Guest post by Steve Richard, co-founder, Vorsight

Salespeople grease the wheels of the economy.  Having a person to person conversation dramatically improves the likelihood of a business transaction.  Cold calling matters because you cannot possibly know all of your potential clients.  You need the ability to reach out and connect with more prospects that don’t yet know they want to be talking to you.  Add value with each interaction.  Marketing leads begin the process in many cases, but you still need a quasi-cold or warm call to advance the sales process.

Most people hate the idea of cold calling, not the actual activity.  Salespeople tend to be a gregarious bunch by nature.  They love meeting new people, telling stories, socializing – so long as it’s done face to face.  What’s so different about making these introductions and building these relationships via the phone?  It’s really not different at all when you stop and think about it.  Cold calling, quasi-cold calling, and warm calling are all essentially the same thing: approaching someone who doesn’t currently know you and saying hello.  Once you get good at it, you have a fantastic new channel to find potential buyers.

So if that’s the case why do so many people still struggle with it?  Simple – because they were never given the right tools and shown how.  If you are a plumber trying to fix a sink you need wrenches, right?  Most organizations teach their salespeople everything about their products and services and tell them to get on the phones.  But what about the sales skills training, the tools, tips, tricks, tactics, and techniques?  It’s like trying to fix a sink without a wrench.  

Bottom line = cold calling matters for your business.

Steve is the Co-Founder and Head of Training at Vorsight.  Over the past 2 years he has provided sales training workshops to over 1,000 attendees.