Cold Calling Works: You Just Do It Wrong

By Mike Schultz, Publisher

Brrrr... I've just been cold calling and boy could I use some hot chicken soup!

Just those two words together --Cold-Calling-- put many people far away from warm and happy. Given that it's so much fun for so many people, and that I have heard a number of times recently that the last nail has been banged into the cold calling coffin, why is cold calling still even on our radar screens?

Because it works.

It doesn't work, you say? Well, in one sense I agree with you: there are a million ways to do it wrong and fail. Fail at something enough, and it's easy to dismiss the whole tactic. (No matter how many times I try, I just can't hit a Jonathan Papelbon fastball. Swinging a bat at a baseball must not work!)

Before we get into how to make cold calling work, let's first establish that it does work. Of 30 possible marketing tactics for services firms, one rose to the top as the most effective in the research report Increasing Marketing Effectiveness at Professional Firms conducted by Expertise Marketing and LawMarketing.com in 2006. The top most effective tactic—the tactic above all other tactics—was "arranging business development appointments with clients and prospects." When I last checked, the best way to arrange a business development appointment was neither telegram nor skywriting.

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