The short answer to this perennial question: If you’re going to crash call, stick to small non-retail prospects.
In today’s tougher economic times, more and more companies are pushing their sales force to make cold calls... in person. Indeed, a June 2010 survey conducted by A.S. Danier & Co. suggests that in person cold calling has increased 20% since 2008.
The rationale: It’s harder to avoid someone who is standing right in front of you than it is to get off the phone or ignore a voice mail.
What’s not so rational is that...
• It costs a company far more to have sales reps driving around town than dialing around. Even if sales reps are on straight commission, they can make 10 – 12 the number of contacts (calling, but not getting past the gatekeeper does not count as a contact) by phone than they can in the same time period when working the phone.
• +85% of decision makers hate it when sales people “drop by” without an appointment.
Executive comments include:
“It suggests a complete lack of respect for my needs and makes me feel less respect for the company that sent the rep in to big me.”
“I hate it and really resent the intrusion.”
“It’s unprofessional – no ifs ands or buts about it.”
• Less than 10% of companies that require sales reps to spend part of their time doing “drop-bys” provide any training on how to make this a successful practice... and reps who are forced to call on corporate clients unannounced only make one sale on average for every 150 such visits. Hardly seems worth the effort.
Bottom line: The vast majority of corporate decision makers are reluctant to do business with reps who cold call in person. In other words, stop banging your head against the wall... and stop wasting your time knocking on cold doors.
Are there any exceptions to this? Absolutely.
After talking with 10 sales reps who use in-person cold calling successfully, and contacting some of the authors of good online articles, we found that the method works under the conditions below. (Okay, it’s not statistically valid research, but the consistency of the results suggests there is merit to what they had to say.)
In-person cold calling works when all of the following conditions exist:
1) When your product or service is one that is ideally-suited for smaller businesses.
When a company has fewer than 25 people, it is often run by an entrepreneur, and the culture is usually less formal than in larger firms. As a result, it frequently possible for the unexpected rep to get in to see the decision maker for a couple of minutes.
If not, then there is often someone who will give the rep enough info for the company to be qualified as a prospect (or not). Barring that, it is usually possible for the rep to get the business card of the decision maker so that a proper appointment can be made.
Note: This does not work well with busy retailers, however, because interrupting their sales efforts will alienate them... and the constant interruptions of the sales pitch diminishes the likelihood of a deal being closed in any event.
2) When the cost vs. benefit balance makes the decision an easy one.
When the rep can get to the point quickly and show the decision maker how the product or service will help – specifically – then there is a good chance the cold call will result in a follow-up appointment, or even a sale.
3) When the sales rep is prepared to put in the time and effort.
Sounds like a no-brainer, but many sales people give up for the day after 15 – 20 sales calls, without having made a sale. This can make them reluctant to make more calls – which leads to a vicious cycle of losing confidence in their ability to make sales, getting in to see fewer people, feeling depressed and then making less effort, which compounds the whole situation.
In reality it takes about 40 – 55 in-person cold calls to create a sale... and most sales reps do fewer drop-ins than that a day.
If a rep is willing to do a little homework, find out which buildings and parts of the city are home to smaller firms, and will keep good notes relating to how each of the firms he or she contacts can benefit for his or her product or service, then cold call visits can indeed lead to future sales. Many future sales.
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