“The cold call is dead”

The days of “smiling and dialing” — bogus rehearsed scripts that no good sales person could ever get right anyway, thumbing a phonebook (if you remember what that is), and computer generated reports — while filling out call sheets so that you could complete your XX number of required calls a day is OVER! Thank god! If your still doing it good luck!

Sales 2.0

In the new world of Sales 2.0, technology has drastically changed the way that we as consumers are being sold too. Today, we utilize everyday technology to enhance our our sales leads and conversions. Now, we have the tech to prospect customers better and execute “social calls” using the latest web 2.0 social tools, while never picking up a phone or opening a door.

• Talking to the right people – often the hardest part of the prospecting cycle.
• Establishing relationships – what do we have in common with our buyers?
• Using changes in your buyer’s environment – what trigger event just occurred that makes now the time to talk to you?

“The numbers are the numbers and the numbers don’t lie”
That was the favorite phrase of an ex-corporate GM of mine years ago. He was right. If you knew you made XX smiles and dials each day, you could set XX appointments. The results were usually very bleak.

Today, 2.0 Sales Technologies tools allow us to easily network and interact with multiple times the people as we ever could in the years past, while continuing to prospect for new opportunities.

What do you think? Can using social networking and Sales 2.0 tools in prospecting increase the ability to “get in the door” dramatically? Feel free to comment below using your Facebook account. Looking forward to your comments!