Cold calling is a selling method wherein the salesperson makes unsolicited calls, with the help of a phone in most cases, to prospective clients. The adjective 'cold' is used because of the initial treatment of recipients towards the callers. Although it's extremely difficult for sales people to attain their objectives through cold calling, most of them still persist in using this topic.



There should, however, come a point of accepting that some methods just don't work, ie. cold calling, and it's time to move to greener pastures.

Other Areas Where Cold Calling is Used

Cold calling is not exclusively used in sales although it is its primary application. Cold calling however can also be used, and more effectively in some cases, in other industries such as recruitment and labor placement for instance. Head hunters make unsolicited or cold calls to people whom they wish to pirate for another job opportunity.

Reasons Why Cold Calling is an Ineffective Sales Method

Time Eater - People tend to think of cold calls as time eaters because they're forced to dedicate a portion of their busy schedules just to entertain cold calls. This is doubly resentful since these calls weren't scheduled and solicited in the first place. Cold calls can cause people to ruin their schedules when they're too polite to cut the caller short.

Act of Rudeness - Some people tend to view cold calls as a simple act of rudeness merely because they weren't solicited. As such, these people feel they're very much in their rights to reject this type of call and treat rudeness with rudeness as well.

Wrong Target - It would be better, of course, if prospects used for cold calls were carefully selected, but in most cases, they aren't. For that reason, you could be making cold calls to the wrong people: people who aren't your target market and has no interest whatsoever in whatever you're selling or offering.

Remember that one of the basic lessons in sales and marketing is to have a target market in mind and to identify specific characteristics that make the target market respond positively towards your product. When you're giving your sales pitch to the wrong target market, there's very little possibility that you'll succeed in attaining your objective.

Insignificance - Other individuals don't mean to neglect your calls, but the mere fact that your call is not expected or scheduled automatically places it on the bottom of the person's priority list. As such, your call will be labeled insignificant, and it's very possible that you won't even be given access to the person you're intending to talk to.

Hard on the Nerves - At times, the problem isn't with the recipient of the call but with the recipient himself. People can feel inordinately nervous whenever they're required to talk to strangers who may not even welcome the idea of having to spend minutes listening to a sales pitch made by an anonymous caller.

If you're the type to imagine all sorts of horror happening to you even though there's no present indication to say that the recipient of your caller will react that way, this could destroy your concentration and make you unable to deliver your sales pitch the way it should be.

Although cold calling has its benefits, affordability being one of them, it is however still not a method that you should apply to every, if any, customer. The potential harms of cold calling far outweighs its benefits so if you don't want to risk alienating a prospective client, stay away from cold calling!