Jennifer Pinch from Ultraframe floated the following question on the GlassTalk website yesterday:
I’ve just started to read a book called ‘Cold Calling Is A Waste Of Time’ because I’m curious to see what the Author has to say … what do you guys think? Are the days of cold calling over?
The question raised a few comments and I pitched in suggesting that although door knocking and tele-canvassing clearly work, I’d be quite happy to see tougher regulations to ban cold calling altogether.
However, it seems my sentiment is not shared by everyone with one of the GlassTalk members suggesting that the industry had developed from cold calling:
I wonder how many on this site started out as knockers or took leads off them as a sales rep or was the fitter that fitted the job that came from cold calling. We all loved the little toe rags then eh? Now just imagine that the bat phone stopped ringing, how long would it take YOU to get out and create some business by knocking doors again or get somebody in to do it for you? Or would you fold because you’re too proud?
I do understand his sentiment and appreciate that many people have become very rich over the years using this marketing strategy. But it doesn’t mean it’s right and I have never condoned it in my business.
Andy Mac weighed into the discussion by suggesting that times may be changing:
I was brought up in sales cold call myself and then covering cold called leads. It is not for the feint hearted and can be a very time consuming and expensive process.
You also need to be able to sell on the night and sell finance, it takes a very different animal to sell cold called leads successfully.
Firstly who cold calls, do you get your sales people to do it? Good Luck!Do you set up a telephone canvass room with students and other people desperate enough to sit and take the abuse they are likely to get just to earn a few quid. A good telcan room is as good as the supervisor who knows how to motivate people and also knows all the blaggs, they will try anything to get a salesman’s bum on a customers couch to earn a sit bonus, you can waste a lot of time and money and demotivate salespeople unless you know exactly what you are doing.
As for door canvass teams, multiply the problems and blagging by 10, you need a strong sales manager who is going to confirm decent leads and blow out the rubbish, the door canvass manager will then complain that the sales manager is blowing out good leads, the canvasser or their manager will the recall the customer to get the lead back on. Are you starting to get the idea about cold calling, you shouldn’t get involved unless you are extremely savvy, anyway why would you want to have all the hassle of the pro-active, scatter gun approach if you don’t need it? With the www you are much better spending your money on SEO and conversion rates on your web site, you will attract a much better quality lead and have much higher closing rates. To answer the question ‘Are the days of cold calling over’ not quite, not for the nationals like Zenith and Weatherseal but even they are spending much more on web sites now and generating leads that way, but cold calling is dying a slow death, the public are getting wiser and less likely to accept unsolicited calls.
I couldn’t agree more with Andy. I’ve traded for 17 years without ever employing door canvassers or tele-canvassers who just use the scattergun approach.
With the internet, everything has changed. SEO and PPC are the new door knocking and tele-canvassing. And its power to the people as they won’t contact you unless they choose to.
And, that’s how it should be!
I’m also pleased that 4 of our dealers are in the top 50 – greenwayupvc.com, westyorkshirewindows.co.uk, conservatorywindowdooroutlet.co.uk and planetsouthlakes.com.
