15 Articles Can't Be Wrong - Can They?
Just saw an article posted on LinkedIn titled: 15 Posts on Why Cold Calling Is On Its Way Out the Door
The article caught my attention because as a small business owner and a life-long straight commissioned phone sales rep who makes a living using both social selling and cold calling, I suspected another misleading article that could be down right harmful to outbound sales professionals who are trying to make a living selling by phone.
The Attraction
“Selling” the notion that “cold calling” is dead to B2B phone sales reps and that social selling is the new “king” is the easiest sale in the world… All inside sales professionals (my self included) prefer to take hot inbound sales calls rather than making dreaded cold calls and we are always looking for easier, less resistant ways to make sales.
The Fine Print
One thing that inside sales professionals need to understand before they decide to stop making first time outbound sales calls and start "social selling" is that they better have a large cash reserve on hand.
Social selling is about self-branding. Building trust by sharing your knowledge in a particular vertical and thus giving evidence to your targeted audience that you are a trusted advisor and have something that they want (now or in the near future)
This takes time. If you were a business owner and had a successful product, you wouldn't drop it and start selling something "new" just because you now have a “new” product / service that shows promise... you would add it to your catalog and increase your revenue streams.
The Objective
Today's sales reps need to be an expert on the phone and online. It's not one or the other.
Social selling is a new tool that needs to be added to the tool box for sure, as does knowing how to successfully cold call, earn referrals, set and achieve goals, manage time better etc, etc.
The Payout
The economy has been brutal for a long time, especially on hard working small business entrepreneurs and commissioned sales professionals.
As a straight commissioned inside sales professional, I don’t pay myself a base salary even though I own SalesBuzz.com.
I live by what I share in our online workshops and part of the reason SalesBuzz.com is successful is because social selling and outbound sales calls are part of the strategy. It’s not one or the other. The more tools you have in your toolbox and the higher your skill level is with each of those tools, the more cash you will earn. It’s that simple.