The more time I spend in sales, the more I believe in the concept of “cold calling karma.” I’m not sure if I borrowed the phrase from somewhere or if I coined it myself. It is very simple: make your cold calls, and good things will happen.
I am fortunate to work in a boutique organization where I maintain flexibility and agility in my sales and marketing efforts. Although I fulfill the role of sales and marketing chief executive, our business model allows me to continue to keep a hand in the basic building blocks of executive to executive cold calls and emails. With any luck, I spend an hour per day cold calling in-profile target prospects. And whenever I do, something positive happens.
For example, yesterday I spent a solid hour attacking the phones. I left many voice mails, received a couple of “we handle that internally” or “follow up next year” type responses, and one halfhearted request for more information. This was a very poor result. I almost always secure a product demo or appointment when I make a full hour of of dedicated cold calls – and when I fail this is a significant loss to my valuable time.
But then something interesting happened – I connected with a prospect and he provided a commitment to sign. I made the cold calls (to no avail), then closed a deal. Cold calling karma? I do not know for sure. But I am confident that if I set aside time to make my calls today, regardless of the direct results, something positive will happen.