Cold Calling is Dead? Really?
Upon joining up with Bigger Pockets, I logged on to see an advertisement that said "cold calling is dead" that was advertising a book. While it looks attractive, the data simply doesn't support this proposal. In a recent article in Inman News, one of the largest real estate publications in the nation, it contends that those who utilize cold-calling make an exceptional return on their time invested. The article can be found here: Agents, There's Gold in Cold Calling
For J Scott...Hope you had a wonderful weekend with family and friends and a joyous time free from the misery of enduring those cold-calls! But really, on a more serious note.. I'm sorry you felt that I was being condescending, you are entitled to your perception, but that "something deeper" I was referring to is fear and fear of insufficiency as I see it. Fear is a very powerful emotion that wears many different masks and often leads to aggressive, sometimes irrational and anti-social behavior.
You mentioned empathy and said...
- "What if I knocked on your door during dinner or showed up to your work in the middle of the day in order to sell you something? How would you feel? How would your family feel? How would your boss feel?" -
In answer to your question, I'd have empathy...empathy for the person who is attempting to make an honest living. As I proposed in one of my articles, some agents, who know full well what it's like to make cold-calls because they have done it themselves, usually take these calls with grace, tolerance, and kindness, much like the ex-waiter or waitress becomes some of the best of future tippers. These types of human interaction help promote dignity and are empathetic in their very nature. That is actually walking with empathy, not simply talking about it.
These things really speak to our society as a whole and I often wonder...is the person holding out their hand for a quarter or a morsel of food or the one outside of Home Depot looking for a daily wage for a hard day's work an annoyance/bothersome/distracting/intrusive too? What if the knock on your door was to hand you a Publisher's Clearing House check? Would you treat the person knocking with dignity and respect or would they too be a bothersome intrusion?
In answer to your question...if you knocked on my door during dinner, I'd answer the door and treat you with dignity and respect, I'd see if you were hungry or thirsty or in need of any assistance, I'd offer assistance if needed, and if it was a sales call, and was something I was not interested in, I'd tell you I wasn't interested and then I'd resume my dinner a few moments later.
Originally posted by @Chris Moriarty:
You mentioned empathy and said...
- "What if I knocked on your door during dinner or showed up to your work in the middle of the day in order to sell you something? How would you feel? How would your family feel? How would your boss feel?" -
In answer to your question, I'd have empathy...empathy for the person who is attempting to make an honest living. As I proposed in one of my articles, some agents, who know full well what it's like to make cold-calls because they have done it themselves, usually take these calls with grace, tolerance, and kindness, much like the ex-waiter or waitress becomes some of the best of future tippers. These types of human interaction help promote dignity and are empathetic in their very nature. That is actually walking with empathy, not simply talking about it.
These things really speak to our society as a whole and I often wonder...is the person holding out their hand for a quarter or a morsel of food or the one outside of Home Depot looking for a daily wage for a hard day's work an annoyance/bothersome/distracting/intrusive too? What if the knock on your door was to hand you a Publisher's Clearing House check? Would you treat the person knocking with dignity and respect or would they too be a bothersome intrusion?
In answer to your question...if you knocked on my door during dinner, I'd answer the door and treat you with dignity and respect, I'd see if you were hungry or thirsty or in need of any assistance, I'd offer assistance if needed, and if it was a sales call, and was something I was not interested in, I'd tell you I wasn't interested and then I'd resume my dinner a few moments later.
Some thoughts:
- First, do you have a wife? Kids? Do you consider dinner to be a time for the family to get together and spend quality time free of distraction to talk, connect and discuss the day? I do, and I'm sure millions of other families do as well. What you call empathy towards the stranger at the door I call taking away quality family time. You might think it's kind to ask the stranger if he's hungry or thirsty, but every minute you focus on the stranger is a minute you're taking away from your family. Perhaps we have different priorities, but family is more important than strangers in my world. Or maybe you don't have a wife and kids and you really don't have empathy for those people you're soliciting.
- You mention that you'd have no problem with someone soliciting you. What if they came in the middle of the night and woke you up? What if they came every hour in the middle of the night and woke you (and your wife/kids) up 10 times per night. Would you be graceful, kind and tolerant while being woken up every night, ten times per night? If you say yes, I'd say you were lying. If you say no, then it's clear that we're in agreement on the general principle of too much unsolicited intrusion is a bad thing -- we'd just have a difference of opinion on where we draw the line. You might draw the line at being woken up more than once a night while I draw the line at a single phone call any time of day. But, ultimately we agree that too much unsolicited intrusion is bad. So, are you good with calls and knocks on the door at all times of the night?
- Now, as for the above point, you will probably say that calling or knocking on the door in the middle of the night isn't something you'd ever do, so it's a bad analogy. But, what makes you think that the person you're calling at 2pm doesn't work nights and sleep during the day? What makes you think that the door you're knocking on isn't waking up a sleeping infant? Your phone call or door knock at 2pm may be the same to that family as someone knocking on your door at 2am. So, while you may have empathy for solicitor, you don't seem to have much empathy for your customer.
