Cold call efficiency has dramatically decreased over the years. Nowadays, with the increasing drive to inbound marketing, cold calling has a 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 success rate with cold emailing getting similar results.
The more proximity and influence you have when contacting prospects, the higher the likelihood you will get an appointment. Great references beat fast fingers.
It’s not because you don’t know the person that you have to cold call them. There’s always a connection to make. Going through five people to connect with a prospect is better than selling directly to them.
Some of the entrepreneurs interviewed for Lean B2B recommend paying for early adopters’ time. This approach certainly leads to a higher response rate and is respectful of people’s time, but engaging prospects as consultants doesn’t establish the same kind of relationships with prospects. Getting early adopters to help you for free is validation in itself.
As a rule of thumb, you should be spending more time researching prospects than doing actual calls or sending messages. The early phase is about understanding early adopters, not blasting people with emails.
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