tired of the cold calling debate too...

"Sure you are Derek - that's why three of your Linkedin Updates this week have been about Cold Calling" says you.

Ok, you got me. Yes the debate may be tiring, but it's necessary - if only because there's a larger issue that no one is addressing behind the whole cold calling argument.

And that issue? Well here's a hint - it stems from sales pros who cut their teeth in the 80s and 90s (like me) defining modern 21st century B2B sales strategies and tactics by looking back to what worked for us in B2B sales when we dressed like this:

Yes, I love the 80s and 90s too.

But I'm not letting that love cloud my judgement of how business is done in the 21st century.

I really do get the coldcall love from sales trainers and sales leaders...that's how we did business in the 80s, 90s and REAL early 2000s, I was pretty good at it. 

But let's have a real discussion about those years.

I made B2C cold calls in the 80s selling magazines (blogs printed on paper that came to your house in the mail) to home owners and back then 70% of the residential calls I made were answered....people RAN to answer the phone in the olden days. 

Brothers and sisters fought over answering the phone - that's just not on Stranger Things, you Millenials out there...those fights to answer the phone ACTUALLY HAPPENED!!!!

And in the next decade? I called local businesses selling office technology ("office technology" is what copier salespeople called "copiers" when we didn't want you to know we sold copiers) and about 1 of every 2 or 3 B2B calls I made connected with someone - either a gatekeeper or an influencer or a DM...but an actual HUMAN BEING with thoughts and dreams and the need to eat lunch!

You didn't have to be a David Mamet-approved cold calling monster - 20/30 calls were all you needed to fill your cold calling block. Less if the conversations were fruitful and lead to meetings. My personal numbers at the height of my cold calling years? 25/30 calls really did equal 8-12 conversations for me, from which I could set AT LEAST 1 or 2 IN-PERSON meetings. About 4/8 hours a week of that type of prospecting and my week was FULL with meetings (even more if I promised to bring donuts.)

But now? If you make 100 calls from a toll free number, 8 humans will "likely" pick up the phone. From a Out of State number? 15 people. From a local number? 25.

Those numbers are abhorrent. Those of trained in the 80s and 90s on the phone would DIE OF HUNGER if we tried making the same 15 second breathless pitch we did then to try and set our meetings.

And let's talk about these modern "meetings" we're all so hot about.

Because that seems to be the end result that every person who's hot for 2018 cold calling is pushing.

It's all about getting the MEETING!

(I looked at the old business cards I've had over the years....none of then give me the title of "MEETINGSperson"...but I digress...)

Back in the olden days, B2B meetings were IN PERSON. Remember those? That's where you and someone else (a human) sat in the same room with you and you talked to each other with your mouths, forming words and sentences. They call it H2H now because nothing is really a "thing" in the 21st century unless it's an acronym.

Soooooo...let's be honest for a second. Can we just ADMIT that we all KNOW a prospect agreeing to an in-person meeting is A LOT different than a modern LOB manager agreeing to a web conference?

Can we please? PLEASE????

I'm not telling tales out of school am I? I mean this isn't exactly the Pentagon Papers. (look it up.) 

Back in the the pioneer days, In Person meetings required some "skin in the game" from the prospect. They had to agree to host you for an hour, pay for your parking (if you were lucky), give you a cup of coffee and actually sit in a conference room and listen to you.

With their UNDIVIDED ATTENTION.

What a world that was!! No wonder we sold so much STUFF and THINGS!!!!

Now, prospects will agree to a 25 minute web conference, where they multi-task email, Slack, Trello, talk to their kid's school over text and look for a new job on LinkedIn or GlassDoor while you're trying to get them to agree your "next sale process step." 

There's no skin because the barrier to entry for a customer to agree to a non-in person "meeting" is low. They don't need to give you their undivided attention.

And honestly - we don't ASK FOR IT.

I would argue the VALUE of an actual B2B sales meeting NOW is LESS than it was in the 90s. Anyone disagree? 

But what happens when the people - the professional sales people we hire and train - tell us any of this? When they tell us that it's harder now...that it's different now...than the stuff we old dogs learned when the Tonight Show was called "The Carson Show?"

We give them a "crying towel" pull out this equation:

We insult them. We talk about their lack of grit or lack of hustle or lack of "grustle*" (*trademark pending.)

Way back in 2015 I wrote a LinkedIn article called "As a leader, is your sales experience worth anything to your team?" It was my first foray into writing on LinkedIn and boy is it ROUGH. It's also a little dated - as the email prospecting and vm tactics I suggested have lost a bit of their luster as they've been overused and abused.

But that's the POINT I'm making today and that's why the gist of the 2015 article is STILL sound...

Because after re-reading it all these years later, I realize I would write a lot of it differently.

Because the times have changed.

I would talk SO MUCH MORE about social. About the value of market and vertical insight. About Pulling as opposed to pushing. About every salesperson needing to be marketer and vice versa. About how both "1 to Many" Marketing and "1 to 1" Sales have evolved into "1 to Few" Smarketing. About modern prospecting being the MOST IMPORTANT part of the sales process and how it needs to be done by the highest paid and most SENIOR people in our orgs and not new hire SDRs straight out of college.

But this part - this part I'd leave the same...

Observation 1: You can't prospect like it's 1999 - No one picks up their phone anymore. Ever. That's just a statement of fact. If our prospecting strategies hinge upon getting our sales people to get someone on the phone to hear their pitch, it's no wonder our sales forces' activity metrics probably resemble an anvil being pushed out of a hot air balloon.

Sure we're all tired of the cold call debate. Is it dead? It it alive? Is it half-dead? Is it on life support?

My take is this: the phone is ALIVE and valuable. I used it twice while writing this article. (see? Multitasking is a national problem!!!)

But calling 100 people cold off a list just because they possess a job title that's similar to the jobs titles of people who have already bought your widget?

In the end the answer - as always - is up to you.

If you're selling something and you make a good living calling people on the phone cold and you pay your bills and your kids have new shoes then don't listen to me.

I'm not here to slap the food out of anyone's mouth.

But if you're a sales rep and the things management or sales trainers are telling you just don't seem to make sense in the modern world, relax.

You're not weak, or cowardly or crazy. There's a reason why all your Cold Calling sales training starts with "after your prospect picks up the phone."

Because people in the olden days, when that training was developed, USED to pick up the phone.

Never fear - there are modern ways to prospect - fantastic ways to add value to the process and the content is out there - waiting for you to consume it. You can follow me, go to my website or if you think I'm an idiot, simply google "modern sales prospecting."

There's a lot of good people talking about REAL THINGS you can do to prospect like it's NOW.

And here's my personal note to sales leaders - the world is different than when we came up through the ranks. It just is. And no amount of saying "the basics are sound" and "sales is a numbers game" is going to fix what's going on.

Because what's going on isn't an aberration...it's the new normal.

Yelling at your millennial sales team to "pick up the phone" makes about as much sense as you yelling at your millennial CUSTOMERS to "pick up the phone."

I loved the 80s and 90s - it was a great time to be young adult. But can we FINALLY leave the 80s and 90s where they belong? On Netflix and Prime and on ABC Saturdays at 10pm eastern (9 central!)

It's the 21st century, let's start acting like it. Cheers and happy selling!

Derek Wyszynski has had a rather unique career path. He’s worked in US Military Intelligence, Fortune 500 companies and “two guys in a garage” startups. He’s been a soldier, a seller, a CIO and a VP of Sales. He’s worked in hardware, software, SaaS, manufacturing, government, education, professional services, healthcare and high-tech verticals. He's currently the the Senior Director for New Revenue at TrustArc.