I am not a big fan of cold calling.
As an IT Manager, I always get cold calls from Technical Sales people introducing their company and products/services and wanting to take me to lunch and maybe a sports game. I would listen to the three minute voicemail they leave me and proceed to not take the information down and promptly delete the message.
I have to hand it to the sales guy who is constantly getting rejected and ignored by people like me. It is the toughest job on the planet and being in sales/marketing myself with my social media/ Internet marketing business, I still have that fear of picking up the phone and getting ignored and/or rejected by the person I am calling.
Around five years ago, this fad called Social Media came around. You know, LinkedIN, Facebook, Twitter and now Google+. With Social Media and the ability to find out the background of potential business partners or clients, your first contact may be a lot easier than simply dialing for dollars with the old way of cold calling.
I spend a lot of time on LinkedIN and Facebook and using the tools available to find companies that may need my services. I'll repeat, I look for the companies that need my company's services. If you know that, then that first contact would be a lot easier and the person on the other line may be more respective of what you have to say. By the way, I still do not pick up the phone. I may instead send an EMAIL or a LinkedIN introduction and hope that I get a response. Yes, I fear rejection, but I think it still better to contact a potential prospect via EMAIL since it is less abrasive. Well, it has worked, since I usually get around a 20% response rate using messaging versus cold calling.
Finally, since Social Media provides the tools to find clients that you did not have back in the days of phone calls, it is the new cold call.
I would appreciate any feedback you have on how to use social media as the new cold call. I will share responses on my social media pages.
