They’re intrusive, annoying and presumptuous – that’s what most people think about cold calls. Most of us hate receiving them, if we’re still answering calls from unknown numbers at all.
Even our devices seem to be getting increasingly call-phobic; Apple is just the latest phone company to let users screen callers’ motives before they decide whether to pick up. (Or it will, when the update rolls out later this year.)
Then there’s the regulatory space: Just a few days ago, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission commenced a review into unsolicited selling and lead generation, including door-to-door selling and cold calling.
It feels like cold calling is dying – and regulation and tech are coming in to speed up the process.
But should we lay the cold call to rest? What might business owners – and consumers – stand to lose if we do? ISB spoke to business owners and mentors about what the cold call means to them, how we can make better cold calls, and what we’re letting go of when we avoid them.
Intrusiveness: Is it a bad thing?
Barry Lehrer is a self-described “40-year veteran of the corporate and SME trenches”. He’s explored cold calling as a sales strategy a few times in his career as a business owner, and seen mixed results.
“The problem with it has always been that it’s very intrusive,” he told ISB.
But this direct intrusion into someone’s day is also the reason why cold calling can work so well. Lehrer said he’s seen cold calling work particularly well in the service sector, where understanding a customer’s unique pain points is all-important.
“When I call, I can relate to you [the customer] and your needs very directly,” he explained. “I can talk to you and understand what you’re all about. If I can get the right rapport, I can learn your frustrations and solve them.”
Cold calling’s ability to build rapport with customers is what makes it a favoured tactic of sales expert Frances Pratt.
“If you think about it, conversations are what actually develops rapport,” she told ISB. “So many people go, ‘I’m putting all this stuff online, and no one’s commenting – that’s because they’re not interested, right? And how do you know if someone’s interested? Only 7 per cent of communication comes via the words themselves.” *
The lost art of cold calling
We’re all familiar with the kind of cold call that gives all cold calls a bad name: that is, mass outreach where the caller follows a predictable script and offers nothing of value to the recipient.
But Pratt and Lehrer have both seen cold calling build quick, firm rapport with new customers – if done well. Here are some features of a well-done cold call, according to them:
Value comes first
Lehrer’s business had mixed results when it used cold outreach, but when calls did lead to a sale, it was when he offered something of value straight away. Pratt said this is generally the thing that gets someone to stay on the phone.
“Lead with value,” she said. “I was once working with a childcare furniture company, and instead of calling all the new childcare centers and asking if they wanted furniture, we put together an opening-cost calculator.”
The call is part of a wider strategy
Cold calling shouldn’t be used on its own, said Pratt – just like any other sales or marketing tool. Instead, it’s part of a wider strategy, and often works best as a way to understand the customer’s frustrations and emphasise the impact.
When Lehrer made cold calls, for instance, he never focussed on the sale.
“It wasn’t about selling a product to them, it was about helping them identify issues that they needed to fix up,” he said. “Most of those issues they probably knew about, but they brushed them to the side.”
If he did make the sale of a phone call, it wouldn’t be the first – Lehrer described using the first call as a meet and greet, the second to emphasise the customer’s problem, and the third to sell his solution.
The call feels personal
Part of the reason people hate cold calls is their reputation for being ill-matched to the recipient and clearly part of a numbers game.
“People just talk on a script,” said Lehrer. “There’s no interaction or, ‘Hey I want to understand’. It’s just, ‘Hey, I’ve got a solution.’”
But when you approach a call this way, you miss out on its biggest boon: Its ability to connect directly with your customer.
Lehrer also said he had the most success when he made the calls personally, rather than outsourcing.
“The best person to do the cold calling is the person who’s got the most to lose – like the business owner,” he said.
What we lose if cold calling dies
Lehrer hasn’t always had the most success with cold calling, but he does think we’re losing something when we let it go.
“We’re losing our direct knowledge of the customer,” he said. “When you talk to somebody it’s two dimensional, but when you look at someone on a screen, it’s one dimensional – there’s no feedback.”
But he doesn’t think cold calling is over – even if regulations and tech innovations expand further.
“What I think is going to happen is that the really clever people are going to work out a solution,” he said.
It’s become trite to mention people’s craving for authentic human connection in the age of the internet and AI, but it’s true. For instance, in recent years, we’ve seen a rise in so-called founder-generated marketing content, where business leaders speak directly to consumers via social media.
When Pratt and Lehrer speak of cold calling’s potential to connect directly with customers, they highlight its ability to transgress barriers that email or text alone can’t.
Consumers want connection, increasingly so – could this make room for a cold call renaissance like Lehrer describes? After all: the less popular cold calling gets, the more effective a sales tactic it becomes.
Or will lousy call strategies, technology, and regulation relegate cold calling to marketing history?
Only time will tell.
* (That stat, often attributed to psychologist Albert Mehrabian, is widely quoted but disputed.)
