Maybe its a sign of the economy, but I continue to get innundated with people selling promotional items like pens and embroidered shirts. The business’s low overhead must be attactive.
What these folks seem to not realize is that EVERYONE is selling the same stuff. Yet they all come in without a prepared sales pitch. They give a quick pitch, find out who I am, that I don’t need anything right now, then ‘hope’ I’ll contact them in the future with my next need. I griped about this back in September, saying these salespeople were caught in a MAZE (maximum activity, zero effect).
Today’s cold-call visitor was different. Yes, the same information was exchanged, but he also did the following:
- Had three bargain-basement specials on flyers that would be available all year.
- Told me he would send bi-weekly emails with more specials.
We’ll see about the quality of the emails, but this is more than any other cold-calling promo salesperson has done recently, and it doesn’t really cost him much time or effort. These are tools that we marketers can put in our salespeople’s hands if they are doing cold calling.
I’m impressed that you had the time to see all of these cold-call sales people. That’s not a criticism of you, but a compliment. I’m in the ad agency biz now, but had been in sales for many years. I always appreciated when a prospect didn’t brush me off, but was polite enough to listen to what I had to say and how I might be able to help them. You are absolutely correct in that many sales people now don’t take the time to understand you business ahead of time and at least suggest some ideas that fit your needs.
I’m impressed that you had the time to see all of these cold-call sales people. That’s not a criticism of you, but a compliment. I’m in the ad agency biz now, but had been in sales for many years. I always appreciated when a prospect didn’t brush me off, but was polite enough to listen to what I had to say and how I might be able to help them. You are absolutely correct in that many sales people now don’t take the time to understand you business ahead of time and at least suggest some ideas that fit your needs.
Thanks for commenting. The cool thing in B2B is everyone is out to make money in a respectable way. I try to give everyone a fair listen, at least.But when they have nothing to say or engage me with, then, well.
Thanks for commenting. The cool thing in B2B is everyone is out to make money in a respectable way. I try to give everyone a fair listen, at least.But when they have nothing to say or engage me with, then, well.
When the words “bargain basement pricing” come up it seems to lead to commoditization of the sale -which can be the kiss of death.We also find a certain kind of e-mail update to be effective. Anyone have similar experiences?Get FREE Mini-Course delivered to your inbox. Jealously Guarded Secrets to Cold Calling Company Presidents: guaranteed to bring in new money!Enroll when you visit http://www.ColdCallingExecutives.com
When the words “bargain basement pricing” come up it seems to lead to commoditization of the sale -which can be the kiss of death.We also find a certain kind of e-mail update to be effective. Anyone have similar experiences?Get FREE Mini-Course delivered to your inbox. Jealously Guarded Secrets to Cold Calling Company Presidents: guaranteed to bring in new money!Enroll when you visit http://www.ColdCallingExecutives.com
I work with a Hosted CRM application provider the focuses on the inside sales space (InsideSales.com). Our entire application is build and designed to help sales reps (not necessarily telemarketers) effectively sell over the phone. This includes cold calling. I agree with the masses, cold calling is not fun. If done effectively, it can generate effective and somewhat cost effective leads. However, I have found that leads generated by cold calling are on average between 2x to 4x more expensive that a company or sales rep can generate via the web (if also done effectively). This is not the whole story though. An example: We have a customer that uses our system to power dial a list to generate leads. They were able to generate around 1 lead every 1.5 hours. Considering the cost of employees, systems and overhead, they were paying around $100/lead. From the web (using PPC, SEO, and lead providers) they were paying around $20/lead. This seems pretty straight forward, go with the web leads. What’s more, the cold call leads seemed to be less qualified than the web leads. The web leads generated actual buyers. The leads generated from cold calling identified companies that were at the beginning of the interest cycle. Thus, in the short term the web leads closed better and seemed more effective. However, they saw an unexpected reversal of value in lead sources. Even though the web leads were smaller opportunities and they closed faster and more often. The leads generated from cold calling we very targeted to the industry and size that that worked for this customer. This customer began to close deals greater than the sum of the smaller deals that came from the web from the same time frame. So in the end, cold calling generated more revenue and held its own compared to web leads.
I work with a Hosted CRM application provider the focuses on the inside sales space (InsideSales.com). Our entire application is build and designed to help sales reps (not necessarily telemarketers) effectively sell over the phone. This includes cold calling. I agree with the masses, cold calling is not fun. If done effectively, it can generate effective and somewhat cost effective leads. However, I have found that leads generated by cold calling are on average between 2x to 4x more expensive that a company or sales rep can generate via the web (if also done effectively). This is not the whole story though. An example: We have a customer that uses our system to power dial a list to generate leads. They were able to generate around 1 lead every 1.5 hours. Considering the cost of employees, systems and overhead, they were paying around $100/lead. From the web (using PPC, SEO, and lead providers) they were paying around $20/lead. This seems pretty straight forward, go with the web leads. What’s more, the cold call leads seemed to be less qualified than the web leads. The web leads generated actual buyers. The leads generated from cold calling identified companies that were at the beginning of the interest cycle. Thus, in the short term the web leads closed better and seemed more effective. However, they saw an unexpected reversal of value in lead sources. Even though the web leads were smaller opportunities and they closed faster and more often. The leads generated from cold calling we very targeted to the industry and size that that worked for this customer. This customer began to close deals greater than the sum of the smaller deals that came from the web from the same time frame. So in the end, cold calling generated more revenue and held its own compared to web leads.