Is cold calling right for my business?

Cold calling or telemarketing is seen, by a lot of business owners as a good way to market and promote their business. It’s one of those marketing methods that many people try some with great success and others with no results at all. When success occurs though, all business owners want to give it a go, thinking that success can occur for their business too.

But, cold calling isn’t for every business. Let’s have a look at why it works for some businesses and not for others.

We do a lot of cold calling for clients in my business and there are some businesses that it works better for. These are businesses where the industry is very specialised i.e. it’s worked very well for an asbestos company and a company providing medication training to care homes. It also works well for industries where the person we’re talking to knows immediately what we’re talking about and can make a “yes, this is for me” or “no, it’s not for me” decision.

When you do some cold calling, you’ve got to appreciate that you’re calling the company ‘cold’ – that is, they’ve never heard of you and they have no previous relationship with your company. Their job is to get you off the phone as quickly as possible. So, bearing that in mind, it’s no surprise that the businesses this technique works well for fit in the above categories is it?

But what if your business doesn’t fit into the above categories? Does that mean cold calling won’t work for you?

No…cold calling could work as a method for you, but I would recommend that you also use other marketing methods at the same time to increase the chances of it working.

But cold calling might not be suitable for your business for other reasons too. For instance:

1. Out of 100 names, only 1 or 2 people are likely to be interested in what you do (that’s the average).
2. You might hate picking up the phone and talking to potential people
3. If you hate it, you could consider hiring someone to do it for you, but this of course is additional expense.
4. And even if you do hire someone else, given the average, you might consider it a waste of time, energy and money.

So, is cold calling right for your business? Well, of course only you can make the decision. If you’re going to give it a go, my advice is to be realistic – don’t expect miracles; use it in conjunction with other marketing methods (more about this in other articles) and if you personally hate doing it, consider using a professional.

Remember, cold calling is just one method of marketing – there are over 100 other marketing ideas you could use and some may be better suited to your business than others.
Exceptional Thinking (http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk) provides advice and help to small businesses on their marketing and to people setting up in business.