Remember that big promise I made 12 months ago … ?

This time last year, I made a bold promise: I said I would cold-call 2,500 potential clients in 2020 and report my results. 

My plan was to call 50 decision-makers per week for 50 weeks. My hope was to win one client per week, or 50 over the course of the year.

So, how did I go?

Well, I didn’t make 2,500 calls – only 554. 

Of those 554, I spoke to 290 business owners and decision-makers. (On the other 264 occasions, I either got blocked by gatekeepers or left messages that weren’t returned.)

Of those 290, I won 10 new clients.

Plans are easy to make; excuses even easier

Wondering why I made only 554 calls instead of 2,500 calls?

Excuses.

Occasionally, I had good excuses for not picking up the phone. In mid-January, I realised my business, Hunter & Scribe, didn’t have enough spare capacity to take on new clients, so I didn’t make a single call over the next three months; instead, I focused on recruiting and training staff. Also, there were times during the year I was so overwhelmed with work that I didn’t have time to make calls.

Mostly, though, I had bad excuses for not picking up the phone – not wanting to get rejected or not having the mental energy.

One call is better than none

In mid-November, I thought of an idea that was so obvious, I wondered why it hadn’t occurred to me earlier.

By that stage of the year, there had been more than 100 days when, instead of making my daily quota of 10 calls, I’d found an excuse to make zero calls. The idea that occurred to me was to make at least one call on those excuse days: 

• If I was using the legitimate excuse of being too busy to make calls – I’d still have time to make just one call
• If I was using the illegitimate excuse of not being in the right headspace to make calls – I’d still be able to force myself to make just one call

If I'd made one call on each of those no-call days, I would’ve made another 100-plus calls during 2020, and I would’ve picked up one or two more clients.

Some prospects are both not pregnant and not not-pregnant

Earlier, I mentioned I’d spoken to 290 decision-makers during the year and turned 10 of them into clients.

So what happened to the other 280? 

Well, 171 said no, while the other 109 gave an answer somewhere between yes and no. 

I’ve been following up with all the not-yes-not-no people. I’ve built good relationships with a lot of them, and think there are 30-40 future clients in this group. Some might come on board the next time I call; others might require another decade of calls. 

By the way, none of the 10 clients I won during the year signed up on the first call: all of them were the result of multiple contacts, which is why I’m confident those 30-40 businesses will also sign up at some point.

Introducing my plan for 2021

You might be wondering whether I’m going to make more cold-calls in 2021.

Yes, I will, but I’m going to adopt a different plan:

• Instead of making 50 calls per week / 2,500 per year, I’ll make 20 / 1,000
• I’ll make at least one call each workday
• I’ll continue following up with my growing collection of not-yes-not-no people

The five lessons I learned from my 554 calls

Finally, I want to share five lessons I learned from my year of cold-calling.

First, to my surprise, only a handful of the 290 decision-makers I spoke to reacted negatively to being cold-called: most were neutral; some were positive. Here’s why:

• Most decision-makers are in sales, or have been at some point in their career
• I was always friendly and honest, rather than pushy and slimy

Second, the not-yes-not-no people reacted even more favourably to my follow-up calls:

• They respected my hustle and professionalism
• They remembered I’d been friendly and honest during the first call, so they realised I was non-threatening

Third, cold-calling is a fantastic form of market research – you learn about your customers’ desires, objections and pain points.

Fourth, cold-calling helps you sharpen your sales pitch.

Fifth, cold-calling is a great way to build your resilience.

So if I cold-call you during 2021 and you reject me – thanks in advance.

Nick Bendel is the owner of Hunter & Scribe, a copywriting and content marketing agency. Need help with blogs, social media posts, emails, ebooks, media releases, website copy and other types of business writing? If so, contact Nick on [email protected].