I’m constantly amazed that so many salespeople tell me, “cold-calling doesn’t work!” They call it “old school.” They go on to tell me about how they could (not that they DID) leave voicemail after voicemail, and that would NEVER get a reply. When I ask about e-mail, the conversation degenerates more. I hear, “My e-mail’s are just SPAM! I don’t read SPAM, and neither do my prospects! They are one delete key away from the bit-bucket!”

So what’s the answer? We teach salespeople to identify their Top 5, and attack them like a fat man goes after a wedding buffet table. For the next 20, keep a presence. You can send e-mails, do research, or look for a contact. For the rest, include them in your marketing campaigns for awareness.

This week we were told that we were the selected vendor to train a fairly large company. The salesperson, Dan - a member of the team for several years, contacted the executive by cold-calling him. He didn’t cold call them, only once! He left message after message over the past 18 months. Every quarter Dan would be “tickled” by his CRM system to call three of the executives at this company and leave them a message. These were just a few of the THIRTY calls Dan makes every day. When this company started looking at training, they made one call, to Dan.

To most salespeople, that sounds like a lot of work. It’s work they DON’T like doing. Their option is to sit by the phone and wait for it to ring. And, when the phone doesn’t ring, (and it won’t); they blame the economy, the marketing department, or some other convenient excuse.

I believe cold-calling is an essential part of selling. Maybe we should call it “networking to find people with problems we can help them solve.” If you do it religiously, over the long run, you will see results.