A consipiracy exists in the world of selling. A cold calling
conspiracy.
What I’m talking about is the requirement by most sales
organizations to make cold calls on your time and at your expense. They say that
cold calls equal appointments equal sales, but that’s not true anymore. All
sales managers are guilty of teaching it, believing it, and using it. “Increase
your activity and increase your income” are the mantra. We’re told to do the
sales math to “motivate” ourselves. Have you heard this one? “If you make five
hundred dollars commission per sale and it takes five appointments to get the
sale and twenty calls to get an appointment, then each cold call is worth five
dollars in your pocket.”
Did anyone ever really believe this?
Hey
boss, put your money where your mouth is! If that were really true, companies
would pay us the five dollars per call! They don’t because that equation never
works in the real world... for anyone. The simple fact is that we are only paid
for completed sales, not for attempts. Directing salespeople to make more calls
and increase activity is a weak excuse for a sales manager or trainer to justify
his or her job. Cold calling is an expensive waste of your time. The reason
companies have you cold calling is because it is a waste of your time and your
money, not theirs. You only make money when you sell something, yet over eighty
percent of most salespeople’s time is spent looking for someone to sell
to.
The bottom line is that we, as salespeople, cannot afford to continue
fooling away our time on low-percentage activities like cold calling. It’s a way
for companies to save money at your expense. We must focus our attention on
activities that get real results in this new Information Age economy, and the
effectiveness of cold calling fell dramatically when we left the old Industrial
Age and entered this bold new era. Forget cold calling and learn how to market
yourself intelligently, systematically, and automatically. Self-marketing is the
key to success in today’s selling environment and the “secret” of all those top
producers who obviously don’t cold call and won’t tell you what it is they’re
doing to make those huge numbers every month. Remember, Napoleon Hill’s great
work is entitled “Think and Grow Rich,” not “Work Harder and Stay Broke.” Don’t
become a victim of the Cold Calling Conspiracy - learn to market yourself
successfully and join the elite club of top producers. I did it and you can
too.
About the Author
Frank
Rumbauskas is the author of Cold Calling Is A Waste Of Time: Sales Success In
The Information Age. He is the founder of FJR Advisors, LLC, which publishes
training materials that educate salespeople on how to generate business without
cold calling. For more information, please visit http://www.nevercoldcall.com
