{"id":4041,"date":"2025-06-02T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nurseagence.com\/?p=4041"},"modified":"2025-06-14T11:45:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T11:45:14","slug":"does-cold-calling-have-a-place-in-the-future-of-sales-heres-what-one-sales-pro-sees-down-the-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nurseagence.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/02\/does-cold-calling-have-a-place-in-the-future-of-sales-heres-what-one-sales-pro-sees-down-the-line\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Cold Calling Have a Place in the Future of Sales? Here's What One Sales Pro Sees Down the Line"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ask any salesperson with some gray hairs if cold calling works, and they\u2019ll probably tell you to smile and dial. That\u2019s because cold calling indeed \u201cworks.\u201d If you spend enough time calling, you\u2019ll book a meeting. With enough meetings, you\u2019ll make a sale. But, everything has an opportunity cost. Time spent cold calling is time not<\/em> spent on something else.<\/p>\n

But, does cold calling have a place in the future of sales? In my opinion, cold calling that\u2019s purely focused on volume is as good as dead. If you\u2019re asking reps to make hundreds of dials per day, you should ask why you don\u2019t have a better strategy.<\/p>\n

Cold calling, as we know it, will have to change. Here\u2019s what I see down the line.\"Free<\/a><\/p>\n

The State of Cold Calling Today<\/h2>\n

I started cold calling more than a decade ago in what feels now like a completely different time. It was never my favorite way to spend a few hours, but it worked well enough that I would use cold calling regularly to keep my pipeline full of prospects.<\/p>\n

Over time, I\u2019ve watched the effectiveness of cold calling deteriorate, at first slowly and then rapidly in the last few years. Of course, you\u2019ll still see rookie reps book meetings from cold calls by sheer luck. But, I\u2019m seeing more veteran sellers get stonewalled because the prospect on the other end was sick of unsolicited pitches.<\/p>\n

Once we started carrying our phones with us everywhere, call volume increased exponentially, both from \u201clegitimate\u201d telemarketers with actual products and spammers. Now, after being spammed about car warranty extensions ad nauseam, most people I know won\u2019t even answer an unknown number.<\/p>\n

According to research from Zippia<\/a>, it took an average of 3.68 cold call attempts to reach a prospect in 2007. By 2021, that number had risen to eight tries. Today, it\u2019s likely even higher. Ask yourself, if someone called you eight or more times to sell you something, how receptive would you be to their message?<\/p>\n

To put it simply, it\u2019s a different world than it was when I started dialing, and the modern challenges are making the ROI of cold calling more dubious than ever.<\/p>\n

Modern Cold Calling Challenges<\/h2>\n

\"modern<\/p>\n

You can put your reputation at risk.<\/h3>\n

Most cold calls these days aren\u2019t legitimate sales efforts. They\u2019re spammers hoping to con people into pulling out their credit card or some other valuable piece of financial information that can be exploited.<\/p>\n

You could have the best intentions in the world and be calling someone who\u2019s a perfect fit for your service. But in your prospect\u2019s eyes, you\u2019re lumped in with all the rest who make their phones ring constantly with unwanted calls.<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, they\u2019ll remember the experience, and if your approach to low connect rates is increasing volume, you can cause real reputational harm to your company in the long run.<\/p>\n

More people are on the Do Not Call (DNC) registry.<\/h3>\n

The FTC created the DNC list in 2003 to help combat out-of-control telemarketing. As of 2023, it had nearly 250 million numbers on the list.<\/p>\n

So, you need to cross-reference the DNC list before you dial with an autodialer or prerecorded message and demonstrate clear consent to call the person on the other end. If you don\u2019t, you may face massive fines (up to $1,500 per violation) from failure to adhere to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).<\/p>\n

FCC guidelines explicitly advise against answering unknown calls.<\/h3>\n

Want to avoid receiving unwanted calls? The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recommends that you never pick up calls from unknown numbers<\/a>. In my peer group, this practice has become widespread. If someone wants to reach me and they know I don\u2019t have their contact information, they\u2019ll text me first and let me know to expect a call.<\/p>\n

Cold calling has gotten more expensive.<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s easy to assume dialing is cheap. All you need is a phone and a number, right? Data costs money, and the plummeting win rates of cold calling mean you\u2019ll need more of it, along with an autodialing software, to pump up the volume.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll probably also use local presence numbers to boost pickup rates, and you\u2019ll need software to cross-reference lists like the DNC registry to avoid lawsuits. And perhaps most costly, you\u2019ll need to find people who are actually willing to make hundreds of dials per day, plus a constant stream of replacements when those original sales reps get burnt out. Still sound cheap?<\/p>\n

How Cold Calling Has to Change<\/h2>\n

\"how<\/p>\n

Sales departments will inevitably continue cold calling, but it\u2019s only going to get harder. To turn the phones back into a source of real revenue, try these steps.<\/p>\n

