The most important question we can ask ourselves as sales closers is this:
“What does my pipeline look like?”
I heard a one-liner that I’ll always remember from a Sales Manager because of how true and funny it is:
“Show me your pipeline and I’ll tell you about your Christmas.”
Our pipeline is our lifeline, and we ought to aim to make it overflow with new opportunities everyday.
So, the question is:
“Should you be doing cold calls if you’re in sales?”
My answer is that it depends on 3 major factors:
- What are my competitors doing?
- Can I easily target my decision maker(s) on the phone or in person?
- Is my product/service a WANT or is it a NEED?
What are my competitors doing?
Knowing what your competitors are doing is a major key because you can see what’s working and what’s not working. You can study them by getting feedback from your prospects and clients and figure out what they want and how they made their previous buying decision(s).
Nobody likes a random cold call.
In fact, I’d argue that cold calling is dead. I’m not saying that you can’t make sales if you cold call. What I’m saying is that there are better ways to have an exciting Christmas.
In today’s world, most people go on Social Media every day.
There are powerful ways you can leverage social media organically and generate leads to close. It takes time to build, and you have to come up with interesting ways to engage your audience. Social media creates brand awareness for an individual and business. When leveraged correctly, you can generate a lot of leads in a short period of time without having to cold call.
Since joining Apex 3 years ago, I’ve connected with elite entrepreneurs, brilliant business owners, and overall awesome people. Apex is personal development/growth, and it’s also a strong network of people who like to do business and life together.
On top of that, they teach you how to leverage social media and digital assets to grow your business. Since January of 2019, I’ve been posting at least once per day on Facebook, and sometimes 2 or 3. I’ve established myself and my company, Certain Pay, as one of the go-to’s for Credit Card Processing.
Because of what I learned from Ryan Stewman and his coaches in the Apex Executives Program, I personally could sell 1 or 2 new merchant accounts per day and I’ve been able to build a 7-figure payment processing business with processes, people, and massive growth potential!
Our competitors knock on doors, use call centers, work with referral partners, and also make cold calls.
Not many companies (except for a few,) leverage Social Media like we do, and it’s helping us grow. We teach our sales team to knock on doors because there’s a lot to learn when it comes to merchant services, and the best way you can learn is by physically being in the businesses that we serve.
You must have multiple streams of leads/referrals coming into your business so you can withstand potential cut offs or losses. Think of it like diversifying your investments.
Can I easily target my decision maker(s) on the phone or in person?
The answer to this question is important because it reverts us back to our most important asset as salespeople:
Time.
If you’re spending your valuable time selling to a mid-level manager, but you actually need to get to the CFO, you’re wasting time and costing yourself money. If you can get your decision maker on the phone or drop in on their small business and see them in person, then you have an advantage.
You will have to hear a lot of no’s because that’s the nature of cold calling, and every seasoned veteran in sales will tell you the no’s get you to your next yes and they make you stronger as well.
If you work in an industry where it’s hard to get to the decision maker (say you sell to CEOs and they have barricades of gatekeepers in line between you and them,) I would find a better way to generate leads besides cold calling. When I get missed calls from salespeople, I rarely return them unless it’s something we are actively in the process of changing at my company.
Is my product/service a want or is it a need?
Prospects buy something because they either want it or need it.
We buy big expensive iPhones because we want them, and we buy food at the grocery store because we need it in order to survive as human beings. How does this concept correlate to buying decisions and how the opportunity to sell something arises?
Think about your local grocery store and how they make money. They might advertise on the radio, they might have billboards, or they might advertise specials in the newspaper to bring in customers and move products.
The local cell phone salesman is walking into businesses because he can get to a decision maker for an opportunity to sell him or her a corporate plan. He also might be posting on Facebook, Instagram, or network with B2B salespeople to generate leads. There are plenty of ways to advertise a want-based product.
My main point is this:
Your pipeline must be full at all times if you want to be a top producer and make a bunch of money in sales. It’s the hardest 5-figure job, and the easiest 6 and 7-figure job because money and success breeds more success.
A strong pipeline is exciting, and it will cause you to live in a stronger state of abundance. Sales sucks when you aren’t selling.
Success in sales means high production, strong connections with referral sources, selling great deals, having great clients, and knowing that you control how much money you make.
This success all stems back to a strong pipeline, and if you need to make cold-calls to fill it, then by all means, do it! If you can generate leads in better, more effective ways, then do that too!
Ask yourself this question so you can find your answer:
Do I want to do cold calls, and will they help me make more sales?
