Cold calls are not dead yet. It seems crazy to think that this tactic that has been used for decades is still working. This in the age of AI and automation tools. The team at VA Partners use cold calling as part of our regular sales cadence across all of our sales engagements. One of our key performance indicators for our team is booked discovery calls. We recently looked back at the source of our discovery calls over the last few months and found that about 60% are booked through phone versus emails. This is a strategy for B2B focusing on larger dollar sales solutions. Cold calling is not a fit for consumers, and likely not a fit for lower costing solutions. Here are a few factors that point to why cold calls are not dead yet.
Email and Automation is Easy
The rise of automation has made emails very easy to send. It is efficient to build lists and send large quantities of emails. For founders, email is less time consuming and easier than making calls. Cold calling isn’t fun and it is something people will try to avoid. The challenge is that start-ups send an email or two and then move on. They end up not getting enough interest or discovery calls.
Too Many Emails
Customers are getting an overwhelming number of emails. There have also been tools put in place to identify emails as spam. This is especially true of bulk emails. There is a false sense of success with open and click rates. Many organizations use security systems that open and click links. This gives a lot of false positives. Tools like HubSpot try and provide some reporting on opens and clicks by people versus bots.
Call Direct
People still have office phones and work related mobile phones. Some industries, like higher ed, have their direct numbers on their website. There are also many great tools that can help source office numbers, direct lines, and mobile numbers. We use Apollo as our toll of choice. Many organizations will have a phone directory or even in some cases a receptionist. Know who you plan to talk with and you can often get connected.
We Still Use Email
This post seems to minimize the effectiveness of email, but we still use emails for our outbound sales cadence. We do get some responses back from emails and even in a few cases inbound calls. As part of our cold call script we ask about the email as a way to get the conversation going.
Cold calls are not dead yet. Work cold calls into your sales cadence and book more meetings. If you need some help getting a sales plan together, including cold calls, please reach out.
