toasty
Regular
Cold calling is a shotgun approach to selling - cast a wide net to folks you don't know with a simple message hoping you get a bite. Typical success rate is around .5% - 1.5% measured by the target's willingness to engage at all. In my many years of experience in the IT world I have never seen or heard of cold calling being used to market a complex product/service, because it is a waste of time and resources.Anyone who knows anything about sales knows that cold calling is never done when trying to sell a complex product...........
Toasty.
Yip I agree it’s not good to cold call, but really interested to know how you would engage a potential customer without you the salesperson first reaching out to seek a meeting/ presentation. That is what I meant by cold calling. Because if you are suggesting we have our sales staff not utilise their contacts and not approach potential customers then I would disagree as we would not sell anything nor enlighten people of the potential of the product.
After CES I feel the tide may be changing and some potential customer may be reaching out to us
Getting in touch with people one already knows, or gaining an introduction from an existing contact, is the preferred method and generally labelled prospecting amongst warm prospects. This is almost always far more productive than cold calling if for no other reason than the target will usually be willing to hear what you have to say. And if they don't have a need for your product/service they may well be willing to provide a referral to one of their contacts who might. This is the kind of selling I expect our sales force to be undertaking - using their network to unearth genuine prospects.
FWIW
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