The Curse of Cold Calling – The Sales Managers Lie
By Steve Martinez

When my sales manager said “sales is a numbers game”, I should have beaten him with the lie then and there. Unfortunately, my first sale came directly from a cold call and I was convinced that cold calling worked. It only took one hint at success for me to believe in cold calling. You could say that I was cursed for the next few months and became a victim. Many of the old sales books fed my appetite for more sales calls and longer hours. Unfortunately for me, I’m not a math genius and couldn’t see the flaw in the formula. Perhaps there are industries where cold calling works. I just wasn’t in one.

My sales manager was right, “the more cold calls I made the more sales I made”. However, I was fighting a losing battle with time. There simply weren’t enough hours in the day to meet my sales goals. Fortunately, I began examining the sales numbers and noticed a more important equation in sales.

Revealing the Truth of Sales Ratios
My sales numbers began to reveal my sales ratios and a pattern of success. The activity numbers indicated that certain markets and businesses produced substantial sales. These sales trends jumped out as a pattern I wanted to duplicate. My interest in what was working shifted my attention to monitoring the success ratios of my activities.

WOW, my sales manager was right! However, the truth is - the sales ratios are the numbers we must evaluate. Discovering the relevance of sales ratios and sales activities was the break through I was looking for. Once I learned the value and benefits of profiling sales ratios, cold calling didn’t make sense. Why should I follow the less effective random cold calling method when a more efficient formula produced greater results?

It was like turning on the light of truth to the dark world of sales. Instead of cold calling, I focused like a laser on prospects that matched a specific profile increasing my success ratio. If I was going to make sales calls, I would make them on prime prospects.

The Better Way to Prospect for Customers
If you watch the television program Numbers, you know how the characters define profiles and patterns to find the right prospect or suspect. It is the same in sales and all the evidence is at our finger tips. Once we identify the clues of a prospect by the patterns of existing customers, we know where to find new prospects. Instead of random cold calling, we can focus on prime suspects for our business.

To understand and determine your ratios for success, just ask yourself what percentage of existing customers have X? Your answers will reveal the important ratios. From this exercise you will identify a success pattern to duplicate in your prospects.

• What percentage of customers have X number of employees or members?
• What percentage of customers have X annual sales or income?
• What percentage of customers are in X industry or category?
• What percentages of customers are located in X?
• What percentages of customers have purchased X in X months or years?

This gets you started in determining your success ratios and stops the time wasted activity of random cold calling. As you add new ratios to this list, you will multiply your sales results. The great thing about using ratios is that once you identify the success pattern, there is industry information which will narrow your prospecting search down to who, where, when and how to contact them. Good Selling!

Steve Martinez President of Selling Magic 9319 Robinson Lane Corona, CA 92883 (951) 277-0080 www.sellingmagic.com

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For more information contact Steve Martinez, Your Business Development Sales Magician
You can reach him at (951) 277-0080 or by emailing steve@impactivator.com
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