In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest Evan Patterson, Head of Content and Community @ trender.ai. They are tackling the subject of cold calling!

Episode Highlights

• 00:55 - Cold calling is not dead because it's never even been alive.
• 02:35 – Evan shares, he has always been marketing-oriented in his approach and he’s doing it full time for several different businesses but primarily for ai.
• 03:39 – Sam asks Evan to give some background of his definition of cold calling.
• 06:40 - The fundamental issue with that is it was never a very effective use of time.
• 07:22 – Sam says, his biggest thing when he talks about cold calling is, you got to start with the ICP, and you got to know who is your sweet spot.
• 07:37 – “What are the right channels for you to be pursuing those ICPs?” Asks Sam.
• 09:25 – Evan says, millennial are statistically proven to hate unwarranted, unwanted, and unsolicited cold calls.
• 14:02 – We should be leaning more heavily on text messaging within our tech stack because that is where people want to communicate, states Sam.
• 16:05 – Salespeople are leaning more on - the let me help you instead of letting me sell you more.
• 20:25 – Evan shares, you have to look at people’s demographics from age, lifestyle, and communication perspective.
• 22:16 - There is no such thing as a universal truth in sales, says the host.
• 25:13 – Evan says he would rather make the sales cycle take longer from an ad perspective, but make it more enjoyable and have a higher close ratio for the prospects.
• 29:22 - It's all these little tiny nuanced things of data that can be shared a back and forth, mentions Evan.
• 31:05 – Sam shares, it's kind of table stakes, but it's just connecting the dots that they like to engage with their brand this way, but yet, we've never engaged with it that way.
• 35:40 - You need to spend less on sales and more on marketing, which is good because that money that you don't need on sales, you can move over to marketing.
• 37:16 – Evan highlights, it's all these different social, and psychological plays that you can make marketing that will fill in the gaps now that sales aren’t doing as much prospecting or planning.
• 39:35 – Evan also has an issue with going after leads that do not interact with their content, because the chances of them falling off the sales cycle are higher.
• 40:58 - Why is it a taboo to tell salespeople to know what sales you're just not going to get, asks Sam.
• 41:30 - Those are the nuances that separate you from the pack, like leveraging that makes life easier, makes you more efficient, and makes you more effective. 

Three Key Points

1. There's a lot more technology supporting and lifting that ceiling for social selling and cold calling has not been and will not be able to catch up. So, it's not the most efficient route.
2. Let the buyer tell you where to go. Don't tell them where they have to go and that what cold calling does. You're forcing them into a path that they didn't sign up for.
3. You don't invest more energy into the person you're struggling to read, you invest margin on the other person and you have to know when to quit. So, trying to make the sale work, don't fire.

Tweetable Quotes

• “When I say I'm against cold calling, I am not against using the phone in a sales motion.” – Evan Patterson
• “Effective calli