Why aren't they making more cold calls?!

Sound Familiar…..well it’s perhaps one the most common gripes I hear about inside sales SDR/BDR teams, particularly from owners who started in the role.

But are these owners wrong? Are they just stuck in the past?!

No, we don’t think so….but the solution is not as easily fixed as you might think and just telling people to call more doesn’t work. When people in their 40’s or above first started out in sales, the use of a telephone was all but second nature in sales – you called people or if were so inclined could fax/write a letter if you really wanted! So the cold call was probably the most essential way to prospect and engage new people and mastering cold calling was massive part of practically every foundational sales course. I recall with terror doing cold call role plays and listening back to the cassette recording in front of the team hoping the world would swallow me up……but it honed my skills and made me embrace the cold call.

These day however, whilst we all have phones in our hands most of the time, we are communicating on multiple channels – email, linkedin, whatsapp, snapchat, facebook, video calling ets and all these other new apps I won’t even pretend to know about. And the same is true at work with all sorts of tools and automated emailing cadences that make it seems like calling is just not important any more. In fact, many vendors of such tools have made bold claims like cold calling dead or cold calling doesn’t work…further fuelling the barriers to junior sales people from embracing cold calling as part of their outbound mix.

However, this is a huge miss for any SDR starting out and will not only stop them maximising their performance today, but also their future success in any sales role where calling is just as important. The truth is that cold calling can and still work, and can even be a more successful than many of the other approaches when done properly.

However most people are either scared of cold calling or just really bad it, so it’s no wonder volumes are much lower than you might hope!

Are your team confident? Do they know how to prepare for cold call? Do they know how to structure and call and deal with objections? Is there environment conducive to cold calling? Do they have the right data Etc etc…. With the right tools, support and training, even the most nervous cold caller can turn the phone into a valued part of the sales kit. So if you are frustrated with your outbound calling step back and look at the situation and check you’ve given your team the best chance to succeed.