Warm up cold calls.<\/h3>\n

Back to that Zippia research<\/a> I mentioned earlier: 84% of buyers say they\u2019re primarily influenced by the recommendations they get from people in their circle. At the same time, 91% of customers express willingness to make a referral, but only 11% of salespeople actually ask for them.<\/p>\n

In my mind, this chasm between referrals and requests is the biggest opportunity in sales today. Whether you\u2019re picking up the phone, sending an email, or sending a message on social media, modern sales outreach simply shouldn\u2019t be cold.<\/p>\n

Add context immediately.<\/h3>\n

If a cold call isn\u2019t warmed up by a direct referral, it should at least include immediate context that shows the prospect why a connection is relevant. \u201cI saw your business just expanded into [new market] and I wanted to offer some support,\u201d or \u201cI\u2019ve seen some of your job postings sit open for a while and thought I could help you fill those vacancies.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you can quickly communicate the context behind your outreach, you\u2019re at least demonstrating that there\u2019s a point to the call beyond a hope and a prayer they\u2019ll buy something from you.<\/p>\n

Use the phone strategically.<\/h3>\n

Perhaps the biggest shift in mindset for the future: The phone should be a strategic weapon, not a default crutch.<\/p>\n

For years, sales teams treated cold calling as a numbers game, and it really was a reliable staple of prospecting. But as we\u2019ve seen, blindly relying on the phone alone is no longer sufficiently productive. Instead, the phone needs to be one channel among many, used at the right moments rather than as a constant battering ram.<\/p>\n

Ways Reps Can Adapt to the Future of Cold Calling<\/h2>\n

\"ways<\/p>\n

I realize this whole take has probably felt a little pessimistic, but I want to stress that it\u2019s possible for reps to adapt to the new reality of dialing and turn the phone back into a valuable tool.<\/p>\n

Leverage every channel.<\/h3>\n

If you ever find yourself relying on one channel for all your sales outreach, you\u2019re probably doing it wrong. In my experience, the best sales strategies incorporate a variety of tactics and touchpoints because you never know what will resonate with the prospect.<\/p>\n

If they haven\u2019t logged on to LinkedIn in years, that InMail message probably isn\u2019t going to get you anywhere. If they have 1,000+ unread emails in their inbox, yours is probably going to get buried like the rest.<\/p>\n

In this situation, a strategic phone call could be a great option \u2014 just never let it become your only option.<\/p>\n

Look for signals to improve timing.<\/h3>\n

Did a prospect just visit the pricing section of your website or download a whitepaper? That\u2019s a great time to call, and it will feel like much less of an interruption to them because it was prompted by a legitimate trigger event.<\/p>\n

Signals don\u2019t have to be related to your company, either. A prospect getting promoted or a press release being sent out are icebreakers you can mention that will immediately show the call recipient you\u2019re paying actual attention and not just reading from a script.<\/p>\n

Build a referral flywheel.<\/h3>\n

Referrals are pure gold because they fast-track you through the hardest stage of sales: Building trust. When you\u2019re referred to a prospect, you won\u2019t have to make a cold call. They\u2019re expecting to hear from you, and they might even be welcoming it.<\/p>\n

Every time my digital marketing company wraps up a website project, I reach out to our primary point of contact and ask for a referral. In my experience, if you\u2019re doing good work, people are almost always willing to make an intro. And if you ask me, that\u2019s the future of sales.<\/p>\n

The best \u201ccold callers\u201d tomorrow will actually be master networkers who never really have to cold call at all.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t Get Blinded by the Basics<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s a tough sales environment in many industries, and I see a lot of sales leaders wanting to get back to the basics that worked at the beginning of their careers. That means more call blitzes, more dials, more conversations. I get the appeal. It\u2019s a tangible activity. But busier reps absolutely don\u2019t mean more sales.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, I\u2019m convinced that the cold call of tomorrow won\u2019t really be cold at all. The core takeaway is that sales is evolving from blind interruption by bots (human or technology) to informed, context-rich connection. The call might be unexpected, but if the prospect knows your company or, even more ideally, your name? Your odds of closing a deal just skyrocketed.<\/p>\n

In the end, sales requires two ingredients: connection and timing. Cold calling in its old form was a brute-force attempt at connection and sheer hope that the timing was lucky.<\/p>\n

The future belongs to those who can combine some of the old-school hustle with strategies that engage prospects in the right way at the right time. Warm up your cold calls, or better yet, never let them be cold in the first place, and you won\u2019t have to wonder if cold calling has a place in the future.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ask any salesperson with some gray hairs if cold calling works, and they\u2019ll probably tell you to smile and dial. That\u2019s because cold calling indeed \u201cworks.\u201d If you spend enough time calling, you\u2019ll book a meeting. With enough meetings, you\u2019ll make a sale. But, everything […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4044,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nurseagence.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nurseagence.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nurseagence.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nurseagence.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nurseagence.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4041"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/nurseagence.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4059,"href":"http:\/\/nurseagence.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4041\/revisions\/4059"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nurseagence.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nurseagence.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nurseagence.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nurseagence.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}