Define “cold calling”.
this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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One that you believe in
Personally, I find cold calling to be annoying. I get a lot of spam calls and I find it very hard to trust anyone that calls my number without me having any history with them.
That said, I think the best product or service to sell through cold calling is something that the older generation might be able to benefit from that they might find trouble discovering on their own. I think the younger population wouldn't trust an unexpected caller as they are more comfortable with digital communication where they can see your history and track record at a glimpse.
I think the best product or service would be one where a lot of trust or comparison-shopping isn't required. For example, I wouldn't try to sell phones or appliances. Instead I think something that the retired demographic can benefit from if you can spare them the effort of finding it themselves.
The best example I can think of would be to offered retired homeowners snowplow services, lawn moving services, grocery pickup services, etc. Things they may need, but not know how to find someone and they can pay as the job gets done using a payment method they feel comfortable with. If you reach out at the right time, you may actually be solving a real problem for them that they just haven't set aside the time to solve yet.
Extended car insurance apparently.
Jet planes
The one that makes the most money.
A service that blocks telemarketers...
Lol
HEY! Do you hate getting calls from telemarketers like me? WELL BOY OH BOY DO WE HAVE A PRODUCT FOR YOU!!!
For as little as 5$/mo we WONT call you anymore!
A.K.A racketeering
I think Caller ID has kinda killed Cold Calling as a job… I’m happy to hear otherwise.
If I don’t recognize the number I ignore it. If I see the number pop up again and there is no voicemail I’ll block the number.
Doorknocking though does work much better.
The cold calling demoralizes you after your 80th call of either no answers or hang ups.
Just my $.02
See my answer about common big deals that are open during short periods of times like job seeking and house selling.
The ritual is to make one's contact details very public, so during that period prospects are open to the market, so they will be responsive to calls and even excited about them!
The ascent of robo calls and the do not call list has pretty much ended cold calling. You'd need an opt-in list.
One set of products are B2B SaaS products where cold emails work wonderfully well.
Here are few such stories,
Cold calling blocker
The medium is the message, any product that has affinity with the medium will have an advantage.
Phone plans, VoIP, phone answering services, cold-calling services, marketing.
Additionally any industry that relies on publications of buy or sell offers, like Real Estate or Staffing is fair game. If a hiring company, available candidate, house seller or buyer is serious, they will publish their phone numbers on multiple places and will be open to straight up phone calls without even questioning why you are calling them.
This rituals where buyers/sellers open themselves to contacting them makes them much more prone to cold-calling as opposed to some businessman who never gave you their phone number, but you somehow managed to scrape off the internet.