Cold Calling Is Dead. Here's What Replaced It.
“If the only tool you have is a hammer, (you’ll) treat everything as if it were a nail.”—Abraham Maslow (The Psychology of Science, 1966)
Few things today continue to trigger some in sales more than me restating—year after year—the plainly obvious fact about cold calls.
They’re as dead a red-shirted ensign on a classic Star Trek episode.
There’s no need today to re-litigate that case. But there remain two interesting things to understand about cold calling. First, why some persist in fighting the fact of its rightful demise years ago. And, second, what’s replaced it.
On the first point: I purposefully opened this article with a quote from a classic book on human behavior. Maslow’s Hammer is a way of understanding the bias that all people have of being prone to sticking with what’s familiar…even when the very ground under their feet has changed.
Sales habits are not immune from this phenomenon!
Cold calling used to work because that was the seller’s only tool (the hammer) to have an immediate, person-to-person conversation with a prospect. Let’s remember why they were thought of as cold: the calling seller knew nothing about the prospect they reached…and vice versa. All of that stopped being true quite a while ago even though some persisted in trying to swim against that current. But as I cautioned in my book, Right on the Money, the biggest mistake you and your sales team can make today is to pretend as though nothing has changed in sales.
Because everything has.
In the aftermath of the death of cold calling, the hammer (so-to-speak) was replaced with a better, smarter power tool. Today’s high-impact sellers curate introductions.
Some of that might take place using a phone. Some will happen via social media or email, or even with a face-to-face conversation at a networking event. Unlike before, however, you can’t afford to have any of that be cold today. All of it now requires deliberate planning and careful execution to create warmth, connections…and results that matter.
You can’t have a sale without a meeting. And you can’t have a meeting without having a successful, warm introduction. Therefore, here are the must-do activities for you and your sales team to get the power tool of curated introductions working for you.
PREPARE SMART: You must create the conditions that are the opposite of a cold conversation. Know the role of your prospect within their organization. Know who they report to. And how many peers they have in their division. Use an AI chatbot (i.e., Chat GPT, Gemini, Perplexity, to name just a few) to do a mass-scale scan of their LinkedIn feed, as well as a summary of news about the organization (note: always include instructions in your prompt to “provide links to all sources”). Look for trigger events (e.g., a hiring spree, job cuts, litigation or other major events). A client of mine wisely heeded that advice recently while preparing to create an introduction to a prospect in the software field. Smart prep taught them that this potential client was struggling with a brand reputation issue. That helped shape how to frame the conversation they planned on having with them.
REDEFINE YOUR GOAL: Unlike the days of cold calling, the goal behind curating introductions isn’t to start selling: it’s to create rapport. That’s a fancy-sounding word whose Latin origin loosely means to carry and bring back. When you build rapport, you help carry a conversation. And a successful conversation gets you to the next step where a proposal can be formulated. Here’s how that works. Let’s say your prospect’s product automates business processes at health care clinics. Your smart prep work teaches you that the effect of automation in that area helps reduce a lot of manual labor. Their hiring becomes more specialized. So you look at who they’re hiring. That way, the introduction you create points out that you have a proven solution to help them attract and retain highly specialized staff, by eliminating the part of work they dislike the most.
CRAFT A COMPELLING OPENING: Too often, a seller’s conversation with a prospect starts with a long-winded opening and they take too long to get to asking questions (and by the way, asking questions is the whole point to having a good conversation). Lead with insight. Show that you have done your smart prep work and that you have a keen understanding of the problems they deal with in their work. Building on my earlier example about the prospect in the automation business: “I see that you have three opening positions each requiring (highly specialized skills). That’s a tough job to execute fully, along with the administration that comes with it. Sadly, others (like their competitors) have told you that too many quit out of frustration by being unable to get their core work done. Has this happened to you with previous hires?” Remember: you’re trying to create a peer-to-peer conversation that stirs curiosity, not a sales pitch.
GET TO BECAUSE: There’s a classic study in human behavior that found people are much more likely to comply with a request if you include the word “because” in your ask. The word because gets linked to a reason and purpose, making it easier for others to understand the motivation behind your request. Here at Engage, there’s a script we recently developed for a client in the financial services sector, working that magic word into the introduction that was created. “I am reaching out to you today, because I’m talking to many Sales VPs struggling with [name the issue]. Has this also been a problem for you? What else are you seeing in the field these days?”
SHORTER IS BETTER: Contrary to popular belief, the more questions you ask in a conversation, the more in control you are. That’s why it’s so important to get to those questions with the least amount of talking. Otherwise, people get confused. Or bored! When you create a successful introduction, you sound confident, clear and are succinct. Always remember: it takes more time to plan a short, purposeful conversation than it does to launch into a rambling one that goes nowhere. Take time to do your smart prep. Be compelling and in control. Have a because. And be brief.
TELL THEM WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: A conversation powered by a curated introduction is bit like telling an enchanting story: you keep the audience spellbound by telling them what happens next. In a conversation with a new prospect, close with an invitation. For instance: “Would it make sense now to schedule a 30-minute call next week to explore this issue further?”
Some are confused by the death of cold calls. They keep fighting the fact that no one wants to hear from strangers anymore. That truth hurts, I suppose.
But rather than dwell on it, see the changing times as a gift. Start curating introductions that compel prospects to want to know more about you. The more opportunities you turn into positive connections, the better your conversion ratios will be.