Innovative Excuses to Not Cold Call...they work

Ok, it’s Monday morning and you have just sat down at your desk.  You were busy last week so you did not GET to do your normal calling.  But let’s face it, you have not been doing your NORMAL calling for 7 weeks now.  Something has come up every week to get in the way of your cold calls.  One week your dog was sick (odd, because you don’t have a dog) one week you had the sales conference in Las Vegas (you had a slow start every morning in Las Vegas…must be the dry air and your sinuses) and remember that week when you had to go to product training (Ok it lasted only 2 hours, but you had to think about the repercussions of the information you had absorbed.)
These are rookie excuses that sales managers have heard all too often.  These rookie excuses will get you fired for lack of initiative if nothing else.   They are trite and candidly lack any imagination.  Our list of 8 solid reasons for not making calls should last you at least 3 months.  So let’s get started, and remember, they will work best when practiced often and delivered with a sense of remorse.

• “I went to see Hamilton on Broadway. When I started to pick up the phone this week all I could do was rap and I know the company would not want me to rap to potential customers."  Can you imagine ‘I got your name from the list to give you a ring to see if you had some time to gab about the thing.  I got some time round noon if that’s good with you so pick up the phone and let’s have a chew.'     No one wants their professional staff rapping with a potential client.  You were actually doing the company a favor.  You learned about history (you may have to read a bit about Hamilton to carry this off) so you can have a better conversation with potential customers, that is if they EVER CALL YOU.
• “LinkedIn has introduced their new service that I spent the week exploring. I am not sure if is for us but it is pretty interesting.  They have given a select few of their members this new button that allows you to see all of the job openings that people like me may be qualified to take.  (now be careful here because you may be asked to explore this on a full time basis).  This allows me to find out what growth opportunities are out there.  We can attack these companies as soon as we get a coordinated effort.  LinkedIn doesn’t actually show you how to do that part of it so I am continuing to .”  (this might give you another excuse next week as well.)explore
• “I was working with the Beta program from Microsoft’s robotic lab this week and the language got away from me. Instead of dialing my list of prospective clients and making that initial call for me, it started dialing all of my college fraternity brothers and asking them to my house to watch the (insert whatever sporting event is around) and drink beer with me.  I could not get to bed before 2 am any night.  And when I went to see who had replied to my initial marketing efforts there was nothing in the file.  We are planning an additional effort in two weeks during the (insert another sporting event here).”
• “My (insert here any female friend or family member you might have) had her baby last week. I thought it was right that I helped them out.  I thought I could make up the time in between diaper changes but the goo got stuck in the keyboard.  I had the laptop too close to the changing table and when that boy sprayed it went everywhere."  (note, this can be used several times per year as look as you keep your notes on who had babies.)
• Remote offices often give you the opportunity to be more creative in your excuses on why you did not call. Here is one that you can use both in your home office or the corporate office.

“Last week was my first week visiting the company shrink.  We chatted about my stress points and determined that cold calling brought me the highest level of stress.  Dr. Seuss thought it would be good if I only cold call every other week for the next several months.  But what does he know, he is only a doctor.”
Now, at some point in time you are going to have to get in front of customers.  And, as we have discussed in our past posts, there are many different ways to do that if you don’t like to cold call.  You can work phones with your friends, you can work conventions, you can do direct mail, or you can work your LinkedIn network.  All of these are good. 
But, if you want the most innovative and perhaps efficient method of getting in front of decision makers you have to give Axcelora a try.  Leveraging it’s more than 1,100 years of retail and restaurant experience, and contacts with more than 4,400 retail/restaurant decision makers Axcelora is attempting to make cold calling obsolete.  As one client said “You have put us in front of more qualified prospects in two months than we were able to do for ourselves in a year and a half.”  

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