Tag: prospecting

I long ago gave up on trying to help people understand the superiority of cold calling over any other form of cold outreach. Several years back, the proponents of a “social only” approach to prospecting were certain that they had replaced cold…

In some cases, merely increasing a given activity doesn’t really help you increase your sales effectiveness. But when you’re in a slump, increasing your prospecting—especially picking up the phone to schedule meetings—is the best prescription.…

Yesterday, a sales leader asked me a question that sales leaders should ask more often: “How do I get my salespeople to prospect?” In this case, the leader explained, his sales force didn’t believe they should be calling their clients and…

I started making cold calls when I was fifteen years old. I left my job washing dishes at a large banquet center and started calling community leaders to ask them to host a bike-a-thon for a popular charity.

On my first job, I learned that it was…

There are very few reasons not to leave a voicemail when you are calling your prospective clients to ask them for a meeting. There may only be one reason you might hang up the phone without leaving a message. That reason is that you are going to…

One of the most frequent questions about prospecting is some variation of, "How do I get my prospective client to respond to my email?" The question itself carries a lot of information, as does the frequency with which it is asked, both of which…

There aren't too many things more important in sales than gaining first meetings with your dream clients. Nothing happens until you can meet and explore change. This post is unlike my usual Sunday offering. Instead of my usual focus on personal…

What makes a call "cold" is that the person you are calling is not expecting your call. Because they are not expecting your call, you interrupt their day, even if they aren't doing anything important when you call them. You can never know who you…

There can be no doubt that making an effective cold call isn't easy. It isn't easy to get the contacts that work for your dream client's company to answer the phone, let alone agree to a meeting. When people ask this question, they are looking for…

The salesperson had just sent me his eighth email. The text of the email hadn't changed, except for a short line asking if I had read his earlier emails. I had indeed read his initial emails—all seven of them. I had politely responded to one of…