- As for your Publisher's Clearinghouse question, I assumed that the difference between solicited and unsolicited would be clear to you. Perhaps not. When I enter a Publisher's Clearinghouse contest, I'm opting into communication from them. I'm inviting them to contact me. I don't imagine that most cold calls are opted into (if they were, I wouldn't consider them cold calls). If that distinction still isn't clear, I'm not sure there's any place for this conversation to go.
- As for your question about a homeless person or an ex-waiter, I don't get the analogy. The issue we're discussing is uninvited solicitation. How is my interaction with someone who is not soliciting me analogous to someone knocking on my door or calling me to solicit. If the homeless person has his hand out, that is not intrusive. If s/he follows me and distracts me from whatever I'm doing, that's a good analogy, and I feel the same way about someone following and distracting me on the street (homeless or not) as I do someone calling or visiting me unsolicited. It's annoying/bothersome/distracting/obtrusive.
Sorry, but none of the points you make support your stance (in my opinion). That said, I personally don't believe there are any arguments that exist that support your stance. It boils down to the fact that you care more about making money than you do about annoying the majority of the people you come across in the process.
And that's the ironic part -- you act like you care so much about treating people well, yet I'm guessing the majority of the people you contact consider you to not be treating them well simply by virtue of the contact.
For J Scott,
I actually beg to differ with you once again...
Most of the people I reach out to by telephone leave the conversation with a pleasant attitude, most thanking me for my kindness and professionalism. Again, I stress, as I have attempted to earlier in these posts, that the creativity and approach of the professional making the call is critical to the outcome but it is truly rare that I experience someone who is very nasty as I imagine, due to the nature of these exchanges we've had and the passion in your responses, that you would be when you receive a call from someone you don't know. How one chooses to treat people, no matter who they are or what they do is an individual choice, one's own prerogative and it speaks volumes about one's character. Some people I've encountered over the phone and elsewhere, perhaps agitated at having to wait in line at the supermarket, have this bloated idea of self-importance that obscures their thinking, deluding them into believing that they are something other than a human among other humans; no better, no worse, no greater nor less than. Furthermore, I don't know that I'd choose to do business with someone I knew to be deliberately disrespectful or had a penchant for treating others in a undignified manner no matter what the circumstances were.
You spoke about people here being in agreement with you and while I don't need the endorsement of others to make my point, nor am I looking for the support of others to validate my position, it seems to me, from the comments that were made about this subject of cold-calling here, outside of your rather contentious and at times, somewhat hostile rants against cold-calling and my opinions of course, that the majority of people who have commented here believe in the success of cold-calling!
All of life it seems to me is about perspective...and it seems that's where you and I are different at the very core, and that's fine. That's why there are Democrats and Republicans. I hope we can disagree and still be respectful of each others opinions without being accusatory and hostile.
For clarity, my "sales pitch" doesn't come from a place of being a nuisance or an inconvenience or a bother. That's not the underlying theme running through my head before I pick up the phone for a cold-call, perhaps I'm giving away my trade secrets and allowing a look at the playbook, but my calls are offering the person that receives that call an opportunity and that's what makes it so different. There is the potential for something quite good for the recipient and I actually believe in that which makes a very large difference in the assumptive nature of the call. I hope this perspective is helpful to those just about to pick up that phone! Good luck!
Originally posted by @Chris Moriarty:
...it seems to me, from the comments that were made about this subject of cold-calling here....that the majority of people who have commented here believe in the success of cold-calling!
Again, it seems to me (just my opinion) that you indicate a complete lack of empathy for the people you are calling. Your affirmation that what you're doing is good is based on people commenting on the "success" of cold-calling. Once again, you approach it from what cold calling does for you as someone trying to make money and not from the perspective of the people you are soliciting.
Now, with respect to how people feel about getting unsolicited calls, if only there was a way to quantitatively measure this...
Oh wait...there is! We have an opt-in Do Not Call list in this country. And a quick investigation indicated that approximately 72% of adults have opted into the Do Not Call list. In other words, 72% of adults have put effort into stopping you from your unsolicited intrusion. It's probably safe to assume that of the other 28%, there are many who don't know this is an option, who don't know how to opt-in to the DNC and/or who don't like the calls but just haven't yet made the effort.
So, while your empirical data indicates (to you) that people don't mind these intrusions, the quantitative data says that's not the case. Legally, you have every right to do what you're doing (as long as you're following DNC rules)...I'm not arguing that you shouldn't be allowed to do it. But, the data certainly doesn't support your assertion that people don't mind it...
If you are a real estate investor or any realtor, then it is always recommended to cold call the direct mail list. This is very much essential as well as effective to stand out from that of the other realtors and investors. According to the statistics, it has been seen that the investors who are cold calling their mail list get better return on the investment. Even as an investor you will get better response rate than that of the other investors who fail to call their direct mail list. Cold calling is the best way to connect directly with someone cut past the noise. If you choose the social medial, emails, PPC advertising and blogs, then there are tons of competitors in this internet space. You have to stand out in order to attract more clients for you. Cold calling thus allows you to take the matters into your own hands. You have the power to talk to them about your deal. Also this can potentially make you “Real” to the seller. Email can go unanswered, social posts can be ignored as well as the telephone ringing a combination of all these things is the way to go!!