The other day I had coffee with Kathy Tito, the President of New England Sales & Marketing. We were sharing sales ideas and experiences, and at one point our conversation turned to cold calling trends. We passionately agreed that since buying behavior has changed, cold calling techniques must be realigned. And….this blog post was born.

Kathy and I collaborated to share our ideas about what companies should start, stop or continue doing to maximize the effectiveness of their cold calling initiatives. Here are our views on “Cold Calling Trends in 2010: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”.

The Good

• Better Targeting & Qualification: Companies are becoming much more strategic about the types of cold calling initiatives they undertake. Instead of calling every available prospect, they are laser targeting their efforts on the prospects with the greatest opportunities.

Some companies use “pre-calling” campaigns before launching an official cold calling campaign and ask prospects questions about the level of satisfaction with existing solutions and other information that contributes to lead scoring. Others have jumped on the internet behavior bandwagon, and are monitoring social media, blogging and website activities, to identify the right prospects at the right times.

• More Time On List Cleansing: When you purchase a traditional B2B list from a list vendor, we’ve found that at least 20% of the contact information is invalid.  Savvy companies are biting the bullet and verifying contact information before launching their cold calling campaigns.

Some companies send a preliminary email campaign, to identify and delete “bounces”. Others leverage and combine multiple list sources e.g. LinkedIn, Zoom, Harte-Hanks. And, some companies use internal or outsourced resources to telephone verify and update contact information, before turning over the list to highly skilled, salespeople.

• Testing Before Investing:  Before hiring permanent employees or signing a long term contract with an outsource vendor, many companies are “testing before investing”….testing new campaigns, approaches, verticals or geographic areas for specified time frames.

From an outsourcing perspective, there should no longer be a need for a company to sign up for year-long commitments, or commit to buying X number of leads, especially when they have never used the vendor before. It is a buyer’s market, and vendors should reflect that in their flexibility.

The only caveat for testing a lead generation firm, especially for a complex sales process, is that you choose a timeframe that will tell you what you feel you need to know about the vendor. If you test a lead generation firm for six months, and your sales cycle is 12 months, do not expect any closed sales during your test. However, you can look for things like lead quality, quantity, and strong strategic and tactical collaboration with the vendor.

• We Want You Back: Client Win Back Programs, i.e. cold calling businesses or consumers who used to use your product and attempting to win them back, can often capture “low-hanging sales fruit”, especially if you have a new or improved product, service or pricing model.

The Bad & The Ugly

• Combining Hunters and Farmers: With existing customers spending less or going out of business, some companies have reassigned sales resources skilled in customer retention or “farmers” and moved them into a “hunter” role. The sales skill set to retain and grow is very different than the skill set required to generate new business, so this change in assignment rarely works and actually decreases sales productivity.

• Refusing To “Ditch The Pitch”. At the Sales 2.0 Conference last year, Gerhard Gschwandtner, Founder and CEO of Personal Selling Power Inc, coined the phrase “ditch the pitch”. The key message then, which is even more relevant in 2010 is, scripts and sales pitches no longer work. Buyers are more savvy than every before, and it’s now about “conversations” and “value”. For more info on this topic, see the earlier Sales Ops Blog post, “Selling in 2010, What’s In and What’s Out”.

• Cold Emailing: Although it may work occasionally, replacing cold calling with cold emailing is not recommended!

Similar to how you begin recognizing certain models of cars on the road after you become aware of them, people are more likely to acknowledge (open, read, and understand) email from companies and people whose names they have heard before. If you email strangers, there is a greater chance they will delete that message that you crafted so carefully, or paid so much to have designed – without reading it. Even a lackluster voicemail can garner more brand recognition than that!

The data is clear. When emails are sent after telephone conversations with prospects, the open rates are significantly higher. If you want your clients to “feel” each touch of your multi-touch campaign, the initial contact with a prospect should be the phone call, with an email (or direct mail) follow-up, not the other way around. (Check out Kathy’s post on this topic: “4 Ways Cold Email Hurts Sales”. )

Do you agree with us? What other ideas do you have about cold calling in 2010? Please add your comments.

Copyright May 2010, Marci Reynolds and Kathy Tito, All Rights Reserved

1. Selling in 2010: What’s In and What’s Out