Last week in class, Professor Sweet talked about both cold calling and warm calling. Both of these types of calling are a form of prospecting. Cold calling is defined as “to make an unsolicited call on (someone), by phone or in person, in an attempt to sell goods or services”. Cold calling is hard but it is a good exercise because it forces you to make efforts to connect with someone who you know nothing about. This is also a good form of prospecting because it is a selection and sorting process which helps you find qualified leads. Cold calling requires a lot of strategy, discipline, clear vision and ultimately patience because odds of you talking to many people that say “yes” is very low. Even though I am described as an ambivert and I believe I can talk to almost anyone, cold calling still gives me some small level of anxiety because I don’t know a single thing about this person and I have to sell them something.
In the summer of 2019 I experience warm calling which is you already have some level of information about the person who you are talking to. This was a lot easier for me because I already had a good amount of information due to our CRM system, so creating conversation and selling our event space came easy for me. I believe gathering some information, even if its a small amount, can help you greatly because this allows you to create a connection ahead of time to the customer which can help you make the sale.
BoweryJE22
I do not have a ton of experience in cold calling, but warm calling is something that I am more comfortable with. I absolutely agree that warm calling is much easier since you already have some kind of background information on that person and are not just starting from the very bottom like you would in a cold call. The few times that I have cold called, I have done well, but it is still something that could be a little nerve wracking.
I like how you were able to experience and get a feel for the types of calling involved in sales. I personally have not had much experience with either, but it is obvious that warm calls have more of an advantage.
Cold calling is such an interesting concept, and quite frankly, one of which I find very little value in when it comes to selling, BUT numbers do equate to sales. I think so often when I receive a cold call, I’m quick to hang up before the person even gets to their third word. It’s more common to expect a robot at this point than a human, which is another reason why I reject calls after their ‘hello’.