Sales Management

Three Hidden Reasons Your Salespeople Aren’t Making Cold Calls

Over the past several decades, thought leaders have repeatedly predicted the death of cold calls. First, it was social media and LinkedIn that was going to kill them by ensuring every phone call was a warm one. Then it was content marketing that was going to do it, by delivering a steady stream of solid, happy leads directly to salespeople’s inboxes.

But, for better or worse, the cold call has steadfastly refused to die. In the vast majority of businesses, cold calls remain a critical part of keeping the pipeline filled. The health of a salesperson’s pipeline is often directly correlated to whether they have been consistent in picking up that phone and contacting new prospects.

We all know, however, that it can be hard to motivate salespeople to do this part of their job. We can show them the correlation between the calls they’re making and their sales performance. We can send them to training, put them on performance improvement plans, and still, they can struggle to do it.

When salespeople just won’t make their quota of cold calls, there’s always something deeper going on. And it’s usually one of these three things.

Limiting Beliefs Stop Salespeople Before They Even Begin

We all have beliefs about ourselves and our worthiness that impact how we behave. Many of these beliefs form early in childhood, and we often don’t even know that we hold them. These subconscious beliefs can be beneficial. For instance, people who believe that they are intelligent are more likely to pursue activities, careers, and hobbies that keep them engaged and reinforce their intelligence, which often leads to beneficial outcomes. Unfortunately, subconscious beliefs can also be limiting.

For instance, if you believe that you are unlikable, you will probably avoid people or behave in ways that drive them away, leading to outcomes that reinforce that core belief. These limiting beliefs can stop you from succeeding at the things you want to do. For instance, making cold calls. Salespeople may hold limiting beliefs such as:

I’m not good at cold calling

I’m a bother when I call people

I don’t have anything valuable to offer

Salespeople who believe any of these things about themselves will avoid cold calling because it makes them feel bad when they do it. Even when they consciously believe in its importance and know they need to do it, they will find reasons not to, to protect themselves from those bad feelings.

To overcome these limiting beliefs, salespeople can turn them on their heads and develop new ones in their place. For instance:

Cold calling is a skill, and I am good at learning skills

I have a lot to offer and people like talking to me

I am competent and knowledgeable and can help people solve their problems

Even the most rational people are driven at least in part by emotion. When we rewire our inner beliefs in this way, cold calling becomes something to look forward to, instead of something to dread. And when we look forward to something… we do it.
Bad Assumptions Lead to Bad Outcomes

Another cause of poor or no cold calling is bad assumptions. Where limiting beliefs are about what we believe about ourselves, bad assumptions are about what we think about others. Examples of bad assumptions that lead to bad cold calling outcomes:

If they wanted to talk to me, they’d contact me

Decision-makers never answer the phone

People are too busy for this

Everyone prefers email anyway

These assumptions cause salespeople to hesitate to pick up the phone, because nobody wants to annoy people. Like limiting beliefs, the key to overcoming bad assumptions is to replace them with better ideas. For instance:

People need my help and it’s not right to keep that from them

People don’t always pick up the phone when they need help, and it’s up to me to initiate

A call is not a bother if it helps someone solve a problem

People value my insights and are glad to hear from me

Phone calls build trust and create connection in a way that emails never can

These sentences turn our bad assumptions upside down with the idea that a sales call isn’t just about making a sale: It’s about helping people. When salespeople understand the calls this way, it becomes much easier for them to pick up the phone, because they know that even if some people don’t want to hear from them, the people who need them do.
Lack of Structure Leads to Lack of Initiative

Finally, the third hidden reason your salespeople aren’t picking up the phone to make cold calls is that they don’t know what to do. Of course, it seems simple on the surface: Just pick up the phone!

But in reality, especially in complex sales environments, it’s a great deal more than that. Who are they calling? Where are they getting the phone numbers from? What do they know about the people they’re calling? What will they say? How will they get them to stay on the phone past “Hi, I’m A Salesperson from A Company”?

While some people seem hardwired to know just exactly what to do when it’s time to make cold calls, most of us require structure in order to be effective. We need to know what to do, and when, and how to go about it.

In complex sales, it’s important to establish a clear, dynamic prospecting process that can be followed, repeated, and optimized over time. When your salespeople log in to make their cold calls for the day, they shouldn’t be sitting down to an empty computer screen. It should be spelled out in front of them who to call, about what, and how to begin the conversation.

In complex sales, cold calling often requires advance research. Salespeople should be equipped with both the process and the resources to accomplish this research in an efficient and effective way, in order to have the conversations that turn cold calls into prospects.

Conclusion

In the end, what’s really holding your salespeople back from meeting their cold calling goals isn’t a lack of motivation or desire to do well. It’s not even being “too busy.” What holds salespeople back is thinking that they need to get a meeting in order to sell. Instead, help your salespeople understand that every phone call is an opportunity to help someone achieve their goals. Then give them the process, training, and tools to do it.