With the wave of social media seeping into our lives, it’s normal to think ‘out with the old and in with the new’. That is, new ways to advertise our business, news ways to engage with prospect clients and new ways to demonstrate our products or services to our clients. Yet, there are a number of “old” methods that are still tried and true and quite beneficial to many smaller businesses. Word of Mouth is definitely a marketing tool that large and small companies rely on to get the word out. But cold-calling… is dead as a door nail.
Cold calling has been sliding down a slippery slope for the better part of the 21st century and for good reasons. No one wants to do business with a voice and name they’ve never heard of until the phone rings. No one wants to scramble for information to confirm that the offer presented to them is the best deal possible. And no one, NO ONE, wants to be disturbed in the middle of their day without a decent invitation.
So why would a small business owner even flip through their local yellow or white pages cold calling potential clients? Well, sometimes we feel the old arts need a breath of life. After all, if word of mouth is still powerful tool, and people still posting flyers in neighborhoods and business areas, cold calling should logically work as well, right? Wrong.
If the people and business in the phone book ARE your prospect clients, don’t blindly call them. Go to them. Let them meet you. Let them see you, talk to you, get a feel of who you are and what you’re offering them. The most long lasting relationships are made in person. That applies to business relationships just as well. The next time you want to try an alternative method of getting your name and your business in front of your clients, get creative, not old fashioned.
Intel Boutique 
Warm calling is great, cold calling not so much. Take that cold call list, and do some research on each prospect. What is personal about the, who do you need to ask to speak to? Make it clear you have paid attention to their individual business.
Secondly, give someone a polite way fo saying no thank you. It’s not nice or easy to say “I’m not interested’ to someone’s ‘face’ if they’ve clearly made an effort.
I specialise in accounts for one man bands and so I rarely cold call. I don’t want to be interrupted, so I don’t do it to others!
Getting to know something about the client is usually the first ingredient to success in that relationship. None wants to be unceremoniously disturbed by stranger soliciting their business. Haven’t had too much experience in “warm calling”, but I have found that meeting in person, face-to-face with clients, builds a stronger bridge for future business and a stronger relationship.
I think the ol’ phone book is really just a old habit stuck in a lot of small business advertising mindsets. In Australia, I think this is nicely summed up by the fact that the size of our phone books have been halved – both in volume AND size! (We now get 1 A-Z in A5)
(Bad) Habits should be broken. What worked yesterday will not always work today and tomorrow, especially with rapidly evolving technology.