Still Cold Calling? | November 2001 Web Exclusive

Web Exclusive: Still Cold Calling?

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Landy Chase, CSP

Get over 200 face-to-face meetings per year with the most
important prospects in your market.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the Summer 2001 Journal of the Florida Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors. It is used here with FAIFA's permission and the permission of its author Landy Chase, CSP.

Most business people still seem to think that the way to find new business is through that tried-and-true technique known as "cold calling." For those of you who need to be enlightened, this involves getting a list of people who have never met you, know nothing about you and your company, want to know nothing about you and your company and are not expecting a call from you and your company. You then interrupt their day with an out-of-the-blue phone call and try to persuade them, based on some clever "pitch," to give you an appointment. Is there any wonder that most people doing this kind of work find it as distasteful as the people whom they are calling?

This is not to say that prospecting isn't a good use of your time. It is, of course, a critical component of your ability to successfully grow your client base. However, prospecting and cold calling are not the same thing. Prospecting is not a selling activity. It is a form of marketing, which is what you do to get opportunities to sell. Selling is the result of effective marketing. Using this definition, cold calling is easily the least productive use of your marketing time. Is there a better way to get qualified buyers to see you?

Customer management programs

People like to buy based on familiarity, and timing.

The most productive and underutilized prospecting tools available today are the contact management software programs such as ACT!, Maximizer, Goldmine and Telemagic. These programs have one thing in common--the ability to store and manipulate data on prospects and customers. They also have the ability to get you all of the qualified leads that you could ever hope for — with an oft-overlooked function called "mail merge." The mail merge function allows you to create a form letter and, using a laser printer, produce and send your letter, with your signature, to any group of prospects you want.

Instead of trying to send out large amounts of mail, try the following approach. It has worked extremely well for me, and it will work for you.

Pick the 200 best prospective accounts in your market and limit your direct mail efforts to these key accounts. (80 percent of your new business really does come from 20 percent of the available market.)

Group your 200 accounts into eight subsets of 25 accounts. Try to group companies within the same geographic area together for territory and time-management purposes.

Every Friday afternoon, for eight consecutive weeks, send 25 letters out to 25 of your key accounts.

Every Wednesday morning, for eight consecutive weeks, call behind your letter. This will take approximately two hours, once per week.

Try reaching the people you miss on Wednesday morning first thing on Thursday and Friday mornings. Plan on a half-hour for this effort.

Every Friday afternoon, send out the mailing for the next group.

At the end of the eight-week cycle, design a new letter/offering and repeat the process.

Consider the payoff: If only four of your weekly 25 calls are successful, you will have had, at the end of one year, over 200 face-to-face meetings with the most important prospects in your market. What would this do for improving your sales performance?

The other long-term benefit of this prospecting approach is that it educates prospects on what you offer. People like to buy based on familiarity and timing. Timing, the one factor over which you have no control, is truly everything. When your prospect has a need, someone is going to get a phone call.
Effective database marketing will ensure that your phone rings — instead of your competitor's.

Landy Chase, CSP, of Landy Chase Inc., speaks to associations and corporate clients in the area of professional sales and marketing skills. He is a graduate of the Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, and holds an MBA from Xavier University. He earned the Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation from the National Speakers Association. He can be reached at 1-800-370-8026 or through www.landychase.com.

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