Is it Time to Bring Cold Calls and Donuts Back?

I have spent a lot of time recently contemplating the state of outbound prospecting. To be fair, most of what I am about to discuss is based on my experience as a buyer vs. as a seller. As a salesperson, I see this as a very serious concern.

I also need to make it very clear that, as we discuss these methodologies, we are looking at them for use in cold prospecting. This is not to say that they are not valuable and appropriate for use with any recognized customer or with a prospect in progress. Away we go but, first …

This article is more a request for your opinions
rather than any sort of statement of fact!

How effective is the phone and email?

I no longer answer my home phone or my cell phone unless you are recognized as being in my contact lists and … I like you.
I have filters and services which are sending the bulk of your daily email newsletters either to the trash (75%) or to a digest (15%). That means only 10% are even making it to my inbox!

Nobody is leaving me voice messages so … that answers the first question. I will then generally block those numbers although there are always plenty of new ones to take their place.

Most of the automated emails that I get are …

Not requested
Not personalized or incorrectly personalized
Not related to the services that I offer
Are extremely poorly written
Way too frequent!
Don’t properly address …. What’s in it for me??

Really? How professional! Even if I did email campaigns (I don’t), the open, click, and conversion percentages are so stinkin’ low that you would need to send out a gazillion of these suckers in order to make it worthwhile and that won’t work for me. I don’t have a mailing list of a gazillion or anything even remotely close.

Additionally, those abhorrent performance rates are for people who supposedly know what the hell they are doing and … I don’t. The simple fact is that salespeople, for the most part, function in a one-to-one environment and have little to no business attempting to perform in a marketing related capacity. My opinion.

We also have direct messaging on most social networks. 9 out of 10 connection requests that I receive on LinkedIn are not personalized. At least half of the 10% that are personalized do not answer #6 above and/or are obvious templates and likely automated. Subsequent offers are … see above.

So, that leaves us with direct mail, SMS, attraction marketing, and face-to-face cold calls. Direct mail? I get plenty each day and most of it goes straight to recycling. Your piece had better look good and had better not look to be mass produced. “Dear Occupant” or “Resident” ain’t gonna’ cut it.

I’ve read about applications that offer SMS campaigns but, I may have been on the receiving end of only two or three. Annoying and, in my opinion, a bit of an intrusion on my personal space. Maybe this is why we don’t see them more in use? Signs are that we may be seeing more of SMS campaigns.

Attraction Marketing is critical IMHO. Effective use of this capability will bring qualified clients directly to you as opposed to you running around and digging them up. Start a blog. Build a website. Put some videos on YouTube. Make your LinkedIn profile smoking hot! Get active. Educate! Engage and do so progressively!

And … we are now back to 1977 when I first got started in B2B selling … Face-to-Face Cold Calls. Bring donuts and you have Enhanced Face-to-Face Cold Calls. You will likely be the only salesperson who walks in their door today so you will be unique. They might even wish to study you 🙂 Who doesn’t love a good donut!?

Ultimately, any methodology must be remarkable, unique, and memorable (RUM). It must be accurate and it must be personal and therein lies the problem. Mass marketing will not work on me or for me.

I do believe that if you take the time to properly target and understand the unique needs of each specific customer, and then properly apply those to your offering, perhaps any outbound prospecting tactic can be effective. More work but, better results. Worth it? Your thoughts?

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Craig M. Jamieson

Managing Member at Adaptive Business Services

Craig M. Jamieson is a lifelong B2B salesperson, manager, owner, and a networking enthusiast. Adaptive Business Services provides solutions related to the sales professional. We are a Nimble CRM Solution Partner. Craig also conducts training and workshops primarily in social selling and communication skills. Craig is also the author of "The Small Business' Guide to Social CRM", now available on Amazon!