While we have heard a lot that telephone prospecting was going to disappear in recent years, I have never agreed with these forecasts. Some analysts have even talked about the extinction of the role of representative, nothing less!

Nonetheless, it is true that traditional cold call prospecting has suffered a downfall. In the golden age of cold calls, a representative could make 40 attempts in 2 hours, hope to talk with 10 decision-makers and get 2 or, perhaps, 3 meetings. However, we are far from those numbers nowadays.

Salespeople are reluctant to cold call, and the public is intolerant of them - yet cold calls are still very much relevant.

How can you explain this?

There's a stigma associated with cold calls, but they're critical in establishing a preliminary contact with a client.

There are, for example, 5 instances where cold calls are usually required:

1. New salespeople - unless new salespeople are fed a lot of leads, they'll need to cold call to fill their pipeline;
2. Size of the customer pool - the more prospects there are in an industry, the more chances a rep will need to cold call;
3. Size of a rep's network - if a rep doesn't have a large enough network to leverage a constant flow of referrals, cold calling will be required.
4. Expectations - if there aren't enough inbound leads for a rep to meet expectations, he or she will need to prospect;
5. Skills - The worst a rep is at cold calling, the more of it they will have to do.

Sales teams can leverage proven methods to reduce discomfort and ease the client’s impatience.

Two weeks ago, I received a prospecting call to sell me video marketing services. The call was representative of most cold calls made today.

I don't know if my interlocutor knew that Prima Resource is a sales consulting firm, but in any case, I'll use our conversation to deconstruct cold calling the techniques still used. It so happens that I used this conversation as an example, but any other would have revealed the same shortcomings.

Given that decision makers are increasingly difficult to reach, you need to make sure you're as efficient as possible when you do get the chance to talk to them. Use this deconstruction, as well as the tips on how to change your approach as a way to improve.